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CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
I sat at Leo’s large dining room table trying to stay calm as we waited for Maddy to show.
He’d forced me to eat breakfast, which had settled my stomach. But now, as the time was getting closer and closer, I could feel the coffee and bread sloshing in me.
“She’s late,” I snapped, growing frustrated.
Leo reached out and laid a hand over my own. He often did this when he felt that I was spiraling out of control.
“She’ll be here,” he said. “She might be held up in traffic. It is New York after all.”
He gave me a soft smile, but my stomach was too knotted to laugh. I had not expected to be so worried about meeting this woman. She was the one who threw my life into turmoil. I was simply born.
“Hey,” Leo’s soft voice broke through my thoughts. I looked up at him. His dark eyes had softened towards me, and I felt some of the tension melt from my shoulders slightly. Leo calmed me. Though I did not want to read too much into it, I could not ignore the way that he made me feel. “I told you last night. Everything is going to be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”
There was a small knock on the door, and I jumped slightly. Leo squeezed my hand. “Are you ready?” he asked.
I nodded. He got up from his chair and walked towards the door. I looked down at the table, tracing shapes on the top of the wood. It was freshly waxed, and I was sure that Leo rarely used it. My fingers were leaving smudges against the wood, but I didn’t care.
“Kat?”
I jerked up trying to school my features, but I was sure that I was not as successful as I tried to be. Standing before me was my half-sister. I had seen pictures of Madeline before, but they had clearly been old.
Her hair had been dyed from its dark brown to a softer auburn color. She had gained a little bit of weight, probably from pregnancy, but it looked lovely on her. In the photo that I had seen of her, she had been as thin as a stick, but now, she looked curvier. Less like a young girl and more like a grown woman.
“You must be Katarina,” she said, her voice soft.
I stopped up. “I am.”
She stepped forward slowly, as though she were terrified that I might bite her if she came too close to me.
“I’m glad to meet you. I have heard so much about you.”
I tensed at this. “I can’t say the same.”
I expected to hear Leo sigh or jump in, but he remained quiet. Apparently, he wanted to allow the two of us to negotiate this transaction on our own.
“I’m sorry about that,” Maddy said. “I wanted to meet you because I wanted to explain.”
I took a seat and opened my arms, inviting Maddy to sit as well. “Then, explain.”
Maddy blinked for a moment. She was six years older than me, and I wondered if she expected to be the one in charge of this interaction. That just betrayed how little she knew about me. My entire life I expected to be taking over for my father. I studied how he handled friends and enemies, and though I felt my stomach quivering, I was not going to give up my power in this interaction.
“What is it that you’d like to know?”
I blinked. I had not been expecting her to be so open with me. “Where is our mother?”
She released a heavy breath, and I knew that she had not expected that question. “I don’t know, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
I felt my anger flare up. “Why is that?” I asked, trying to keep myself calm. My entire life, I had been criticized for my impulsiveness, and I was trying to keep myself from snapping at her.
“You don’t know our mother—”
“Yes,” I interrupted. “Because she abandoned me to take care of you.”
“Count your blessings on that one,” she lobbed back at me.
I was impressed. I expected someone weaker than the girl sitting across from me, but I could see the strength in Maddy’s eyes. She’d been through some shit, and it changed her. I could respect that. “Our mother is psychotic. I think…” She trailed off, and I could see that she was searching for the words to explain our mother to me. “I think that something broke inside of her when she left you, or maybe, it was before that. When I was younger, I never really understood why she was the way she was. It was like she blamed me for being born, and for the life she ended up with, but now, I think she was just destroyed by the war between the two families. It killed something inside of her.”
