Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
He took a deep breath before he began. “It’s bad, Con.”
“What?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You haven’t watched the news?”
“Nope.” I never turned it on and had disabled notifications on my phone. I’d buried my head in the Mediterranean sand, focused on my woman and impending fatherhood.
“Well, it’s bad.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
Irritation flashed across his eyes. “This isn’t a joke.”
“Did I laugh?” I snapped. “Whatever state Rome is in is not my responsibility.”
“You’re the emperor—”
“Not anymore.” I felt no obligation to the place I used to call home. Home was now a person and not a place.
“Then let me enlighten you as to the changes Darius has made.” He straightened in the chair, moved to the edge of his seat. “He’s reinstated the black market for organs and expanded its distribution. Not only is he trafficking people for resources, but he’s also selling them as a product to third parties. The number of missing persons reports has skyrocketed—and it’s mainly women, but even children. All the graffiti you removed? It’s back and worse than ever before. You should see what they’ve written, Constantine. Death to the Emperor, Flames to the Empire. It’s everywhere. All the criminal organizations rejoice in your exile as they flood the streets with drugs, terror, and crime.”
I kept a straight face as I listened to my worst nightmare. But inside, I felt my heart be crushed under an invisible weight. I felt a wave of guilt and nausea . . . and shame. Under my rulership, the Roman Empire flourished in every way imaginable, and now it was just rubble.
“And it’s only been six weeks,” Crow continued. “Darius is egregiously violating the laws of the EU and selling weapons to enemies as well as allies, with absolutely no discretion or loyalty. Putting guns into the hands of people who want to burn us to the ground. Pope Zephyrinus has tried to speak with him, but Darius refuses a conversation. Vatican City and the papacy seem to be the only things that Darius respects, because he’s left both untouched.”
“Because the only man he fears is God.”
Crow stared at me hard, eyes dark like mine, full of irritation and hostility. “Constantine.”
“I’m sorry to hear all of this. Truly, I am. But I’m not the emperor anymore.”
“As long as you live, you’re the emperor.”
“No.”
“You came to the council at the Pantheon and convinced us to give you this power. Promised to protect the Republic and the empire. Vowed to give your life for the Eternal City and its people—”
“Yes, I remember all of this.”
“Then honor your vows.”
“You know I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“You wasted your time coming here, Crow,” I said simply. “I’ve made my choice, and that decision can’t be changed. I may have been the emperor, but many men also served me. You still have Rocco and those men who were loyal to the empire. This is their problem now—not mine.”
“Rocco was not the emperor, so men are not as loyal to him as they were to you. When you fled, everyone else did the same. They stopped believing in the empire the moment you did. Everything has come crashing down in an avalanche of stone. Rocco continues to fight alongside those who remain, but we’re greatly outnumbered. Only the return of the emperor will give people hope again.”
“The day I came to the Pantheon, I told you we needed to remove Darius from power. Did I not?”
He sat back in the chair and crossed his legs.
“And you told me it would be foolish to start a war.”
He stared.
“We both know you remember that. And you chose momentary peace over the discomfort of war. You chose to ignore the problem, despite its exponential growth with every passing year. All of this has happened because you were too much of a coward to take the first swing when we had the chance. Don’t blame the fall of the Roman Empire on me when you’re just as responsible for its destruction. Don’t call me a coward for choosing exile when you were a coward long before I was. Don’t give me a history lesson when you omit the facts from your lecture.”
Crow said nothing as he stared me down like his enemy instead of his former ally.
“It kills me to hear all this, but my place is here in Taormina. My woman is pregnant with our first child, and there’s no way in hell that I would risk either of them by returning to Rome. I sacrificed the empire for her life, so you’d be foolish to think I would risk her life by trying to save it.”
“Perhaps she would feel differently if she knew what had become of her home.”
“Wouldn’t make a difference. She could beg me to go, and I wouldn’t even get out of this chair. We both know what Darius is capable of. He wouldn’t fight me head on but go around me to her like he has before. He would grab her by the neck and choke her while he cut my child out of her belly. This time, my pleas wouldn’t stop him, because he let me go once, but he wouldn’t let me go again. So there’s no fucking way I would ever go back. Call me a coward and an asshole and whatever else you want, but I won’t change my mind.”