Page 68 of Teach Me How To Fly

He raised his eyebrows as if he had been defeated by me, and then he smiled and glanced at me attentively.He bought it,I thought and my lips would’ve curled now if it weren’t for me trying to hide that thought.

“Shoot your questions then, little niece. I have a lot to talk to you about.”

I felt shivers going through my whole body upon hearing his words, and I knew very well that coming here would be the biggest challenge of my life.

My body was still trembling as I tried to speak normally, without revealing how terrified I truly was.

“Tell me how I ended up in this family. Where are my parents, why was I adopted, tell me everything you know about that.”

“Firstly, all we know about your parents was that they were addicts, living on the streets, and you were taken by a nurse when you were born,” he explained, not breaking eye contact for a second. “Kira, your mother, couldn’t get pregnant, so she and Lukyan decided to adopt a child, and they saw you. That’s your story.”

“And Katya?”

“Kira and Lukyan tried to have another baby after adopting you because they still wanted a child of their own, and that’s how Katya came. But too badly Kira died giving birth to her because she had lots of complications.”

All the times my father – Lukyan, I corrected myself – told me that I was a copy of my mother, he was lying to me because the only one who could’ve been that was Katya.

She was their real daughter, not me. I felt bad hearing that Kira died while giving birth to Katya, and somehow, I felt bad that I even got to meet Kira myself even though I was only one year old. The only one who should’ve met her was Katya, and the only one who should’ve had all this protection from Lukyan was Katya, his biological daughter. Nothing made any sense in my head right now.

“Good. Next question.”

“Let me guess, it will be connected to Maksen, right?”

He was diabolical, but also very intelligent, and this did not surprise me at all. Evil people possessed extraordinary charisma, intuition, and intelligence, and he had all of these. Maybe he knew exactly what I was going to ask him, but he was just waiting for me to speak my mind.

“Yes. What have you done to him?”

“Things. Many things I guess you wouldn’t want to hear,” he bursted, letting out a broken laugh.

I could feel my body giving in soon, but this time, it was seized by an uncontrollable rage hearing that Maksen could have gone through the same things as me. I felt the urge to punch Sylvian in the face. I felt as if that was the right thing to do so I could protect Maksen in a way or another.

“Did you make him count as well?”

My question made him smile, and that didn’t surprise me either, because he seemed like he enjoyed talking about the horrors he did.

“You should ask him what he had been doing while he was locked in the basement because I wouldn’t know,” he replied briefly. “I was too preoccupied with teaching you to count.”

I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists upon hearing his words. He was truly proud of what he had done to a child, and he wasn’t even going to pretend not to be for fuck’s sake.

He wasn’t going to get out of here, and I had to think of something to avoid doing it because I couldn’t have lived my life the same knowing he was free.

“So you didn’t do anything else to him? I told you that I want the truth.”

“I wouldn’t have ever put a finger of mine on a servant’s child,” he replied, almost disgusted at the thought.

I froze. I completely froze.

“Servant’s child?”

He laughed, licking his lips in a way that almost made me puke. “Oh, you have no idea who he is, do you?”

“Who is he?”

“Maksen is Olivia’s son, my darling. She had an affair with your father’s biggest enemy when they hosted a party at your house back in the day, and that’s how your dearest friend came to Earth.”

I was so shocked that I couldn’t say anything.

I was stuck, trying to realize the weight of the words he told me, and somehow, I wanted to get up from the chair, leave, and hide in Maksen’s arms until everything returned to normal.

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