11. Lazarus
I’m brooding in my suite when they arrive.
The villa is quiet tonight, save for the distant sound of the wind howling outside.
I’ve been nursing a drink for the better part of an hour, staring out at the darkness beyond the windows, trying not to think about what my father would do in this situation.
I know by now all those whisperings from the meeting will no longer be contained to these four walls.
Rumours have a way of getting out, of spreading, of turning from mere discontent to full on fucking rebellion.
While my brother is happy to pretend that the Esau threat is a far-off thing, a limited thing, contained within the British Chapter, I’m not so sure. I’m not so hopeful.
I know neither are the Guardians. Antonio thinks they are bigger, Zayn swears he has evidence that they are here, in the States but my brother won’t hear it. He won’t even consider it. He’s too busy dancing to the tune of his pretty bitch of a wife.
The door swings open without warning.
“Brother,” Konstantine announces himself with that easy confidence he’s always possessed, but tonight there’s something softer beneath it, something almost tender. “You’re being terribly antisocial.”
Ines follows behind him, a vision in some barely-there slip dress that clings to her body like a whispered secret.
The silk catches the low lamplight, shimmering with every breath she takes.
Her dark braids cascade over her shoulders, and she’s wearing that knowing smile she always does when she wants something.
Tonight it reaches her eyes differently, a flicker of something I can’t quite name, something that makes my stomach tighten with instinctive wariness.
“I’m busy,” I mutter, not bothering to turn around. What the fuck do they expect anyway? They can’t spit in my face and expect me to be grateful for it.
“Busy drinking alone in the dark?” Konstantine’s voice is gentle now, but I can still hear the usual mockery lingering beneath. He moves toward me like one might approach a wounded animal. “That’s pathetic, even for you.”
“Maybe I want to be alone.” It’s not like I can’t have my pick of girls if I wanted them.
It’s not like I can’t jump in the helicopter, spend a few hours at the Black Orchid or some other club if I so desired.
But the truth sits heavy in my chest; I don’t want company.
Not theirs. Not anyone’s. Something about the way they’re looking at me tonight makes my skin prickle with unease.
“Nonsense.” Ines’s voice is like honey, sweet and thick, but there’s a tremor in it I’ve never heard before.
She moves with that feline grace of hers, perching herself on the arm of my chair, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from her skin.
“You spend every evening locked away in here. It’s not healthy. We worry about you.”
We. The word cuts deeper than any blade.
I let out a huff, trying to ignore how close she is, how her perfume invades my senses, jasmine and something darker, something that smells like forbidden fruit and half-remembered dreams. How she invades everything.
How she’s invaded my thoughts every single day since my brother first brought her home, his eyes bright with the triumph of possessing something so exquisite.
I’ve never trusted her, never trusted the way she looks at me, like she’s cataloguing my weaknesses for future use.
Then my mind reminds me of what I have out, what I’ve got sprawled across my desk. All the information about Paitlyn, all the things I have done when I was expressly told not to. I grit my teeth, mentally calculating how I can pack it all away without them seeing it.
“Come on,” Konstantine says, removing my empty glass with a tenderness that catches me off guard. His fingers brush mine as he presses a fresh one into my hand. “One drink. Then we’ll leave you to your brooding. I promise.”
I look up at him then, really look. There’s something in my brother’s eyes, something almost pleading.
Something that reminds me of when we were boys, when we were inseparable, before the weight of the family name crushed everything soft between us.
But there’s something else too, something calculating beneath the surface.
If I can play this cool, I can get through this without them even realising.
“Fine. One drink.”
Konstantine’s smile is different tonight, not triumphant, but relieved. He raises his own glass in a toast, and his voice catches slightly. “To family. To us.”
“To family,” Ines echoes, her fingers trailing along my shoulder with a deliberateness that sends an unwanted shiver cascading down my spine. Her touch lingers, a question asked in the language of skin, and I have to resist the urge to pull away.
I drink. The liquor burns going down, different from the whiskey I’d been nursing. Sharper somehow. More intense. It spreads through my chest like liquid fire, like something I didn’t consent to.
“What is this?” I ask, my voice already sounding strange to my own ears.
“Something special I picked up in Prague,” Konstantine says, settling into the chair across from me. “You like it?”
I take another sip. It’s good. Really good.
The warmth spreads through my chest, my limbs, making everything feel softer somehow.
Easier. The sharp edges of my resentment begin to blur, and beneath them I find something I’ve been trying desperately to ignore; a heat I don’t want, a pull toward something dangerous.
Ines slides off the chair arm and moves to the old gramophone I have on display in the corner.
It’s vintage, one of a kind, and it’s still working despite its age.
Her fingers trace its brass horn with reverence, as if she understands what it means to me, this relic of a more beautiful time.
A moment later, the sound of a saxophone fills the room, old school jazz throbbing through the air like a heartbeat like the pulse of something alive and aching.
She starts to move.
It’s hypnotic, the way her body sways to the rhythm.
Her hips are rolling like a tide I’ve been trying to ignore for years, her arms raised above her head, that slip dress riding up her thighs to reveal the smooth expanse of skin I’ve never allowed myself to look at directly.
She’s singing along under her breath, something that I can’t quite make out over the pounding in my ears.
Is it just me or is the music off, distorted?
Jazz doesn’t sound like this, and yet it’s my record, my music playing. The notes seem to bend and stretch, wrapping around me like silk, like smoke, like something I can’t escape.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Konstantine says beside me, and his voice is thick with something I’ve never heard before; not jealousy, not pride, but a kind of calculated reverence.
I don’t answer, can’t answer.
My tongue feels thick in my mouth, heavy and uncooperative.
I take another drink, trying to clear my head but it only makes things worse.
The room seems to pulse with the music, the walls breathing in and out like the ribs of some great sleeping beast. Ines is a blur of movement and colour, her laughter ringing out like bells, but there’s something else in her eyes when she looks at me, something that looks terrifyingly like a predator who’s cornered her prey.
Something’s wrong.
The thought drifts through my mind but doesn’t quite stick. Everything feels distant, dreamlike. Like I’m watching this happen to someone else. Like my body is no longer my own.
Konstantine refills my glass. But when did I finish it? His hand is steady, but his eyes are glistening with something that might be triumph.
“Drink up, brother.” His voice cracks on the word brother, and I realise with a start that he’s not mocking me. He’s orchestrating something. Something I’ve been too slow to recognise.
Drink up. Drink…
I do, because my arm moves without my permission. Because the warmth feels good in a way that terrifies me, because Ines is still dancing and for some reason I can’t look away, and I’m so tired of fighting whatever chemical is flooding my veins.
She’s closer now. When did she get closer? The air between us crackles with something electric, something inevitable.
Her hands slide up her sides, cupping her breasts through the thin fabric and the gesture isn’t performative, it’s a trap.
Her eyes never leave mine, dark and hungry and full of promise, but also full of something that looks like satisfaction.
Like she’s been planning this for longer than I want to imagine.
Then she reaches for the straps of her dress.
They slide down her shoulders, slow and deliberate, and I watch the fabric whisper against her skin like a lover’s farewell.
The dress pools at her waist, revealing perfect breasts, nipples already hard and the sight of her, the reality of her after all these years of carefully averted eyes steals the breath from my lungs against my will.
“What the fuck is going on?” The words come out slurred, like my tongue doesn’t want to work properly but beneath the confusion there’s a desperate, clawing need to regain control.
Konstantine moves closer, and when he speaks, his voice is raw. “I figured it out, you know. The problem between you two. The problem between all of us.”
“What?” I try to stand, but my legs won’t move and I slump back in the chair, my heart hammering against my ribs like it’s screaming a warning.
“You want to fuck her.” He says it gently, like he’s confessing something sacred. “It’s been eating you alive.” He pauses, and his voice drops to a whisper. “We’ve always shared everything, Laz. Everything, but I kept her from you. I was selfish.”
“You’re talking shit.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. In what fucked up world would he believe that I want this? “You’re drunk.”
“Am I?” He’s not grinning now. “Or are you? Or are we all finally brave enough to stop pretending?”