Avenge :Romanian Mob Chronicles(46)

“No, I don’t. But I know him. You said they found your brother. Someone had hit him on the head, left him there,” I said, hating the pain that flashed across her face.

“Yes,” she said, the word a breath of a whisper.

I shook my head. “That’s not Christoph. Not his style.”

She scoffed. “Style? What does style have to do with anything?”

“Everything, Lily. It tells me it wasn’t him.”

“So what’s his style, then? Sleep with the fishes?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“No. No fishes. Christoph hates water. But he wouldn’t have left a job unfinished. And he wouldn’t have left your brother for the police to find,” I said.

“What, then? A shallow grave?” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts defensively.

“No. A very deep one. Probably one that I dug,” I said.

She pressed her lips together in a tight line, and I waited for a sign of her disgust. But I saw none. Instead, she sighed, the anger fleeing her with her breath.

“It might be time to dust your shovel off, Anton,” she said, resigned. Then she lifted her lips in a smile.

“That’s not funny, Lily,” I said, allowing my voice to go deep with the emotion that even the implication raised. I was capable of things that should have terrified or shamed me, things that once might have. But not that, not ever, no matter what oath I had to break. “What is this about? What did Christoph do?”

“You were right about me,” she said.

“Right about what?” I asked, suspicion rising with each second that passed.

“I planned to kill him.”

For a moment, I’d thought I’d misheard, but the guilt on her face, the sorrow, told me she spoke the truth.

“What do you mean, Lily?” I said, voice tight with a sudden surge of rage.

Our complicated relationship aside, I cared for Christoph Senior, rejected the idea of anyone attempting to harm him—no matter how much such harm had been deserved. And by her, the woman I cared for so deeply… No, there had to be an explanation.

I finally settled on one that seemed reasonable. “You believed he harmed your brother,” I said. “You wanted recompense for that. I can’t begrudge you, because I would have done the same. So would he. But you didn’t. And that tells me all I need to know.”

She snorted. “All it tells you is that I’m weak. That’s why I didn’t go through with it. Because I couldn’t. Because I am weak. I had so many chances, but when I looked at him, that sick, frail old man, I couldn’t do it.”

She shook her head, her disappointment palpable. I lifted my hands to cup her face, turned her head until she met my eyes. “Because you’re a good person.”

Her eyes locked with mine, and I watched as the sheen of tears expanded. “That’s not all,” she said.

I dropped my hands.

“What?” I said, suddenly afraid to hear her response.

“I was going to… I was looking for…evidence. I wanted to take the whole thing down. Take all of you down, Anton. I had everything I needed. I even saw things myself.”

I clenched my fists tight, insides almost shaking as her words reverberated through my mind.

“Things like what?” I asked tightly.

“You killed someone,” she replied.

“Why do you think that?” I said, unwilling to accept what I knew she was telling me, hoping against hope that I was wrong.

“You broke his neck,” she replied.

“Why do you think that, Lily?”

“I don’t think it, Anton. I know it. I saw it.”

She couldn’t have. There was no way…

I met her glittering eyes, saw the truth in them, felt her slipping away from me. Felt anger begin to set my blood to boil.

There was only one way she could have seen, only one person who would have cared enough to show her, been foolish enough to risk it, to risk everything, risk Clan Constantin, risk Lily’s life.

“Tell me you didn’t see anything, Lily. Tell me,” I said, urgency, desperation making my words come out in a rush.

I knew she had, knew that she knew, but I said it anyway, desperate for the few moments to gather myself, my mind groping for an explanation that I could use to convince her, one that would keep her from running away from me and never looking back, one that wouldn’t make me have to choose between my clan and the woman I loved.

Instead of telling me what I needed to hear, she said, “No. I saw it, Anton. You killed Paul. Broke his neck. And then you”—she swallowed—“you chopped him up.”

Her voice had only wavered slightly, and she kept her eyes on mine, her gaze confirming that she spoke the truth, not that I’d doubted it.