Page 107 of Decimation

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” His eyes find mine, and they are too bright. Too knowing. “She was fucking us both. You and me. At the same time. For months. She could have gotten pregnant by either of us. She could have been carrying your child and passed it off as mine. She was capable of that, she was capable of anything.”

I grit my teeth, trying to keep the disgust from showing on my face, but I note the tone, the change, the way he actually holds a hint of disdain for her instead of that usual insipid awe.

“Ezra has to die,” Konstantine mutters, almost to himself.

The words hit me and I freeze, my glass halfway to my lips. “What did you say?”

“Ezra. He knows. He saw it. I know he did. And sooner or later, he’s going to blab. He’s going to tell someone. He’s going to bring everything crashing down. He has to die. It’s the only way.”

“What truth does he know, Konstantine?”

He stares at me, but he’s not seeing me. He’s seeing something else, something that isn’t in this room. His eyes are glassy and distant, and his mouth is moving but no words are coming out.

“What truth?” I press, leaning forward. “What truth does Ezra know?”

He blinks. Once. Twice. His head lolls to the side, and the glass slips from his fingers and thuds onto the carpet. The whiskey pools on the floor like blood from a wound.

“Too much,” he mumbles. “He’s seen too much. They’ve all seen too much. Can’t let them remember. Can’t let them tell. Have to make it stop. Have to make it all stop.”

“Konstantine.” I say his name sharply, but it’s too late. His eyes have closed. His breathing has evened out into the slow, heavy rhythm of unconsciousness. Whatever truth he was about to reveal has slipped back into the darkness where it lives.

I sit there for a long time, watching him sleep. Watching his chest rise and fall. Watching his face twitch with dreams I will never see. He looks younger like this. Softer. He looks like the brother I used to know, before the crown, before the blood, before the slow descent into whatever fucked up thing he has become.

I know the men are already in place. The plan is already in motion. There is nothing I can do to stop it now, even if I wanted to. And the terrible thing is, I don’t want to. That’s the part that will keep me awake at night. Not the guilt. Not the remorse but the sick, quiet relief that comes with knowing it will finally all be over.

Konstantine mutters something in his sleep. A name, maybe, or a prayer. It’s hard to tell the difference anymore.

I stand up. I walk to the window and look out at the grounds below, silver and black in the moonlight. Somewhere out there, Antonio is waiting.

I turn back to my brother. He hasn’t moved. He looks so small in that chair. So broken and pathetic.

“Goodbye, Konstantine,” I say quietly.

He doesn’t answer. He won’t answer.

By this time tomorrow, he will never answer anyone ever again.

I walk out of the room, closing the door softly behind me, leaving my brother alone with his dreams and his ghosts and the few remaining hours of his pathetic excuse for an existence.

The crack of gunshots rips me from sleep, a sharp, splintering sound that tears through the silence like a knife through silk. For a heartbeat I lie frozen, tangled in sweat-damp sheets, my mind scrambling to piece together the noise.

Not a dream.

Not thunder.

Gunshots.

They echo through the mansion’s bones, distant and then closer, like a staccato rhythm punctuated by shouts and the crash of furniture.

I roll out of bed with my bare feet hitting the cold floor. The darkness is thick, broken only by the pale sliver of moonlight slicing through a gap in the thick curtains. Somewhere in the house, men are fighting.

He’s here. I know he is. I know that’s what this is.

He’s found me.

I grab the thin robe from the foot of the bed and throw it over my nightgown, fumbling to do the tie because my fingers are clumsy with terror. The sounds are growing louder, a crescendo of violence that seems to be swallowing the entire mansion. I slip out of the bedroom and into the hallway, pressing my spine against the wall, feeling the chilled plaster seep through my clothes. Smoke hits me, curling under the door at the far end of the corridor.