I was still for a moment. Okay, yes, there had been a lot of revelations about his heritage. Maybe finding out that Agatha wasn’t his biological mom explained her disinterested behavior, but how was anything going to change from here on out?
“So what’s different?” I said slowly. “Are you going to try and form a relationship with Agatha? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Oh hell no,” he said with a laugh. “That’s over and done with, that woman can kiss my ass. Did you notice?” he said with a pause, “that she’s barely been a part of all this? That we haven’t heard a peep from Agatha, she’s had nothing to say, avoiding us all, doing her own thing, despite the fact that she’s a major player in this drama? That’s how she is,” he nodded. “My entire life, that’s how she’s been – uncaring, non-existent, a big zero.”
I nodded. It made no sense to build bridges with a woman who had never been, and probably still wasn’t interested in you.
“So what does this mean?” I asked slowly. “What does this mean for me and the babies?” I asked, gesturing to my stomach. “Are you over your so-called abandonment issues? If you’re not seeking closure with Agatha, then what are you looking for?”
Kristian paused for a moment.
“I’ll be honest with you and say that I’m not totally sure,” he said slowly, looking at me somberly. “Because I still have a hole in my life, a giant-sized feeling of loss,” he admitted. “I think the only thing I can do is work on it. Work on myself, find fulfillment and happiness through you, the babies, our quad,” he said. “I know now that you’re everything to me, and believe me when I say I’ll never leave you again.”
And here Karl coughed a bit.
“I don’t want to butt in, but have you thought about building a relationship with Violet?” he suggested. “She’s come off as unsteady, flighty, with a vindictive streak against Georg, but at the same time, she was a good mother to us. Over-protective, yes. Afraid of setting us free in the world, yes. But she loved us, and Kato and I,” he said, nodding at his brother, “we’ve never doubted her love for us, that we were number one in her book always.”
Kato snorted then.
“Violet, if anything, was overbearing. She should never have gotten into a spat with Georg, a custody war of sorts, hiding us out on the farm so that he couldn’t see us. But it’s all over now,” he said with a growl. “We’re not on the farm anymore, we’re in Afghanistan,” he said grimly.
And I gasped then, my hands flying to cover my mouth. This was terrible news, for both myself and the girls. Afghanistan? They were sure to be killed.
But the twins merely nodded at me.
“We can’t tell you much of what we’re doing, but we won’t lie,” said Karl. “It’s brutal. We’re soldiers baby, we always will be, and there’s blood, death and guts around us all the time.”
I nodded mutely, my eyes shining.
“But where does that leave us?” I asked plaintively. “Where does that leave Corinna and Carlton?” I said. I’d decided on names for the babies and Corinna and Carlton reminded me of twin peaks in Andorra, a favorite childhood hiking spot that I’d often visited. The peace and tranquility I’d found on those hikes was what I wanted to pass onto my children, a foil for the drama we’d recently been through.
“Well, we have abandonment issues of our own,” ground out Kato, “but it’s no big deal, we’re over it,” he said flatly.
“What my brother means,” interrupted Karl, “is that yeah, we felt abandoned because we thought Georg ditched us. That he had no interest in us, everything was focused on Kristian,” he added, shooting his older brother a meaningful look. “But none of that was true. Georg had been looking for us, had reached out multiple times, was trying to get in touch. It was Violet who rebuffed him, who kept us isolated, away from his tentacles.”
“And I kind of don’t blame her, to tell you the truth,” he said thoughtfully. “Violet knew what she was up against. The royal family, the Rothschilds, their Machiavellian machinations forced her to the limit. They’d already taken one son after all,” he said slowly. “So she did what she could for her remaining two. She went into the shadows, shielding us, protecting us, and the constant fear, the paranoia, warped her a bit but it was all for a reason.”
“I guess from here on out though,” he added, taking a deep breath, “it’s going to be different. Kato and I,” he nodded at his brother, “we know the truth now. And we’re going to try and be better men. Maybe build a relationship with Georg, get to know him better at least, who knows?”
Here, Kristian snorted.
“I assure you, Dad is no piece of cake,” he ground out. “He’s made like he had no say in a lot of this, but trust me, he knows more than he’s letting on. Heisthe King after all.”
“That’s true,” replied Karl mildly. “But see, we don’t even see Georg as a father figure yet. He’s a stranger to us, someone we’ve studied from a distance. So yeah, building a relationship is probably the first step.”
“I’m just saying,” warned Kristian. “You’re up against a power player. He’s not letting on to everything he knows.”
“We hear you,” growled Kato. “We hear you, loud and clear.”
And the three men looked at each other, different emotions flitting over their faces. Because we were in the midst of a massive shake-up, the Venetians made the Mansons look sane and tame. Family dysfunction? Oh yeah, we had that in spades.
But that still didn’t address the question of me and the girls.
“So what does this all mean?” I said slowly, bringing the conversation back full circle. “What happens from here on out?”
The men looked at each other again, mentally communicating on some level.
“Well we’ve realized whatyoumean to us,” rumbled Kristian. “In all the shit that’s gone down, you were our center, our calm in the eye of the storm. And yeah, we shouldn’t have left you.”