Page 73 of Possession

But …

I want to give Lucas a life, a good life. I want to give him more days like today, and I can only do that as a Constantine.

I nod him toward the back seat. He doesn’t look happy, but he gets in. The life I can provide for him will mean us not being together at every moment. I hate it, but that’s reality.

I close the door and start walking away because it’s easier than watching him leave me as they drive off. Besides, I can tell that Lucas’s eyes are following me. He knows I’m on edge.

That’s why I want to walk. I’m hoping the movement and a solid fifteen minutes of not interacting with people will help.

It doesn’t.

Not at all.

Ihadbeen doing better with the sensory chaos of the city—cars, lights, buildings, people on the sidewalks—but I can’t get out of my hypervigilant mode. By the time I reach the club, I’m even more tightly wound.

Sasha opens the door for me, and I step into the club with relief. It isn’t open yet, so it’s dim and quiet. We’re meeting early because of me. Last time I was here, with all the noise and lights and people, something happened in my head. It was kind of like déjà vu, but I somehow disconnected. I walked out into the street like I was sleepwalking.

Vitali caught up with me and grabbed my shirt, yanking me back onto the sidewalk and out of the path of an oncoming car. Normally, being grabbed like that would’ve triggered me to attack him, but I was in such a weird headspace that I just stared at him. I couldn’t even hear him talking to me.

I have absolutely no idea what happened.

This is the first time I’ve been in the club since that incident. As I approach the bar, where Vitali is pouring whiskey, the way my brother looks at me tells me he’s thinking about it too.

But we certainly won’t be discussing it in front of our uncle, who’s sitting at the bar with a glass of undoubtedly Greek wine.I’ve never been sure if Vitali hates Anton as much as I do, but he certainly has equal cause. The strain, however, predates either of us.

According to Vitali, Anton and our father never got along. As a kid, I wasn’t really aware of it, but Vitali was because he was the one being groomed to take our father’s place. He ended up having to do that far earlier than anyone could ever have expected, so it was good, I guess, that our father rode him so hard about learning the business. At seventeen, Vitali became head of our branch of the family.

No one but Vitali, at that age, could have held his own against our uncle. He was prepared—and had no delusions about Anton. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t surprised that our uncle blamed our father for the car wreck that killed him and our mother, plus Anton’s wife and son. I do get that Anton was grieving too, but I will never forgive him for slapping Vitali in the face at the funeral and telling him that it was for our father’s sin.

I think that was the first time I lost my shit. The whole thing is a blur, but I do remember that when Anton’s men took me down, pinning me to the ground, Vitali put a gun to one of their heads and made them get off me.

I’ve hated Anton since that day. Even four years ago, Vitali was ten times the man Anton ever was, and the imbalance is even more obvious now.

Anton is too old fashioned, wanting to run shit like it’s still the 1980s. Without Vitali, the whole Constantine operation would collapse.

I’m sure that’s why he’s at a family meeting with one of his goons right beside him—so he can look like the big man.

Or maybe it’s because of me, because he knows that I hate him and he knows that, with me back, he’s outnumbered again. Of course, there’s also the fact that he saw what I did to Liam Crowley.

There was a time in my life when I would’ve made some sneering comment about him not leaving his muscle at the door, but I don’t think that part of me will be coming back. I don’t waste words anymore.

“You want anything?” Vitali asks as I take a seat, leaving one empty between me and Anton.

Ever since Lucas and I escaped, I’ve felt no impulse to drink, but I used to drink a lot. That remembrance comes back to me now like so many things keep coming back to me.

It’s fucking exhausting to have the past intruding all the time, having to weigh it against the present, having to decide, again and again, which one I really am. I hate it so much, but my brain won’t stop doing it.

Right now, with my nerves so fucking shot, I don’t know how to decide, so I just freeze at Vitali’s question.

Vitali stills slightly. He’s not intuitive like Lucas, but he’s been paying such close attention to me that he clearly notices I’m kind of off right now.

God, I just want to go home. I want to be with Lucas. I’m tired. I don’t feel good.

Vitali doesn’t press me for an answer. He just grabs another glass. A cufflink glints on the sleeve of his white shirt as he pours. Even with the tattoos peeking out from his cuffs and collar, he looks sharp. In control.

I was never like that, even before.

As Vitali slides the glass to me, my hand curls automatically around it in a way that’s both familiar and foreign. More of the déjà vu that I can’t seem to escape. My eyes flick to my uncle.

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