Page 19 of Roque

“I’m coming, Little Red. I told you I would.” My words were whispers carried on the back of the wind as they traveled through the starry sky and hopefully landed a world a way to where she was.

I’m not in love.

Obsessed or pining.

She’d just become my talisman. My good luck piece; a part of me as much as all of my past.”

I close the journal to take a break, poured myself another drink, and stared out the windows.

“Shortly after we arrived in America we moved to Chicago. More Italians in Chicago. No one paid us any mind, after all the Italian no longer ran here. It was street gangs and crooked politicians that ruled. But not for long. We took college classes at a local community college at the same time I aced my GED. Constantine was a whore for Greek Mythology, Plato, and Aristotle. The Ancient Romans fascinated him. He made me learn Latin. My training was twenty hours a day of sheer hell. My own family paid the best tutors money could buy while I was still their prince. I had over a decade of the best teaching in every known subject matter known to man.

Getting accepted into Princeton was a cake walk. Especially when I paid my way in Aunt Becky style. No one asked questions about my missing year, my lack of formal education, or the fact I wasn’t a varsity NCAA athlete.

My IQ score stood on its own as well as my SAT.

I was a fucking deviant genius, the kind the world only sees every thousand years or so. I was primed to be the living legend I believed I was since birth.”

I stop my trip down memory lane to clear my throat.

Chloe snorts. “Well you definitely have the record for the biggest ego the world’s ever seen. Did you find her right away?”

“No. She found me.”

She burrows into the blanket with wide, excited eyes. “Please tell me she kicks your ass!”

“Open the next journal and find out…”

---