Prologue X Constantine
Prologue X
Constantine
I took a week off from work and headed to Taormina.
I’d been making more of an effort to visit over the last two years.
It’d been six years since Edric had died, and my mother finally seemed to be in a better place.
The pain of losing a son would never go away, but at least now it was manageable.
She’d taken some time away from the restaurant, but now she was back in the office every day, running her little empire in Taormina.
I was happy to see that.
I was in a better place too—but revenge didn’t sleep.
I would kill Darius—someday.
When I came for a visit, I stayed in a hotel now. I told my mother I needed my space, and she let me have my way. Now that she wasn’t utterly heartbroken, she was okay being alone at the house.
I hung out with my friends and cousins, hitting the beach and the town, feeling right at home. I spent the day jumping off the rock with my cousin Antonio and other friends, taking turns doing backflips and belly flops, acting like kids when we were grown-ass men.
When we made it back to the beach, we ordered drinks and pizza and ate in our cabana.
“What’s going on in Rome?” Antonio asked.
“Work. That’s about it,” I said before taking a bite of the mortadella pizza with pistachio pesto.
“Done with Cosa Nostra?”
“We keep in touch, but I do my own thing now.” My occupation was an open secret. Everyone kind of knew about it, but no one asked too many questions. They knew my life had changed, that I had a lot of money now, based on my home and my clothes and my own plane, but no one treated me differently.
That meant a lot to me.
“Seeing anyone?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not seriously, no.” My life was a carousel of women, different ones hopping on while old ones hopped off.
I didn’t have to work for it either. It just happened.
I was fit like a bull, rich like a billionaire, and attractive like a celebrity, so I really didn’t have to do anything.
But I never shared that information. Didn’t want to brag.
The beach was full of locals and tourists, all enjoying the sun and the waves. The bar was packed with people, and the weather was perfect, without a cloud in the sky. Antonio watched the TV in the cabana for a while.
Francesco nudged him in the side. “Tell him about Isabella,” he said under his breath so I wouldn’t hear.
But I did. “Tell me what?” I asked in a normal voice.
Antonio tossed his slice of pizza back into the box then wiped his hands clean on the napkins. “She’s getting a divorce.”
“What?” I blurted. She got married two years ago.
I didn’t know the guy, only saw them together at the wedding, but they seemed happy.
Isabella and I didn’t talk at all at the wedding.
I kept my distance out of respect. Sometimes when we were close together, that tension was still there, and the last thing I wanted was to make her special day complicated.
I assumed she didn’t feel that way about me anymore, but it was still complicated. “What the hell happened?”
“She caught him fooling around on her.”
I went absolutely still at that information. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“Some girl he works with at the bank,” Antonio said. “Isabella found their texts and then tailed him one day. Caught him red handed.”
“Yeah, fucking asshole,” Francesco said. “Hasn’t come around since.”
“She moved back in with her mom,” Antonio said.
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“Couple weeks ago,” Francesco said. “I’m surprised your mom didn’t mention.”
Oh, I know exactly why she didn’t mention it.
My appetite was done for, and the beach day was ruined. I got up and pulled on my shirt.
“What are you doing?” Antonio asked.
I started to walk out of the cabana. “I’ve gotta check on her.”
Her family owned Levante Gelato Artigianale, one of the most famous spots in Taormina for gelato, so when I called and texted and got no reply, I assumed she was there. I headed down the main street until the very end where it was located.
Her family was like family to me, and my family was like family to her, so when I walked in, I headed straight to the back instead of taking up the worker’s time.
I went past the storage shelves to the office in the rear.
I could see her through the open door, working on her laptop, hair thrown up in a bun like she didn’t care.
That wasn’t like her.
I stopped in the doorway. Whatever she was working on had so much of her focus she hadn’t heard me. “Hey.”
She flinched at my voice, did a double take, and then released a sigh.
Her phone was right there, so she’d chosen to ignore me.
“Scared the shit out of me, Con.”
A chair was positioned against the wall, so I pulled it up next to her desk. “You okay?”
She took a breath, and then she blinked several times in a row, like she wasn’t the least bit okay. All she could muster was a shake of her head.
My hand reached for hers.
She took it like it was a life raft. “The worst two weeks of my life.”
“Yeah.”
She sniffed, and then her eyes started to flood with tears. “He’s such a piece of shit . . . I can’t believe he did this to me.”
“Men suck,” I said honestly. “Ain’t shit.”
She gave a pained chuckle like it was a joke.
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” She sniffed again. “And that’s why I love you, Con.” She pulled her hand away from mine and wiped her tears, patting the corners of her eyes dry. “I didn’t see it coming. We’d been married for only two years, a hot piece of ass came along . . . and that’s all it took.”
“You aren’t supposed to see it coming—because it shouldn’t come at all.”
“I’m just glad it happened before we had kids. Then I’d be stuck.”
“You wouldn’t be stuck.”
“I wouldn’t be married to him, but I’d have to share my kids with him forever.”
“Yeah.”
She stared at the corner of the desk.
“Why didn’t you take my call?”
“Because . . .”
I waited for her to say more, but she never did. “Because why?” I pressed.
“Because I deserve this for what happened with Edric. Karma is real, and she served justice.”
It was the most ludicrous thing that had ever come out of her mouth. “Issy, look at me.”
“No.” She kept her eyes on the desk, the tears bubbling again.
“Issy.”
The tears came free before she lifted her chin and looked at me.
“You did not deserve this. No one does.”
The tears were like slow rivers that traveled down her cheeks.
“The situations aren’t even comparable, Issy. And even if they were, I still wouldn’t want this to happen to you.”
She gave in to a quick burst of tears. “Because you’re such a good guy, and I hate myself every day for losing you.”
“Issy . . .”
She dropped her face into her hands so she could cry with some sort of privacy.
And I just had to listen to it.
“You never would have done this to me,” she said between the breaks in her fingertips. “You never would have hurt me. And now look at me. Divorced before I’m thirty. Living eight years in the past because that’s the last time I was truly happy.”
“Issy,” I said gently. “I know it’s hard right now, but I promise you’ll be happy again someday.
This is a bump in the road, not the end of your story.
You’ll remarry, and he will be the one you were supposed to be with.
And you’ll have kids, and he’ll never hurt you.
And you’ll wonder why you had to wait so long to find him. ”
“Con, I want you.” She dropped her hands, her cheeks red, her eyes puffy. “It’s always been you. It’ll always be you. It’s been eight fucking years, and I can’t escape you. Guys have come and gone, but you’re the one who stays in my heart. You’ll always be the one who got away.”
Now I was the one who avoided her gaze. “You’re just upset right now—”
“I’m upset that one stupid mistake cost us our happiness. One stupid mistake has kept us apart for almost a decade. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you’ve loved anyone since? Or have ever come close?”
My eyes stayed on the desk.
“Con.”
“No, I haven’t.” For the first few years, the women were a distraction from my heartache.
Then they turned into a playground. Then they turned into a blur of good sex but meaningless nights.
No one ever meant a damn thing to me, and I didn’t know why.
Even when I was ready to be with someone, there was no one.
“Then why not?” she asked through her tears. “Why can’t you just give me another chance? You really think I would do something like that again? I was a twenty-one-year-old girl who made a mistake—”
“Issy, we can’t keep rehashing this conversation like it’s still on the table.”
“But why is it not on the table?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because I meant what I said before.” That she wasn’t the one. But I didn’t want to say the words. Didn’t want to cut her down even more. Didn’t want to make a difficult time wholly unbearable.
She looked away as if I’d slapped her.
I clenched my eyes shut, hating myself for saying what she didn’t want to hear.
She was quiet for a long time, her tears fully stifled and eyes dry. “I’m tired of asking and begging, so I’m not going to do it anymore. But think about it, Con. Think about the love that’s still here. The love we still have for each other after all this time.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her again.
“You’re always there for me, and I’m always there for you. That is not normal for two people who’ve gone their separate ways. That’s not normal for people who wanted to spend their lives together.”
I knocked on the door to the apartment.
It took a minute for him to answer. There were footsteps, and then the shift of the bolt out of the lock. Then he opened the door and stared at me, like it took him a moment to remember my face. “Constantine, right—”
I punched him so hard in the stomach, he fell to the floor, hand over his stomach, heaving like I’d knocked the life out of him.
“Get up.” I stepped into his shitty apartment and shut the door behind me.