Chapter 292: The other twin is alive

The Don was silent for a long time. He looked at the cut wire in his hand. He looked at the empty drawer. He looked at his wife, who stood over him in a plain dark dress with a pocket full of bullets, and something strange and soft came over his face.

It was not anger. It was almost admiration. "Yes," he said. "You can." He let the cord fall.

"Clever. So clever. You always were." He shook his head slowly. "And I thought I was the one who was good at waiting."

"Konstantin."

"Okay." He let out a long breath and settled back against the pillows. "Okay, Helena. Since you are so clever. The first thing." His eyes found hers. They were tired and bright and very steady.

"Konstino is alive." Helena stared at him. For a heartbeat, nothing in the room moved. Then she laughed.

It was a short, hard sound, like a plate breaking. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and shook her head. It was a bad joke. It was the worst joke he had ever made. After twenty years, after all this, he would reach for the cruelest thing in the world and hold it out like a coin.

"Yes, my dear." He did not smile. "My twin brother is alive. Your beloved husband is alive."

The laughter stopped. "No." Her hand fell from her mouth. "No." It came out small and cracked. "No, no, no. I saw you shoot him." She took a step backward and put a hand on the wall.

"I saw him, Konstantin. On the floor. In our hall. He was not moving." Her voice rose and broke. "You killed him. You killed him, and I held his hand, and it went cold."

The Don only looked at her.

He did not say I am sorry. He did not say you are right. He lay quietly against the white pillows with his gray face turned to the light, and he let the silence do the work.

Outside the window, the cleaners went on sweeping the garden, one gray figure after another, and nobody looked up.

"Yes, I did," the Don said. "But he is alive."

Helena stood against the wall with her hand pressed to her chest. She did not seem to know she was doing it.

"You want to know how? Then I will tell you." He let his head fall back on the pillow. "When I saw you happy with my brother, I did not want to live. I mean that. I walked out of that wedding and I did not go home."

His eyes went to the ceiling.

"I joined a gang. The lowest kind. I took every job that might kill me. I stood in front of guns. I walked into rooms where men wanted me dead. And I would not die." A dry laugh. "Fate is cruel that way. Five years after your marriage, I became a mafia lord. I did not even want it. It just landed in my hands."

Helena said nothing. She was breathing in short, shallow pulls. "Then one night, my brother called."

"He said, Listen, Konstantin. I will give you everything you ever wanted." The Don’s voice had changed. It had gone low and flat, like a man reading from an old letter.

"The family fortune. All of it. You will be in charge until my daughter turns eighteen."

"Why would he do that?" Helena whispered.

"I asked him the same thing. He said, My heart is failing again. My body cannot take another surgery." The Don swallowed.

"He said, I am afraid to leave my five-year-old daughter and my wife alone with our kind of fortune. And I am afraid that once I am gone, you will take everything from them. So I am offering it to you first." He turned his head on the pillow.

"He knew me. That was the worst part. He knew exactly what I was, and he gave me the keys anyway, hoping I would be better than I was."

The room was very quiet.

"I sat down," he said. "I sat on the floor of my office, and I thought about it for a long time. I did not want him to give me anything. I have always fought for what I wanted. I did not know how to take a gift."

He closed his eyes.

"So I stormed into your house. I shot him. I thought it would be easy to make it a thing I took instead of a thing I was handed. And then, when he fell..." His voice shook for the first time. "I could not leave him there. He was my brother. He had my face."

"I took him. I carried him out myself, while you screamed." He opened his eyes. "My men had a surgeon waiting. The best in the country. I gave him a new heart."

Helena’s lips parted.

"Well. It is complicated. It is not a real heart. It is a machine." He lifted his good hand and tapped his own chest. "An artificial one. The same kind I wanted for Katalia. He is unconscious right now, in a quiet place, with a doctor who watches him night and day. But he is alive, Helena. He is very much alive."

He looked at her. "I can wake him up. Any time I want." Helena was crying.

She did not make a sound. The tears ran down her face and dripped from her chin onto the front of her dark dress. She did not wipe them away. She stood with her back against the wall and stared at the man on the bed, and her whole body shook.

She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to.

She also knew exactly what he was. He was a liar. He had lied to her for twenty years, to her face, with tears on his cheeks. He had cried on a runway. He had cried over a daughter he wanted for her blood.

"I do not believe you," she said hoarsely.

"Good."

"I do not believe a single word."

"Good. You should not." The Don did not look angry. "Give me my tablet. I will show you. There are pictures. There is a live feed." He lifted his hand and let it fall. "Give it to me and see."

Helena did not move.