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“No. For good.”
Panic crashes through me and I cry out, “What? Why?”
“The same reason as last time. He tramples all over this family and cares for no one but himself.”
“That’s not true! If Kristian has done something wrong then he should answer for it, but you can’t banish him for no reason.”
“He came home for power and revenge. He all but admitted it to me,” Dad seethes, his breathing growing labored.
I remember Kristian in the warehouse the night he returned. In the days after. Anger burned in his eyes, especially when he looked at Dad. I felt his hunger for power, and I told him myself that I wasn’t going to let him take any from me.
But in the weeks that followed, I watched that anger melt from his eyes. He worked tirelessly by my side; with me, not against me. I would have sensed if he still planned to seduce my position as Dad’s heir from me.
“If he returned in anger, he stayed out of love. He’s proven to me these past few months that he doesn’t care about being your heir or ruling this family. He cares about us.”
But Dad won’t look at me and he’s shaking his head. This rift between them is bigger than what was caused by Kristian’s callous moment with a stripper and a tube of lipstick. It’s as if Dad lays all the blame over losing his wives and dying from cancer at his brother’s feet.
I go to Dad and get down on my knees before him, taking his hands in mine. “Don’t do this, please. I need the two of you to be friends now more than ever.”
“Kristian and I can never be friends again, and we can’t be brothers either.”
“But why?” I cry, my voice cracking.
Dad stabs a finger at his chest. “Because I’m the one who always gets hurt, and never him.Mywife.Myleg.Anotherwife.Cancer.” He seizes my hands and squeezes them in his. “You’re all I have left and he wants to take you from me, too.”
I stare at him in shameful silence. Does Dad know about Kristian and I being lovers?
Dad releases me and drags a shaky hand down his face. “I’m right, aren’t I? Chessa told me years ago, but I didn’t want to believe it. Kristian doesn’t love you as an uncle, and he hasn’t for a long time.”
I move back and sit down slowly on the sofa, my heart thundering in my chest. All this time Dad knew? He knew before I did? Chessa knew?
I recall how Chessa’s manner turned cold whenever Kristian entered the room, and she told him off for speaking to me in Russian. I thought she didn’t trust him because he was wild and unpredictable. I had no idea she thought she had to protect me from my uncle.
“I was so angry after Chessa died,” Dad says. “I’ve never been angrier with someone as much as I was with Kristian, and I wanted him to hurt as much as I was hurting. The only person Kristian cared about was you, and I thought if I separated the two of you, then he’d get a taste of what it’s like to suffer.”
“But that’s so cruel,” I whisper.
Dad averts his eyes, but he doesn’t deny it. All he says is, “Grief is cruel.”
“Is that supposed to be an excuse for petty revenge?”
There’s something I still don’t understand. If Kristian loved me, truly loved me, he wouldn’t have abandoned me, no matter how angry he was. There can be only one reason he stayed away.
He didn’t want to.
Hehadto.
My eyes snap to my father. “How did you convince Kristian to stay away for two whole years? He never tried to see me. He never even called.”
All the rage and grief dissipates from his eyes as he sits back in his chair. “I told Kristian I put something on your phone. A tracker that monitored all your calls and your location. It wasn’t true, but he didn’t know that.”
The admission that Dad even considered spying on me turns my stomach. “But a bit of software wasn’t going to keep Kristian from me. There must have been a reason why I didn’t see him for two years.”
Dad stares at his hands in his lap. “You were underage. Legally, you had to do as I said. I told Kristian that if he returned or even talked to you on the phone, I would send you to an overseas boarding school to finish high school.”
Horror sweeps over me. “You would have sent me away? But then I wouldn’t have seen my brothers and sisters. I wouldn’t have seen you or anyone that I cared about. I would have losteverything.”
Being separated from my family has been my worst fear since Mom died. Dad knew that. Kristian knew that. It would have destroyed me to be sent far away from the people I love and so he had no choice but to obey Dad’s orders.
