Somewhere along the way, I turned into a fucking mediator, a role I doubted I was suited for. But there was no one else, so it was on me to make sure that this transition went as well as it could.
I was so engrossed in my ruminations, I didn’t realize I had set off in the opposite direction of my home until I saw Lily’s street. I’d purposely decided to stay away. I’d wanted to go to her, badly, but I’d told myself not to, not after today. I didn’t want to taint her home, taint her with the death that I’d wrought. I’d go back to her, of that I was sure, but not when Paul’s blood was still so fresh I could almost feel it on my hands.
However, as her building came into sight, all of those thoughts fell away. A smile burst forth before I could stop it, but I tried to ignore the warmth that bloomed in my chest. This was unprecedented, a feeling I hadn’t expected or had any capacity to deal with, but I wasn’t going to question it.
It was too good, too precious, and I would hold on to it for as long as I could.
I parked and was at her door without too much delay. I knocked, anxious for her to open, and in that moment, I decided she would come live with me. She’d protest, I knew, but I’d eventually have my way. In the meantime, she would give me a key to her apartment. I didn’t like the idea of anything, even something as simple as a locked door, separating us.
After my second knock, she opened the door and I entered, wrapping her in an embrace with one arm as I closed the door with the other.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her, not until I touched her, and her body was in my arms, her warm, soft curves filling a piece of me I hadn’t realized was missing.
I squeezed her tight, and then kissed her, putting the emotion into the touch that I couldn’t say with words.
She returned the kiss, her soft breath and the way she held my arms only giving it that much more power.
But then she broke away, looked up at me with clouded eyes.
I cupped her smooth cheek, stared down at her. When I saw her pinched expression, the angst on her face, concern creeped up my spine.
“What’s happened?” I asked, tightening my hold on her.
She frowned, and then pulled away, moving across the room. And the alarm that I had felt spiked. Everything about her was wrong.
The way she had wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to ward something off.
The way she wouldn’t look at me.
“Lily,” I said, the word hard, as rough as I could remember ever speaking to her since even the very beginning.
She responded to my command, turned her honey-colored eyes to me. And the expression I saw there chilled me.
“What has Christoph Junior done?” I asked.
I waited, mind racing with thoughts of what I would do. I didn’t care who he was, the role that he held. If he had harmed her, he would suffer.
Then he would die.
“What do you do, Anton?” she said, eyes glittering in the darkness, her voice as it always was save the suspicion that silently accused me.
Lily was no idiot, far from it, so she had to know at least some of what we did, what I did. But the way she stared at me told me that this went beyond an ephemeral awareness of Clan Constantin.
This was specific.
That thought was chased away by another.
Paul.
She shouldn’t know, couldn’t, but the look in her eyes told me she did. She was waiting for me to respond, searching for any hint of a confirmation, maybe a hint of a lie.
And the lie was there too, the reflexive denial that a lifetime of secrecy had bred. It was anathema to me to speak of Clan Constantin with outsiders, as forbidden as disobedience and betrayal. But what was more anathema, more wrong, was the idea of being dishonest with her.
So I wouldn’t.
I didn’t know how she would respond, couldn’t imagine that it would be good, what I would do after, but I wouldn’t lie to her. But I wouldn’t tell the truth either. Not all of it.
“What do I do?” I asked, repeating her question, perhaps only to buy time.
She nodded.
“Bad things, Lily. Sometimes terrible ones,” I replied.
She didn’t even blink.
After I spoke, I moved closer to her, staring at her intently. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, how she was responding, but she hadn’t run from me, screamed at me to leave and never come back, so tiny wisps of hope started to spring up.
“Thank you for telling the truth,” she finally said.
Not at all the response I was expecting, but I was grateful for her calm. But also on edge that we were having this conversation in the first place. And beyond furious at Christoph Junior for what he was costing me.
“How do you know this? What did he do?” I asked.
“I have to tell you something,” she said instead of replying.