When I stepped out of the bedroom, I saw Anton and another man, well-dressed, seemingly unruffled by the corpse that lay on the living room floor. Anton shifted, and I realized it was to put himself between me and this visitor.
“Am I taking care of her too?”
“Yes. In a way. After you handle Christoph Junior, I need you to send her somewhere, a full reboot. Is that going to be a problem?”
“Not for me. But there will be an accounting for this,” he said, tilting his head toward Christoph Junior where he lay.
An accounting.
A bland phrase that would ordinarily bring to mind facts and figures, a cold evaluation of this or that. But in this moment, I didn’t think I had ever heard anything so ominous. Because this accounting would be for Anton’s life.
“There will be,” Anton finally said, his own voice bland, and even more proof that what I had suspected was right.
Anton turned, stared down at me. “Go with Priest, Lily. He’ll take care of you.”
“You trust him?” I asked, glancing at the other man quickly before I looked back to Anton.
“No, but he’ll take care of you,” he replied.
Anton’s words didn’t fill me with confidence, but I didn’t care about myself then, not if what I suspected was true. I’d studied exhaustively, learned as much as I could about Clan Constantin, the other clans. Most spoke of them only in hushed whispers, and to me, barely at all, but I knew how sacred they held their leaders, their code. By killing Christoph Junior, Anton had violated both. The consequences would be severe.
I kept my eyes locked on his. “And what will happen to you?” I asked, fearing the answer but fearing not hearing it even more.
“Whatever will happen,” he said as if that were an answer.
“We need to clean up now. There’s not much time,” the other man said.
“Is there transportation for her?” Anton asked.
“Car’s downstairs,” Priest said.
Anton nodded and then lifted me, cradling me as gingerly as he had before. He moved down the stairs, and I found myself wishing that this trip would last forever. It didn’t though, and soon, far too soon, we stood next to a car.
“Take care, Lily,” Anton said after I sat inside.
Then he slammed the car door.
Twenty-One
Anton
I forced myself to keep my eyes forward, to not watch the car as it rolled away.
It would only remind me that she was gone, and I didn’t want to think of her that way, didn’t want my last memory of her to be of her bruised face, of the tears that wet her cheeks.
No, as I approached my end, I wanted to remember our good times, those few precious moments we had shared, so sweet and so unexpected.
When I returned, Priest stood in a corner, whispering into his telephone.
“Very messy, Anton,” he said once he’d hung up. “Unlike you.”
“I had an off day,” I said.
“Something to do with her?”
“She’s not up for discussion, Priest,” I said.
He shrugged. “What do you want me to do with Christoph Junior? I can dispose of him.”
I shook my head. “His mother will want to bury him, and I won’t take that from her.”
“I’ll have him stored appropriately, then. And you, are you going to run?” he asked lightly, as if discussing the most mundane topic and not my fast-approaching demise.
“I don’t run, Priest. I’m going to deliver the news, then talk to the clan. What happens after that happens. But I don’t run.”
“Good luck,” he said, his expression softening ever so slightly into something that almost passed for sympathy.
I didn’t respond, my mind already moving ahead to yet another grim task.
Anton
The house was quiet, solemn when I reached it. And it was also filled to capacity, everyone having heard of Christoph Senior’s death.
The men nodded at me as I passed, but I kept my focus ahead, found Adela where I had left her.
I entered as quietly as I could, but she turned, lifted her eyes at me, and I watched as her face shattered.
“My son is gone, too,” she said, a statement and not a question.
“I’m sorry, Adela. It couldn’t be helped.”
“At least my husband didn’t live to see it. One son dead at the hand of another.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, not sure what else to say.
“It is as it was always going to be. I had hoped…” She shook her head. “But I knew. Knew that one day this would happen. I had hoped Christoph could live, but it seems the better man won, Anton.”
I stayed silent, not sure of what to say, and knowing that Adela wouldn’t accept anything that she perceived as pity.