The room falls quiet, and a tension builds.
“Art, you should tell her what happened,” Joe says, eyeing me.
I shake my head. I don’t think now is the right time.
“What is he talking about?” Maria asks, narrowing her eyes at me.
I shake my head again. “Not now,” I sigh.
“Yes, now, “ Maria insists. “What are you guys hiding from me?” she demands.
The look on her face tells me she isn’t going to let this go, not after Joe brought it up like that.
I groan, setting my dessert down.
“I didn’t ghost you because I wanted to,” I say quietly. “I had no choice…”
I tell Maria everything. I tell her about Misha worrying because he saw us growing closer. I tell her about how he believed it would taint his precious family bloodline. I tell her what he did. How he tried to have me killed and destroyed everything I’d worked for.
She listens with tears in her eyes.
She says nothing until I stop talking.
Maria presses her lips together and shakes her head. “It can’t be,” she says, unable to process this possible side of her brother that she’s never experienced before.
“It is, Maria. I was there at the meeting, I heard everything,” Joe says.
She shakes her head, and the tears roll down her cheeks. “Not my brother. You must have misunderstood him. That can’t be what happened,” she cries, standing up, bewildered, with the blanket around her.
“Maria, wait,” I say, standing up and wanting to go after her when she walks out of the living room.
“I need to be alone,” she calls out, heading upstairs to her bedroom.
“Let her go,” Ben mutters. “She needs to come to terms with it in her own time. Give her the space to do that.”
I sit down again. There is a heavy feeling in my chest.
“I hope she can,” I sigh.
“She has to,” Joe shrugs. He stands. “I’m going to get some sleep. Goodnight, guys.”
“Night,” Ben and Kaz say at the same time.
One by one, they leave, and I sit on the sofa, my mind racing and my heart tense.
I hope she comes to terms with it.
I need her to.
I really need her to see the truth.
Chapter 23 - Maria
Back at the mansion in the Chicago summer heat, I sit out on the patio staring toward the lake as waves lap endlessly against the white sandy shore.
We’ve been back home for two days, and I’ve made myself distant. There is a lot going on inside my head, and I’m trying desperately to figure out what’s real and what’s not. Nothing that I come up with justifies what they claim my brother said. Misha isn’t like that. He was best friends with Artur. Why would he be best friends with someone he thought wasn’t fit to be part of our family?
We’re just people. There isn’t anything more special about any one of us because of where we came from or how we grew up. We’re all just people.
