Prologue II Constantine
Prologue II
Constantine
Six months had passed since I’d ended things with Isabella.
I took the ring back to the jeweler and lost a few thousand, but I was relieved to have it out of my home.
Out of my life.
Taormina was a small place, everyone knew each other, so while I had offers left and right from women who had shot their shot before, I kept to myself.
I didn’t just do it out of respect for Isabella, but I wasn’t ready.
I’d spent almost two years with her, and I’d really believed she would be my wife.
The mother of my children. And the idea of being with someone else after such a committed relationship .
. . nearly felt like infidelity. I had to move on at some point, but today wasn’t that day.
I still wouldn’t speak to my brother. Didn’t give a damn if he was my flesh and blood. He had stabbed me in the back and sabotaged a relationship he would have fumbled if it’d ever been his. He hadn’t actually tried to talk to me, like he understood an attempt was pointless.
I worked in the kitchen at Rosticceria Da Cristina in the morning, prepping everything for the day. I used to listen to music while I worked, but I hadn’t done that in six months. Silence was my companion of choice these days.
My mom opened the unlocked door and walked inside. “What did I tell you about locking the door, Con?”
My eyes stayed down, and I continued to work. “Didn’t know you were coming in today.”
“What does that matter—”
“I’m not in the mood for this.” I picked up the rack of arancini and slid it inside the oven so it could bake.
I put all the other trays inside and then set the timer before I worked on the next batch.
Keeping my eyes on my hands, I waited for my mother to walk into the office, but she just stood there.
“Constantine.”
She never called me by my full name, so I knew whatever she had to say was heavy. My head lifted to meet her gaze.
Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine. “This isn’t you, son.”
My face remained steady and stoic. Even though her words were painful because they rang true, I felt nothing. I had become an empty vessel that would shatter if I hit the floor.
“You need to reconcile with Edric.”
“I don’t need to do anything.”
“You’re brothers—”
“We were brothers when he kissed Isabella, so why don’t you remind him of that?”
“I have,” she said. “I just visited him in Palermo, and he said he knows you don’t want to speak to him.”
“And he’s right.”
“Con, it’s been months—”
“And I don’t want to speak to him for the rest of my fucking life.”
“Constantine.”
I piled the arancini on the tray, then shoved it into the other free oven. “I said what I said—and I fucking meant it.” When I came back to the steel counter, my mother looked like she was on the verge of tears.
She never cried. She was tough and resilient and never gave in to despair.
“Family is everything, Constantine. He’s not just your brother, but your twin.”
“The only reason you care is because he moved to Palermo.” It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive, and the distance was too much for my mother.
She wanted all of us to live right here in town forever.
To have lots of grandchildren and spend our days working at the restaurant and our nights cooking for our family.
“You only want us to reconcile because it’s what you want.
You don’t actually give a shit what he did to me.
You just want me to get over it so you can have your happy family back together.
If this were a friend, you would tell me to stab him with a knife, but because it’s Edric, I’m just supposed to brush it off. ”
Her face started to tint slightly, but not with anger, just raw pain.
“Yes, I want my sons back together. The boys I grew in my womb and birthed five minutes apart. The only men I love more than your father. Yes, I admit that. But Con, it’s not good for you to carry anger like this.
It’s been six months, and you aren’t you anymore. ”
“Well, being betrayed by your brother and the woman you thought you would marry does that to you.” I stepped away from the table and ripped off my gloves, no longer interested in prepping for the day. I tossed them in the garbage and leaned against the other counter, far away from my mother.
“I’m sorry this happened to you, Constantine. But even the best people make the worst mistakes.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked out the window. The sea was quiet, the sky clear. Fishing boats were already out there looking for their catch to bring to the village, the dinner that would be on everyone’s plates that evening.
“You think you know everything right now, but in ten years, you’ll look back and realize how young you were. And you’ll wish that you’d pardoned your brother instead of losing all that time you could have spent with him.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“I wish you understood how sorry he was.”
“Isabella and I would have been planning our wedding right now.” I cocked my head.
“Doesn’t that bother you? That in six months we would have married on the cliff where you and Dad got married, and our families would have finally been united in marriage.
You’ve said we were meant to be together since we were five years old.
And all of that is gone because my asshole brother wanted what I had. ”
She held her silence, but her breaths increased with the weight of my words.
“And yet you look at me like I’m the asshole.”
She gave a slight shake of her head. “I love Isabella like a daughter, and yes, I’m devastated that this isn’t going to happen. But I don’t think you should lose your brother over this too.”
“You act like it’s up to me to save the relationship, when Edric is the one who chose to destroy it. I didn’t ask for this. I’m the victim in all of this, but somehow the responsibility to salvage the relationship has fallen to me.”
“How is Edric supposed to fix it if you’ve blocked his calls? If you won’t open your apartment door for him? If you won’t come to family dinners if he’s there? What is he supposed to do, Con?”
“Fuck off, that’s what.”
The tears finally burst from her eyes. “Constantine, please. I can’t live like this . . . it hurts my heart. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat.”
I looked away, not wanting to see my mother cry, not wanting to be responsible for her tears.
“Please, I beg you . . .”
I still wouldn’t look at her, but hearing the echoes of her sobs bounce off all the ovens and steel counters was like torture.
“You don’t smile anymore. You don’t joke anymore.
Hold on to this hate, and it’ll consume you until there’s nothing left.
I don’t want to lose my son—and I’m not talking about your brother.
” She continued to sob, the sound splitting my ears.
“I’m so proud of who you are, and I don’t want to watch that disappear.
I don’t want you to fade into another angry man in the crowd.
I don’t want you to die from bitterness and resentment.
I don’t want the strain on your heart to kill you, like it did your father. ”
“Ma . . .” I found the strength to look at her—and that was a mistake.
She was a mess of tears, her makeup destroyed, her skin puffy, her eyes . . . like death. “Please.” She came to me, grabbed both of my hands, and squeezed them tight. “Please, I beg you.”
I’d never felt so shitty in my life. I’d made my mother bawl harder than she did at my father’s funeral. I’d broken nothing, but it was my responsibility to fix it. To suture the wound. To realign the broken bones. “Okay, I’ll talk to him, Ma.”
She yanked me into her and buried her face in my chest, sobbing against my apron and getting flour all over her clothes and hair. “Thank you, Con.” She sobbed and sniffed and squeezed. “My son.”
I took a drive down to Palermo.
It was on the other side of the island, a popular tourist spot in its own right. He’d moved there a couple months ago when the rift between us was the worst it’d ever been. When I didn’t come to the family dinners he attended, he seemed to think it was best to bow out altogether.
I had no idea what he did for work or how he spent his time.
I didn’t know him at all anymore, and in a lot of ways, I felt like I’d never known him in the first place.
My mom had given me the address, and when I pulled up to the villa, I double-checked her text to make sure I’d found the right place.
It was a beautiful building, with lion statues erected in front and a doorman posted outside. I had a two-bedroom apartment in Taormina, and it was nice but not flashy. But this place . . . seemed a little flashy.
I parked the car several blocks away, checked in with the doorman, and then took the elevator to his floor.
It seemed like a renovated building that had kept its Sicilian charm.
There were paintings in the hallways along with sculptures in the corners.
When I made it to his door, I took a second to breathe, to question whether this was the right move.
I was certain my mother had already told him I was coming, so he wouldn’t be surprised to see me on his doorstep.
If my mother hadn’t guilted me into being there, I would have been content with never speaking to him again.
I knew she’d manipulated me into coming here, but after watching her bend over backward for all of us our entire lives and doing it alone, even before my father was gone, I knew I owed her everything.
She never asked for anything—except for this.
So I’d give it to her.
I didn’t knock on the door, but Edric answered it as if I had.
Yep, he knew I was coming.
He stared at me, eyes shifting as he took in my appearance like he’d seen a ghost. There was no smirk, no joke, just a serious stare. And I could see emotion there, below the surface, simmering like a pan about to boil.