Into the Lion's Den (99 page)

“What the hell do you want from me, now? That I leave you alone so you can fuck all what you want with Lintorff? Is that it, Guntram?” Constantin shouted on the edge of his nerves and left all his strategies behind.

“I don't know if I'm returning with Konrad, Constantin. You can be sure you destroyed that. I don't think we can be lovers again,” Guntram admitted very slowly.

“He was in bed with your uncle! Not I!” the Russian roared. “I only told you the truth! I can't understand why you don't love me! I, who did all what I could for you, but you fuck with the man who killed your family and fucked with your own uncle! He took you just because you looked like him and were already tamed! A nice looking doll!” Constantin roared once more, letting all the fury and tension accumulated over the past months flow freely.

Guntram closed the eyes and felt the anger and impotence tears ran across his cheeks but he made no sound as Constantin continued to insult him. 'The worst part is that he's right.'

“You were a sweet and lovable child and Lintorff turned you into his whore! That's what you're! His zombie whore! How can you let him touch you? Don't you have any kind of pride? You're nothing than a replacement for him!”

“As I was a plaything for you,” Guntram said very softly, interrupting the tirade. “I love him Constantin.

I'm sure of it. I love him like I never loved you. I forgave his lies because I do.”

“You're insane!”

“What do you want from me, Constantin? Vendetta for leaving you? That I return to you? What would be different? Nothing. You would be always on the edge thinking that I was with Konrad or that I can return to him. Do you want that I paint for you? Tell me, because I don't know any longer.”

“Come home.”

“No, why would I do it? We both would be unhappy because the Guntram you know is dead.”

“What do you want from me? You know my terms.”

“Your terms? Are we discussing a treaty?” Guntram smirked and Constantin's anger increased once more at the mock. “I was sincere when I offered you my friendship, but the best would be a clear cut for us. You don't understand this is over.”

“Friendship? What kind of friendship can have two people who shared their lives? Guntram, you're very wrong if you think I will settle for this.”

“It will not be a conventional one, I admit. Why do you still love me if you say that I'm a crazy whore?”

“Don't speak about yourself like that! You're my angel!” Constantin shouted.

“I was never an angel. I'm a man like you are. I guess you idealised me and now don't want to let your dream go. It was also hard for me to let go of you, but I did. You have to do the same for your own sake. I fear for you, my friend.”

“Don't lie to me! You care nothing about me!” Constantin could see the game in the young man's words.

Exactly as he had done it countless times. 'He learned that from me.'

“You're wrong. I still care about you and I'm concerned about you. Konrad is after your throat this time.

Before you were only competition for him, now you're an enemy. He has much more than you, Constantin, and he will use it against you. His people are ferocious like your own,” Guntram said, sensing that his former lover was more relaxed after shouting with him. “I don't know if I'm going to live with him again. I'm only meeting the babies. That's all,” Guntram confessed.

“I know.”

“When I saw you in Vienna I only wanted to offer you my friendship because I miss you,” Guntram said but corrected himself quickly. “Not in that way. I miss our talks, your advice and how you didn't judge or criticize me.”

“That was because you were perfect for me. In every detail.”

“But I'm not any longer.”

“That's right. He ruined you. You're now cold, bitter and calculating. Before you were kind and generous to everyone.”

Guntram wanted to shout against it, but he preferred to leave the other win the battle. “Yes, that's true.

I'm not the same, but I still would like that we are friends again, as we were in the past.”

“Now is when you make your offer?” Constantin huffed.

“I make no offers, Constantin. I just want that we see each other at some point, in Zurich. At my father's house or somewhere else,” Guntram said stiffly and started to lose his patience with the stubborn man.

“Don't you need Lintorff's permission first?” Constantin sneered, unable to believe that now his angel started to negotiate with him exactly as his father used to do. 'First he shows the whip and now he reassures me and offers a second rate deal to force me to lower my expectations.'

“I don't need Konrad's permission. In fact, I need no one's permission to choose my friends,” Guntram said in a voice that Constantin had never heard before and it sent shivers through his spine.

'In a way, he looks much more to his father than I ever noticed. Perhaps it's true the story that he nearly killed the young Lintorff for insulting him. He can shoot very well and survived Stephanov. He's not the person I thought, not at all. He's sick, not weak.' The Russian coughed lightly before he spoke: “Write to me when you're settled and we will see, Guntram.”

“All right,” Guntram wanted to say, but Constantin had hung up the phone without any more considerations.

The Russian stood from his chair and sighed, terribly tired, more tired than ever, drained from all his strength. 'Lintorff has it harder than I do,' Constantin pondered while he poured some vodka in a glass. 'No sex, no sweet obedient dove, babies crying out loud and shitting everywhere and Lacroix as father in law! Guntram will do as he pleases and the minute he has enough of the German, he moves with papa and his Hutu, Tutsi or whatever they're, now living in the midst of the Order's territory!”

He chortled softly, considering the irony of life and finished his drink. 'The intelligence reports on those mercenaries are impressive. I wonder if Lacroix would let me use one of them as liaison officer for Somalia. Lots of customers there and I need some business diversification. The Americans are pressing too much in Central Asia and my margins have dropped by sixteen percent I have to rebuild what was lost. At least, the German cleaned up my backyard and saved me the costs of a divorce.' His eyes wandered across the room and fixed on his children's painting once more and he noticed something for the first time in more than a year. 'The stamens of Sofia's flower are badly drawn. I wonder why Guntram did it. Normally, he's more accurate. I'll ask him next time I see him. It's not urgent. In fact, it has no importance at all.'

'Why did I ever think that Guntram was a sweet child? Those misperceptions may cost me my head!'

Guntram was shocked. Had Constantin really hung up on him? It certainly looked as such. He turned off the mobile phone and checked his watch: 4 a.m. 'Maybe I can sleep a few hours now. Tomorrow, Konrad will explode the minute I tell him about Constantin, but he has to learn that he can't control me. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of all of them, including my father.' He switched off his bedside light and turned around in bed. 'Drawing portraits in a square couldn't be that bad.'
'I can't believe she's still around,' a very tired Friederich thought when he sat in the ample and comfortable leather seat in the Dassault. 'Never in more than forty years of working for the Lintorffs, had I had to suffer such a woman! Who said that Muslim women were submitted to their husbands? That's a blatant lie! Was she not going back to Brussels? No way she stays in the Castle. This is where I draw the line.'

Fairuza threw a boisterous look at the old Austrian, still looking at her with his superior air. 'Just because he's the boss, it doesn't mean he can treat me like that. All of the servants in that house treated the dog better than me.

How can Mr. Lacroix let Guntram live with them?'

“Fairuza, once we land in Zurich, you can take the flight to Brussels. Charles will be waiting for you in the airport to drive you home. Take the rest of the week off,” Michel said and she only looked at him furious, but the man returned a cold stare to her, suffocating the protest before it started.

'Was it so easy?' Friederich thought. 'It can't be. We did all in our hands to get rid of her!'

'Well, my father knows when to stop. Konrad would have killed him if Fairuza was setting a foot in his home.' “Friederich, do you think I could use my former bedroom?” Guntram asked very softly to the man sitting next to him while his father and his housekeeper had started a quarrel in French in hushed tones.

“Certainly, my child. It will be ready when we arrive. Antonov will be staying in the other one. Should I send your dog there, too?”

“If it's not too much to ask.”

“No, it's no problem at all. Dieter will see to it.”

“Don't think badly of me because of this. I've been thinking a lot and I still need time.”

“His Excellency will understand. He's glad that you return to help him with the young princes.”

“I'm not sure if I can return to what we had, please understand me.”

“I always feared that this would hurt you very much. I did my best to keep the Duke away from you, but he was in love with you and he still is. He will accept your timing, Guntram. Once, he told me that he would be blessed for the rest of his life if he were to live only a month with you.” Friederich took the youth's hand and squeezed it briefly. “You have been very good and noble to him. You have always treated him with honesty and honoured your promises. He can't ask anything more from you. He has to wait till you accept him back or not and he knows it.”

“I still love him, but I don't know if I could, you know.”

“It has to come from your heart. It can't be forced nor rushed. It will come in its due time.”

“What if it doesn't come? What should I do?”

“This is something to discuss between you two, my child. Alone. You should always be forthcoming to him, no matter how hard is the truth. He trusts you with his life and I know he's deeply ashamed of deceiving you.”

“Thank you, Friederich. You have always been very kind to me.”

“I only want the best for you both as you both deserve a chance to be happy together.”

“The only thing I ask from you today is to be quiet. Just for an hour, exactly as you're now. We don't want to frighten your tutor in his first ten minutes in this house. You already got rid of the nurses,” Konrad said to his sleeping eldest son with a gentle voice. “Do this for me, and I'll name you my successor,” He caressed the baby's face with care and smiled proud of his son but still nervous about his well-known temper. 'Not even two months old and a well defined personality. We will fight a lot during his teenage years. Karl is sweeter. It would be better if Guntram sees him first.'

He kissed his babies on their foreheads and left the nursery to be replaced by one of the three nurses, standing at the door.

“Is everything to his Excellency's liking?”

“Very well, Ms. Ehle. I will return at twelve with some visitors.”

“As you wish, sir,” the woman bowed her head to her employer and sighed when he was away. The Duke was the most demanding, authoritative employer she had ever had and almost like a rock when it came to his own children. While most parents did at least the effort to carry their own babies or at least give them a bottle, this one only glanced disapprovingly at the nurses and expected they to fulfill the babies' needs. 'Certainly, this one will never change a diaper or warm a bottle. Poor children with the father they have! I hope the new tutor accepts to stay so we don't have to deal with the Duke any longer!'

The chief butler was a mess. Should he from the servants or not? When Mr. Elsässer was coming to the house, he normally made an inspection in the kitchen, and he could find up to the slightest wrong thing. It was mandatory to do so when the Duke was returning from a trip, but for the boyfriend? In theory, Mr. de Lisle's rank was exactly as his Excellency's, but they had quarrelled in March and the young man had left him the same day. Only in June, he had accepted to return, but obviously they were not a couple any longer as he was going to sleep in his former bedroom. Should he ask the Duke? Probably not as he had returned in a very bad mood from the States with his children. That the eldest one had been screaming most of the journey—according to the two nurses, unable to calm him down despite their efforts—could be the source of his bad temper this morning.

“Mr. Antonov?” Dieter asked to the bodyguard reading some reports in the old Guards Hall, “I wonder if you could help me with some questions regarding Mr. de Lisle.”

“What is it?”

“It's about today. As you know, Mr. Elsässer told me to move his dog and belongings to his former room and I wondered what to do.”

“Easy, gather everything and put it back there,” Alexei said. “It's is not my job.”

“Regarding his arrival today. Should I form the servants or not?”

“Good question,” Alexei mumbled.

“The Duke is in his private studio and does not want to be disturbed at all and Mr. Elsässer's mobile is still off.”

“Form the staff at the entrance, we have not been informed of any changes in his status,” Alexei decided.

'If the Duke gets furious, I can always tell that he's the Griffin's Consort, besides, Goran would kill me if any of the men show any disrespect toward Guntram. He's so sensitive. Why does Guntram bring a lawyer along?'

The first one to jump out of the car was Mopsi, glad to be back home, after recovering her master. She dashed toward the main door and nearly collided against the tall blond Alpha in charge of the pack, but the man ignored her as it was his use. As usual, she growled at him softly and continued to the kitchen to check that everything was in its place.

Konrad had heard the cars parking outside in front of the entrance and stood up to receive Guntram. He was so nervous, but he forced himself to remain calm, repeating for the tenth time that his kitten had agreed to see the children and wanted to help with their education. 'If he accepts them, he will accept me back at some point. That he doesn't want to sleep with me is understandable and expected. He kissed me twice already!'