Page 13 of The Arrogant's Surrender

"They won’t be able to come anytime soon."

I swallow the urge to cry again.

Second chance, Brooklyn. Focus on that.

"Do you have pictures of them, at least?"

"I have videos. Eleanor and I have been recording every moment of their growth since you fell into the coma. I’ll show you just one for now, just to ease the longing. Afterward, you can watch as many as you want, but for the first day, it’s too much emotion, sis."

She is crying now as she pulls her phone from her bag.

When she opens the video, it isn’t what I expected. When the tragedy happened, they were only a few months old. Now they are walking.

"Oh my God! They’re perfect!" I say, wiping away tears.

"More than perfect. Now that’s enough, or Dr. Athanasios will never let me visit you again."

"He can try. It’s always been you and me against the world. It always will be, Madison. No one knows who the Foster girls really are."

"Exactly, they don’t know us. We’re unbreakable."

I nod in agreement. "I’ll behave so I can recover quickly. There’s nothing I want more than to be with you all again. I want my life back, Madison."

"You’ll have it, sis. I promise."

The door opens again, and this time, the person who walks in is the only maternal figure we’ve ever known—Eleanor, our stepmother. The saint who stayed with our deceitful father even after he wronged her in every possible way.

"You shouldn’t be crying," she says in her characteristically maternal tone, though she can't hold back her own tears.

"No, we shouldn’t," Madison replies, "but we Foster girls have a rebellious streak."

Athanasios

CHAPTER SEVEN

That Same Night

"I heard your patient woke up,"says my other partner, Lazarus Jasper Seymour—though he goes by L.J. among friends—as we settle in for our weekly dinner.

Together with William, he co-owns the hospital I inherited from my adoptive father, who, like me, is a neurologist, though not a surgeon.

These days, however, my father only runs a private practice. After suffering a stroke, he finally decided to scale back his workload.

"As I said she would," I reply.

"Of course you did." L.J. chuckles. "Where the hell is William? I’m starving."

"Here, bastard. Five minutes late, and your OCD for perfection kicks in, huh?"

"Yes, because I’m the only control freak at this table, my friend. Keep deluding yourself," L.J. retorts.

"So that’s what you call us? Nice way to dress up sociopathy," William teases.

"Speak for yourself. I prefer the term ‘antisocial personality disorder.’"

I shake my head, almost smiling. The dynamic between the two of them is like that of brothers.

"I didn’t come here to argue but to eat and catch up on Sleeping Beauty’s awakening," William says, nodding toward me.

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