Charlie #3
I see Constantine approaching out of the corner of my eye. His face is a bleak mask of calculation until he takes in what’s happening—four men around my naked body, one with his dick out, all of them heaving laughter and insults in a language I hope I never learn.
He says, “What the fuck—” All four men turn to him, almost in unison, their animal grins not fading, just shifting targets.
“Isn’t this a little far?” Constantine says, voice rough and tight. “You were supposed to rough him up, not—” He glances at my exposed body, at the blood caked on my face, at the glistening vodka and vomit along my chin. “Not this.”
Stubble shrugs. “We were told to make him cry. He’s crying.” He gestures to the crusted tears and snot smeared across my cheeks.
Longhair chimes in, “You never say ‘don’t fuck him.’ So we fuck him. Is job.” He spits out the last word, like it’s a punchline.
Sunglasses tucks himself back in with a click of teeth. “Maybe he wants to go first, da? We can wait for you to finish.”
Constantine’s face twists. He grabs a bottle from the folding table and smashes it onto the floor in one sharp motion, glass splintering and skittering in every direction. The room goes quiet. No one moves, and only the slow drip of vodka onto concrete fills the heavy air.
“You’re done,” he says, voice shaking with fury. “Nobody’s fucking anyone. That wasn’t the deal. You were just supposed to rough him up a little bit for the photo.”
“We just here for fun. No harm, yes?” Longhair says.
Constantine doesn’t answer. He’s vibrating with anger, jaw working. “You’re all animals,” he spits.
Baldy laughs, but it’s a nervous sound. “Yes, that is our job. Maybe you want a turn, huh? You and the pretty boy, you make a show for us—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Constantine shouts.
And then, through the silence that follows, something else cuts through.
A click.
The unmistakable sound of metal cycling into place.
All at once, every eye in the room whips toward the source—a shadow in the doorway, tall and broad-shouldered.
I know that silhouette.
My Daddy.
No one moves. The only sounds are my own breathing, ragged and wet, and the tap of Niko’s shoes as he enters.
He’s in another league from the men in this room. He doesn’t belong here, and the way he moves—shoulders squared, coat open but crisp and unwrinkled, not a hair out of place—makes everyone else look suddenly so weak.
He doesn’t even look at me. His eyes are locked on Constantine, who is halfway between the Russians and the doorway. Face flushed, knuckles white around the broken bottle, as if he thinks for a second he might use it. But he knows he won’t.
Nikolaus doesn’t raise his voice or posture. He gestures with his gun from the bottle to the floor, and says, “Put it down.”
Constantine does, instantly. The noise as the glass hits the floor is loud, a ricochet through my skull.
The four men have moved to flank Constantine like they’re the muscle in this scene, but Nikolaus doesn’t so much as glance at them. He keeps walking forward, aim unwavering, until he’s just a breath away from Constantine.
“Niko…” Constantine calls.
Nikolaus stops, the gun a black extension of his hand, and cocks his head. “You,” he says, voice deadly cold. “You did this.”
“What the fuck else was I supposed to do?” Constantine’s voice is brittle, ugly.
“You’ve been obsessed. The business has gone to shit, the board’s nearly mutinied, and you didn’t even notice—” He cuts off, as if the truth is an insult best spat out fast. “You put him above everything, Niko. You made everyone else expendable, including me.”
Nikolaus takes another step forward. “So you handed him to these,” a flick of the gun at the Russian men, “to make a point?”
Constantine looks unhinged, the whites of his eyes too bright. “They weren’t supposed to go this far. Just some bruises to lure you in.”
“Why?”
“Niko, I—”
“Tell me. What led to this? ímastan adérfia. Adérfia, Konstandíne. óchi. Me pródoses, aftó to katalavaíno. Allá ti sto diáolo pérase apó to mialó sou kai parédoses éna athóo, glykó, ídi pligoméno agóri s’ aftá ta gouroúnia pou viázoun?
Mípos den se gnórisa poté pragmatiká? O ántras pou íxera os adelfó mou den tha xepernoúse poté aftó to ório.
Den tha épefte poté tóso chamilá. Esy eísai kápoios állos.
Loipón, pes mou. Yiatí?” We were brothers.
Brothers, Constantine. No. You betrayed me, I understand, but what went through your fucking mind that made you throw an innocent, sweet, already hurting boy to these rapist pigs?
Have I never truly known you? The man I knew as my brother would never stoop so low. You are someone else. So, tell me. Why?
“I wanted your power,” Constantine answers. “I wanted you gone, so I could run things. You don’t deserve your position. Den se noiázei kan.” You don’t even care about it.
Impossibly soft, Nikolaus laughs. The sound is hollow, metallic—like echoing steel against stone—and contains no warmth, no humor, only a raw disbelief that tastes bitter on the tongue.
“You wanted my power.”
Constantine’s spine snaps straight, his tailored jacket creasing at the shoulders as though that admission alone restores him.
He forces a smirk. “You abandoned it,” he says.
His voice cuts through the silence, brittle as broken glass.
“You stopped caring. Everyone saw it. The board saw it. Our people saw it. You were letting everything fall apart because you couldn’t stop thinking about him. ” His hand flicks toward me.
Nikolaus follows his gesture, taking in the ragged remnants of my clothes clinging in tatters, the bruises blooming purple and yellow across my body, the dried rivulets of blood stiffening on my cheek.
Pain flickers across his face, deeper than anger—a tearing grief that reaches down into his bones. He turns back to Constantine, each word weighted with unspoken agony. “If you had asked me,” he breathes, “I would have given it to you.”
Constantine blinks, as if struck by a thunderclap. Nikolaus steps forward, each footfall stirring motes of dust into the air.
“If you had come to me like a brother and said you wanted the company, the board, the money, the influence—any of it—I would have handed it over myself.” His gaze holds Constantine’s without wavering. “Do you understand what you’ve done?”
“Niko—” Constantine starts, but Nikolaus cuts him off in a whisper that carries through the cavernous room.
“My life is Charlie now.”
The confession detonates amid the silence.
Nikolaus glances back at me; his expression fractures into something raw and heart-aching.
“He is my future.” His voice is hushed but absolute.
Constantine’s face drains of color. “He is the first thing I think about when I wake up.” Nikolaus steps closer, and his words come rough, ragged with emotion.
“The last thing I think about before I sleep. I love him more than I’ve ever loved anything in my entire life.
” The words hang in the stale air, raw and undeniable.
“And you handed him over to be tortured.”
Constantine’s mouth opens, then closes. He wants to argue, to protest, but the words choke in his throat.
Nikolaus shakes his head slowly, sorrowful. “There’s no going back from this.”
At last, fear colors Constantine’s features—a terror so stark it seems to warp the grimy walls around him. “Brother—” he whispers.
A single shot cracks the silence. Constantine’s body jerks backward, frozen for a heartbeat with shock, then collapses in a thud that vibrates through the floorboards. He lies motionless, a stark silhouette on cracked concrete.
One Russian curses under his breath; another bolts for the side door.
But before he can reach it, every exit floods with movement—armed men in disciplined formation, weapons raised, voices barking commands.
Within heartbeats, the warehouse swarms with them.
My tormentors stare at the array of barrels pointed their way; their own firearms left useless on the folding table yards off. Too far away. Hands rise in defeat.
Through it all, Nikolaus doesn’t glance sideways. Not at the kneeling captives, not at his friend’s body. Only at me. He slides his pistol home into its holster, then strides across the distance as though wading through water. He drops to his knees beside me.
His hands shake—actual tremors—as they hover uncertainly above my battered form before settling on my cheek with a tenderness that feels like a lifeline.
“Charlie.” His eyes, bright and raw with grief, trace every cut and bruise as though each one slashes through him anew.
“Oh, baby,” he breathes. He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them, resolve shining through sorrow.
“You’re safe now.” His thumb strokes across my skin, gentle as falling rain.
Niko’s voice hovers at the edge of my consciousness when I try to speak. The sound that slips out is a wet, broken gasp.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m right here.”
I strain to speak, to tell him I knew he’d come, to tell him I love him back, but the words won’t form. My vision begins to dim around the edges.
His voice is a hoarse whisper when he says, “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
My eyelids grow impossibly heavy. I murmur, “I have…” and his face softens with anguish.
He leans closer. “What is it, baby?”
I swallow, voice faint as the last breath of a breeze. “I still have… your bracelet… on…”
His answer is a sound between a sob and a laugh. Then darkness pulls me under, and this time I don’t fight as I slip into oblivion.