Into the Lion's Den (85 page)
Read Into the Lion's Den Online
Authors: Tionne Rogers
“My love, this is a huge mistake.”
“Perhaps, but we are here now. Let's be together tonight, please.”
Guntram did his best to hide that he was taking one of his white pills when he was left alone with Milan in the suite. “Are you OK, Guntram? You don't have to keep your word to this scum,” the Serb said concerned because the youth looked very ashen and tired and they had not even started.
“I'm fine, Milan, let's just finish this, shall we?”
“All right, the Duke awaits for you in the established room. Repin will come in ten minutes. Remember we are next to you all the time, and back you. If he comes near you or tells something nasty, we enter.”
Both men took the elevator to the sixth floor and entered in the large suite where Konrad and Goran were standing already. None of them spoke as they all sat at the table, too focused in their own private hells.
Milan opened the door to let Constantin enter and he was alone. “I said a private meeting, Guntram,” he said, ignoring the other two men already looking like lions ready to jump.
“I'm here to oversee your behaviour, Repin. Guntram's health is frail at the moment,” Konrad retorted defiantly only willing to get an excuse to launch himself against his adversary.
“My next move will not be so courteous as before.”
“Nothing would please me more than a reason to unleash war upon you, Russian,” Konrad growled, but Guntram only placed his hand over his arm to calm him.
“Please, my Duke. Leave us alone. I'm certain Mr. Repin does not plan to harm me in any way.”
“Of course, Guntram. I only want to speak with you freely,” Constantin intoned seriously.
“Please, Konrad. Leave us alone,” Guntram whispered.
“If I see that you touch him or come near him, I'll kill you myself,” Konrad said in Russian and left the room.
Constantin waited for the Serb, still very reluctant to leave the youth alone in the same room with Repin, to close the door before sitting in front of his angel. Guntram looked very nervous, sad and sick, with his eyes glued to the polished table and his right hand absently drawing imaginary lines over the furniture. Carefully, Constantin took the hand and stopped the movement and caressed gently the small hand, hearing the boy gasp in shock.
“It's just me, Guntram. No need to be so nervous. I only want to speak with you. One last time.”
“Constantin, I swear I never wanted to hurt you. It just happened. I fell in love with Konrad in the summer and I still don't know how. I was very unhappy with you and he gave me the opportunity to start again. I would have hated you in the end and this way I still look at you with deep affection. You showed me the way and without you, I would have been very frustrated and never explored Art. I will always be very grateful to you and no one, not even Konrad could change this. It's just that I can't live with you any more. I don't love you, just appreciate you. This has to stop, my friend, before we hurt each other more.”
“Guntram, nothing is as you say or how Lintorff has made you believe.”
“He wants to share his children with me. The first thing I told you when I met you was that I wanted children. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I do. Children of your own and I was never opposed to it. You can have them if you want with me.
A wife would be hard for me to accept, but I would finally do it. Lintorff is offering HIS children to you, not yours.
They will never be blood of your blood. It's just a loan, like the many he does per day.”
“No! Konrad loves me!”
“Does he really love you or someone else?”
“He loves me, Constantin. I'm sure of it and I love him back.”
“Has he always been forthcoming to you?”
“Yes, but he had nothing to do with my family's death.”
“I wouldn't be so certain, Guntram. Is this room clean?”
“I don't know, I suppose.”
Constantin sighed and mumbled a: “Of course not,” before he took a simple white envelope from his coat. “Don't say a word while you look at the pictures, Guntram,” he whispered as he set it over the table and the boy took it with shaky hands. “Lintorff never loved you by yourself but for another person who passed away on December 14th of 2005, in Madrid. He was cremated in January because no one claimed his body and his ashes were scattered in the general cinerary as a homeless person. There's not even a plate to remember him. The person who died along with him was luckier. His family claimed the body and Trevor Jones is back in the United States.”
“Who was he?”
“Look at the pictures.”
Guntram took out several colour photos where was a very young Konrad with a man looking very similar to him. In several of them, they were holding each other and in one, sharing a kiss. 'This person looks very much to my uncle Roger.' He turned them around and read the dates ranging from 1982 to 1988, most of them taken in Paris or Rome. He left the photos aside, already sickened and feeling very afraid. 'It's just a coincidence, Konrad told me he loved someone who looked very similar to me.'
“Read the letters if you want. Your family gave them to me. All belong to Lintorff.”
On the brink of tears, he took one of the neatly folded papers and opened it, doing his best to calm himself down and fight the nausea, but it was useless. He had to read the header several times to understand the words.
Paris, July 15th 1985
My adored Roger,
I was forced to leave you this morning as I have to be in Tokyo tonight the latest. You're so beautiful
when you sleep that I can't stop looking at you making me forget how cruel you are to me. If you were just a little
more kind to me and didn't fight me all the time, we could be so happy together. Understand that we both have a
position and obligations to fulfill. I can't grant your desires. I love you with all my heart and I wish you were truly my
kitten, but you're not. You demand from me what I can't give. Alas, I love you and you're like a drug that will finally
destroy me. If you would be just less demanding and selfish, I would let you be my Consort, but we never change our
natures; a seat for your father should be sufficient for your family. Don't be mad at me and punish me for my decision.
I will always love you.
Konrad
“That's the first name he called me; kitten,” Guntram whispered slowly and almost inaudibly. “Where is my uncle?”
“I've told you. In Tres Cantos, Madrid. He and Trevor Jones, from the Independent Times, were executed in the tunnel that crosses the mountains. Car accident. The other journalist, Linda Harris, she tried to contact you last Christmas, was shot in London four weeks ago. They discovered her among the guest list in that party when someone almost poisoned you and accused her of doing it.”
“This is not true!”
“No, Guntram. Your uncle and Lintorff were lovers for seven years. Roger rose against him along with your whole family and lost. Most of them are dead now. Only his wife and daughter had been spared, but live in horrible need.”
Guntram rose from the table and gathered all the papers automatically, without removing his eyes from Constantin's dark ones. “Come home with me, angel. He deceived and used you. I will let you have a baby, if you want one so badly. Come with me and meet your own family.”
“No,” Guntram answered with a raspy voice, looking desperately for the door. His head felt heavy and the room seemed to rock him like a boat, but it didn't prevent him from reaching the door. He jerked it open and saw Konrad standing there with Goran at his side.
“Are you all right, little brother?” Goran asked feeling the deep anguish and terror that poured out of the boy toward the Duke.
Guntram only looked Konrad in the eyes and threw the papers at his feet. “You're a disgusting creep!”
He howled, hurt like a child with such deep pain colouring his voice, one like Konrad would never forget in his all life. “You loved my uncle and fucked me out of spite!”
“No, it was never like this!” Konrad shouted outraged. “I love you like I never loved him!”
The cry of pain was like the howl of a dying animal and Guntram would have collapsed on the ground had not Constantin held him from the waist, steadying him. “Come home now, angel.”
“No,” Guntram whispered and pushed him away to move to a corner of the room. “I hate you, Lintorff!”
“This is all your fault!” Konrad shouted and jumped on the Russian, ready to kill him once and for all, without caring that Goran had tried to stop him because the place and the audience were not the appropriate.
While the three men were fighting like ferocious beasts, Guntram only looked at them, incredulous at what was transpiring. Still breathing raggedly, he removed the seal from his left hand and left it on the table and opened the corridor door, locked from the inside. He was almost crushed by Heindrik and the Russians waiting outside in their mad run to reach their leaders. No one cared about him any longer as the fight was what all in their minds.
Guntram walked down the corridors like a zombie and took the elevator down. He didn't know what to do, but he needed to leave the place and everything behind. Milan stopped him in the middle of the lobby and asked what had happened, but he only said: “they're fighting upstairs with all the Russians. This is too much for me,” Milan just pushed him aside and dashed to the suite.
Alone in the middle of the luxurious place, surrounded by gigantic ferns, marbles, carpets and chandeliers, Guntram never felt so alone in his life or displaced. His only wish was to leave the place and escape from this madness and that his dreams and life had been crushed in an instant.
He walked toward the door and the doorman opened it for him, bowing his head, surprised that the guest had noticed him and briefly and sadly cracked at smile at him. The man looked how the young man descended the stairs toward the street and stopped in the middle of it, looking around, disoriented and lost till a grey Opel Corsa parked brutally in front of him in the reserved space for passengers and a man opened the window door from the car and only shouted “Guntram, jump in!”
The boy's back went rigid but he went to the car and entered in the backside when the door opened by itself.
All of them stopped and looked at him with ferocious murder in their eyes. He put his gun down and sneered. “Gentlemen, none of us want the cops and much less the press! It's bad for the business!”
“Mihailovic is right,” Goran said and released one Russian, making a great effort to control himself, 'I almost had him' “Please, my Duke, there will be another chance.” He took his knife out of his pocket, but rose and went to one of the corners. Heindrik and Oskar were not so willing to leave their prey, but the Russians loosened their holds on them and moved away as one sharp look from Goran was enough to convince them.
The last one to release his hold was Konrad and he got a strong final punch from Constantin before he moved aside.
“Great,” Milan mumbled nervously, while both leaders were still looking exchanging murderous looks.
“Gentlemen, this is not the place. We can finish this discreetly somewhere else.”
“You're a piece of shit, Repin. I'll take my time to finish you,” Konrad swore.
“You're a pervert that ruined my angel. You killed him.”
“Not I, it was you, tattletale! Scandalmonger! You don't even follow the most basic rule!”
“Incestuous bastard! I'm going to take him back to where he belongs. He hates you now.”
“Yes, he hates me. That's a hundred times better than only being friends. Guntram feels something for me while for you he feels nothing at all! He would have never loved a filthy rat that can't keep his mouth shut!”
“You will never have him! He's mine and you stole him!”
“I stole nothing! He's not yours but mine!” Konrad roared, ready to resume the fight, but Goran restrained him before he could launch himself against Constantin once more.
“STOP! Where is Guntram?” Goran roared.
“He's down, in the lobby,” Milan said, realising his mistake. “Shit! I left him alone!”
“He must be with Massaiev on his way to the airport,” Constantin gloated much to Konrad's horror.
“Living off your relatives. They paid two weeks of holidays in Paris for me and my wife. Carla sends greetings and a new sweater. It's in the trunk,” Chano answered, smiling broadly over the rear view mirror. “You don't look very well, Guti.”
“Do you need to take your pills, Guntram?” Nicholas asked with real concern. “Jerôme will kill me if something happens to you.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” The boy shouted, without caring about the lawyer.
“Saving your ass, it seems,” Chano shrugged, focusing again in the driving because he had changed lanes without warning and another car had blown the horn, against all traffic regulations. “How can you be so dumb as to date two mobsters? Didn't I teach you better? I should spank your bottom for not telling me that you were going to London with a gangster! What the fuck were you thinking?”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Someone told us, Guntram. You know him very well. We needed Repin to get you out of the Order,”
Nicholas said softly and offering a bottle of water to Guntram, who rejected it with the head. “Chano will drive us to the train station and you will leave for Munich with this person. It's the only way to get rid of Repin and Lintorff at the same time.”