My first instinct was to push. I’d accepted his status, his eventual role as my leader, but his name didn’t earn him my respect, especially not when I knew him and his weaknesses so well. Not when I knew that, but for a name, I could easily be sitting where he sat. I started to say as much, but I thought of Christoph Senior, of the promise I had made to him, and held my tongue.
“Whatever you think is best,” I said.
The words were utterly unconvincing in every way, but Christoph Junior nodded, appeared satisfied.
“Good. And this is just the first step,” he said. “It’s time for Clan Constantin to move into the future. And I’m going to take us there.”
The worry that had been brewing in the back of my mind churned to full speed. I could see now why Christoph had given me this task. Junior was not off to a great start, and if he handled Clan Constantin like this, he wouldn’t last the year. So it was up to me to see that he made it, though I knew Christoph Junior would test me every step of the way.
“That nurse. Do you know her?” I asked, deciding to shift to what I hoped would be a safer topic.
“Yes. Mother wanted to hire someone, so I found her.”
“Did you check her out?”
Christoph Junior looked insulted. “You think I’d let a stranger into our home, around my mother, my sick father, without checking her out? Do you think you’re the only one with any brains, Anton?”
His eyes glittered, his cheeks puffed out the way they had when we were children and he hadn’t gotten his way. But we weren’t children anymore, and this was a very dangerous game.
“I’m sure you did,” I said. “But no one mentioned her to me, so it was surprising when I found her there.”
“Did she do something to trouble you?”
I thought back to how she’d been with Christoph, how easily she’d handled him, how she hadn’t even blinked an eye when I’d touched her. Outsiders were seldom allowed into our world, and those who were were never given free rein, and I could sense their fear, the tension that came with being around ones like us.
But the woman had shown none of it, had acted as though she was taking care of any regular patient, that I was just an average concerned friend or associate, when, after one look at me, it was obvious I wasn’t. There was nothing I did intentionally, and in fact, I made it a point to dress well, always appear presentable—something else I had learned from Christoph Senior—but clothes, no matter how well tailored, couldn’t hide my build or the tattoos that peeked from underneath them.
People always, always reacted when they saw them. Fear, curiosity, admiration. Something.
But she’d shown nothing.
Suspicion pricked at my brain, made me wonder.
“Did she do something wrong?” Christoph asked, sounding impatient.
“No. She did a very good job, in fact. But you don’t find it strange?”
“Find what strange?”
“She seems pretty cool, pretty smooth,” I said.
“Money has a calming effect on people. And trust me when I say she’s being very well compensated. If she gets out of line, I’ll have you handle her. Now we have a business to attend to,” he said.
The irony of the statement was not lost on me. Funny how when it suited him, we had a business to attend to.
But he was right.
We did have a business to attend to, and I had a nurse to investigate.
Four
Lily
“Sleep well, Mr. Constantin,” I said as I smoothed the covers over the old man’s chest.
“Thank you, Lily,” he replied, voice slightly slurred, soft from the morphine I had only just convinced him to take.
Before I’d closed the door, he was drifting, wrinkled face slack, eyes almost completely closed. He reminded me of so many others I had cared for, close to his end but still fighting. An errant flare of admiration sparked before I stifled it completely.
He was a monster, a killer, had had a hand in destroying my world. I wanted to destroy him. There could be no sympathy for him.
For any of them.
I walked as quietly as I could down the hallway and found Adela Constantin in the living room, and another flare, this one of pity, sparked before it too was snuffed.
I felt for Adela, could see the sadness that she tried to hide and understood all too well how painful it was for her to watch her husband fade day by day. But no matter how much I understood, there could be no sympathy, no mercy for her either. She was as culpable as the rest, if not an active participant, then a beneficiary, more than deserving of her pain and my wrath.
“He’s resting?” she asked when she glanced up at me, her expression pained.