Read To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) for Free Online Page A

because your proble ms always become my problems.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “You know what it means, Jacob.  Everything you’ve done since I’ve met you has affected my life in one way or another, and you know what, some of it ain’t good.”
    I stared at him, the frustration dripping from his tone paining me more than I thought it could.  He was my best bud, after all.  We’d had our share of disagreements and arguments over the years, sure, but he’d never said anything quite so personal before.  Different perspectives and ideas on how to run an op, definitely, but never something with so much disguised meaning behind it.  But it was more about what he had left unsaid that was the most upsetting, the implied lack of faith in the decisions I’ve made and frustration at the actions I’ve done.
    Santino, Helena and I had grown so close over the first few years of our joint friendship that it seemed so insane to me now that , suddenly, I was losing them both.
    I turned and pressed my back against the bars.  I stood there a while before smacking the back of my head against them once, and then twice.
    “What’s wrong with me, John?  How did I lose Helena?  How am I possibly losing you?”
    Santino pushed himself off the bars and walked towards the center of the room.  “Hey, don’t go all weepy-eyed on my, Jacob.  You know you can’t get rid of me that easy.  Helena, on the other hand, well, she is a woman, and they do things in mysterious ways and all that, so I can’t really be much help there.  That said, you do have a way of pushing all your personal shit on others, whether you know it or not.”
    “How so?”
    Santino took a step forward to answer, but the sound of his boots clinking against the stone floor jarred the sleeping girl awake.  She bolted to a sitting position, her eyes terrified at the mere sight of us.  Neither Santino nor I knew how to react, but we were lucky enough that we didn’t have to when recognition finally spread across her face.  As soon as the realization took full effect, she slumped against the wall again and was out cold.
    Santino tiptoed his way back to the gate, an effortless endeavor for a man whose sole purpose in life was to remain as much like a ghost as a man could without actually being dead.
    He lowered his voice to a whisper.  “ Who planned this operation?”
    “We did,” I answered.
    He didn’t say anything.  All he did was continue to look passively at me.
    “Okay, okay,” I relented, “I did.  I planned it.  So what?”
    He raised an eyebrow at me knowingly.  “And the one before that?”
    I sighed.  “Me.”
    He threw me a smug grin.  “Think about it, Hunter.  You…”  Our cellmate stirred again despite our hushed voices.  The poor girl.  I couldn’t begin to imagine what she had gone through.  Santino turned his attention back to me.  “Mind if we drop it for now?”  He flicked his head towards the girl.  “For her sake?”
    “Yeah,” I answered distractedly.  “Okay.”
    I spent the next few hours trying to get some rest, but my mind kept wandering back to what Santino had tried to say and sleep never came.  Thoughts of a Helena who never wanted a thing to do with me kept coming to mind, scenarios where she and Santino simply walked out of my life, not with each other, just… at the same time.  That they would just leave me alone to deal with a life under Agrippina’s constant pursuit alone was disturbing.  The idea kept invading my mind bit just when I felt sleep take a more permanent hold on me, gunfire erupted from within the cavern.  It drifted into the small cell in muffled tones at first, the crisscrossing corridors breaking up the movement of the sound waves, before growing louder.  I stood up and moved to the bars again, Santino joining me.  Julia seemed unconscious, hiding beneath her blanket in the corner.
    “Helena?”  Santino asked.
    I tried to concentrate on the gunfire.