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CHAPTERTWENTY
“Holy shit,” Natasha said as she sipped her coffee. After the meeting with mystery man, who refused to tell us anything more about Maddy other than that she had been pregnant when she was allegedly murdered, we’d gone to the student union for a drink.
I had not touched my coffee, but Natasha was on her second. I could not remember ever seeing my cousin so jazzed up over anything. She was practically bouncing up and down in her chair, and I was not sure if it was the caffeine buzz, or the news that we received.
“You better stop cussing before we head back to New York, or I’m sure I’ll get the blame for your newfound potty mouth.”
Natasha’s cheeks turned pink. “Sorry,” she said, as she brought the cup to her lips. “I’m just in shock. This girl, who apparently is Leo’s ex, and Andrea Blanchi’s sister, was murdered, and also, pregnant. It’s insane.”
Under the table, my knees were bouncing up and down. I was trying to keep myself calm, but my mind was running a million miles a minute. Though I learned more about Maddy, including that her last name is not Blanchi, I felt that there were so many more questions now.
“Do you think that she’s alive?”
Natasha stopped. She brought her coffee cup down on the table so hard that I jumped at the sound. “Shit,” Natasha said once more. She started rustling in her purse.
“What are you looking for?”
“Ah ha!” Natasha lifted the postcard in the air as though it were a gold medal. She slid the postcard across the table. “Do you think that she is the one sending the postcards?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Honestly, when I came here, I thought that we were looking for information about a woman who was dead. I thought maybe Leo had murdered her, and I was planning to use that to try and get out of our marriage.”
Natasha released a heavy exhale and rolled her eyes. “Kat…”
I threw my hands in the air. “I thought maybe Leo was a murderer, and that he might have been in bed with a Blanchi girl. At worst, I thought that maybe he killed her because he was worried about her telling on him to my father.”
“You were going to use this woman’s death to get away from Leo, even though you are screwing him?” There was disgust in my cousin’s voice, and I immediately felt my hackles rising.
“Don’t judge me, Nat. You have no idea what the hell I am going through here. You think that Leo is the romantic lead in some John Hughes film, but really, he’s the devil. I mean his own brother was willing to turn to our enemies to get rid of him.”
I leaned heavily in my chair as I felt a sense of justification wash over me. “And it’s possible that he got a girl pregnant, and then faked her death.”
As the evidence began to pile up, I was becoming more and more sure that Maddy was alive. The only question was, where was she, why had she faked her death, and how was Leo involved? Those were a lot of big questions.
Natasha shook her head. “That doesn’t make what you were doing right.”
I rolled my eyes. “You knew exactly why I was here. I have no intention of marrying Leo and letting him take everything that I have worked so hard to achieve, especially because he doesn’t even want it.”
I expected another scolding, but Natasha surprised me once more. “I don’t disagree with you.”
“Really?”
She gave me a small smile. “You know that I think that you should be Pakhan. Your father is only passing you up because he’s worried about how the Bratva would handle a female Pakhan, and I can’t blame him.”
“You were so close,” I said, with a groan.
Natasha shrugged. “You aren’t the only one who needs to be realistic here.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, neither of us one hundred percent sure what to say to the other. Natasha was not wrong in her assessment of things, but that did not piss me off any less. As a woman, I would think that she would be angrier about me being passed over. It was a slight to every woman who had sacrificed for the betterment of the Bratva, and we were often the first ones who were passed up.
“Do you think that Maddy’s child is Leo’s?”
“What?”
For some reason, I had not considered that. “If they were dating, it would make sense that the baby was his. Maybe that is why they are still in contact.” I didn’t know what happened with Maddy, but I was becoming more and more certain that she was alive and well.
Natasha released a low whistle between her teeth. “What are you going to do?”
That was the million-dollar question, and one that I had no answer for. “I don’t know,” I said. “My father is not going to just let us break off this engagement.” I chuckled slightly. “Not that we are even technically engaged to one another.”
