Christoph Junior paused, his expression taking on an entirely different bent. “Why so many questions?”
“I like to know what I’m going into. To have a plan,” I said.
He stood then, put both hands flat on his desk—his father’s desk—and leaned toward me. “I know what you’re going into. And that’s all that matters. Because I’m in charge, remember?”
“Yes, I do,” I said. And we were all worse for it.
“So you’ll do as you’re told,” he said, voice too much of a whine to be menacing though he tried his best.
I kept my gaze on his, tried to bite down the anger that now churned in my gut. Christoph Junior was testing me, no doubt having decided that I would make an excellent example. An opportunity to punish me harshly would send quite the message to the rest of Clan Constantin, would leave no doubt that he was in charge.
But I wouldn’t let that happen. So, anger notwithstanding, I nodded tightly. “I will,” I said.
He sat, smug smile making me want to choke him until he was unconscious. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, though. Clan Constantin needed me; that much was clear. So I would do what was necessary to protect them, no matter how hard Christoph Junior tried to get in my way.
Seven
Lily
I sat in Adela’s recently vacated seat and watched Christoph sleep. But where she had done so out of love, concern, I felt anything but.
I didn’t know the specifics, probably never would, but I did know that Christoph had destroyed my life, my family, if not directly, then indirectly, his power, his name giving him freedom to squash and discard my brother Braden. In doing so, he’d discarded me, taken the only family I remembered, the only person who’d ever cared about me.
Braden had been my entire world, the most gentle, loving, wonderful person I’d known, and Christoph Constantin Senior had stolen it, stolen Braden’s life without any care or fear of consequence.
But I would be that consequence.
Could be right now.
Poor Christoph Senior lay there, vulnerable, helpless, and I could end it now, get the sweet release that I prayed ending his life would bring.
A simple injection would send him off to his eternal sleep, easy, painless. He deserved so much worse than that, deserved to suffer, but I could bring his end right now. I hated him, all that he stood for. So I should get it over with.
I didn’t move an inch.
Don’t be weak, Lily. Don’t fail him again.
The thought replayed over and over in my mind, but still I didn’t move.
For the first time as I watched him, his frail chest rising and falling in jerky breaths, I wondered if I could go through with it.
I’d told myself to be patient, that if I played my cards right, I could kill Christoph and his rotten family, the clan he loved so much. Now, I questioned myself. Was that just an excuse, a way to delay, a way to avoid getting my hands dirty? I wanted Christoph’s death, craved it with every fiber of my being. But did I have the nerve to take it with my own hands?
I looked down at them, considered whether I had the strength to make them killer’s hands. I’d told myself I did, had believed that I could do it, but now, as I sat next to him, I realized what doing so would mean, how irrevocably taking a life would change me.
And that change scared me.
No matter how right killing him would be, no matter how dedicated I was to seeing this through, I couldn’t silence that little voice in the back of my head, the one that whispered that killing him would mean that I was like him.
I tried to silence the voice, put it off as a remnant of the values Braden had tried to instill in me before he’d been taken, but I heard it all the same.
Christoph stirred then, and I took the reprieve, trying to ignore the relief that the distraction brought but aware of it all the same. One step and I was on my feet and standing above him, the dim lamp that sat next to the bed giving his skin the semblance of health, though it was only an illusion, the barest one at that. Knowing that it was an illusion, that Christoph’s end was fast approaching, relieved me. Whether because it meant he would soon die, or that he might die without my intervention, I couldn’t say, or perhaps couldn’t admit.
He came awake quickly, and I could see the confusion in his eyes and then see when it cleared, when he remembered where he was, who I was. And when he focused on me, I saw his moment of relief, and my despair intensified.
“Are you in pain?” I asked once he’d calmed.
He shrugged as best he could. “No more than usual.”
His voice was gravelly, a faint wheeze trailing his words, but he looked comfortable enough, and before I remembered how much he deserved to suffer, I was happy to see it.