Chapter 58: Another Variable
Carmen
To see a fragile young woman gutted with sorrow.
Not surprised to see her step forward, a trace of concern in her eyes, her brows slightly drawn together as though she could already guess the weight I carried.
"Yes! Two!" she said, her voice soft but certain, and I knew she was drawing from her own experience, not just offering empty comfort.
"The raw pain fades with time but it never disappears," she said as she fixed her gaze on me, steady and understanding, and I simply tilted my head up to reveal my tear-streaked face. A soft smile lingering at the corners of my face as I nodded my head slowly.
"I don’t think it ever will!" I told her with a wry smile on my face, nodding my head before I closed the door behind me with a sad expression still stamped to my face, my fingers tightening slightly on the handle before letting go.
I was angry but I couldn’t let that show as I headed to the bathroom and bathed, scrubbing my skin longer than necessary.
Picking up a simple white shirt and pants before heading out straight to the dining hall. But I had barely walked past the guards and entered when I saw Nico already seated there eating, completely at ease.
He raised his head and looked at me with one of the sly expressions he usually had, his lips curving slightly, and I forced a hint of red to colour my cheeks as I moved closer to where he sat at the head of the table, my steps measured.
My face slowly falling into a frown as I reminded myself to be careful. The game was ensuring that he didn’t know that I was aware. Coming to stand beside him without taking a seat, my posture straight.
My voice filled with anger as I remained calm. "Your plan is nice! Even if Bianca releases the pictures it has nothing to do with me!" I told him even as I watched him calmly lean back like a satisfied cat, completely unfazed.
Eating with the fork in his hands, his sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos that snaked to his wrist and stopped there. His eyes sliding towards me with a soft expression in his gaze as he chewed the rest of his food in his mouth, unhurried.
"You’re angry! I can see that!"
"We made a deal and again! You went against it. This was not the plan you informed me about! What happened to trust?" I snapped, putting up a show aware that only someone that cared and was invested would go as far as to show anger, something Nico had never truly shown, not even once.
"It was something I thought of right before I slept!" he responded and I simply shook my head slightly. "It doesn’t matter!" and it didn’t. Pulling out the seat right beside him to eat even as I glared at him like I normally would, my movements sharper than usual.
More annoyed than usual as I felt his gaze settle on me, something I wouldn’t have been bothered by if not that I knew it was a show, as I began to dish my food on my plate carefully.
"What if Bianca insists that the woman in the picture is indeed me?" I asked him as I dug into my food and began to eat, keeping my tone even.
Only to watch him grab a napkin to wipe his lips before picking up the phone beside him on the table to call someone, his movements precise, "Let her in!" he ordered and barely a few minutes passed when the double doors of the dining hall were pushed open and a woman walked in slowly.
I stared at her as my eyes widened, taking in every bit of her face in silence. Her hair was long and black and her eyes were also blue but the most surprising thing was her features. We looked like sisters and in a different light we could have been twins.
She was equally my height, her eyes flicking everywhere in fright in a way that showed that she was scared, her hands clasped lightly in front of her. "Did you kidnap her?" I instantly asked even as more anger settled in the pit of my stomach, my grip tightening on my fork.
He thought about the plan last night my foot. Did he also find her in mere hours? Plastering a smile on my face as I struggled not to spit right into his face. "She looks a lot like me!" I pointed out even as Nico gestured for her to come much closer with a small tilt of his hand.
’She’s my age!’ I thought to myself and for a moment I wondered if I had another sister to worry about, a dark look settling on my face as she came to stand between us, hesitant.
"I’m simply here for the money!" she said more to the air than either of us, her voice quiet. Nico she couldn’t bear to look at and me, she glanced at before fixing her gaze on the food laid out on the table.
"Sit! Join us for breakfast! You can also talk about your family," Nico said and I knew. I knew that there was more to the story that he let on. What was even more uncanny was how much she looked like me, down to the smallest detail.
"Her hair has been dyed. She’s a blonde!" Nico said just as she sat down and I had just breathed out a sigh of relief when I heard his next words.
"...but you’re also right, she’s your half sister. Your father slept with a few women and I had to track them down!" he continued even as my gaze zoned in on her as I watched her flinch slightly.
She didn’t look like a problem to be gotten rid of but the scared and fearful ones never did, they always looked harmless at first glance.
"If she’s my half sister then it’s the same..."
"But Bianca doesn’t know that! I already removed all traces that points her to Castillo. She would simply be someone I met and fell in love with," Nico continued as I focused my gaze on her. She was nervous but unbothered once she sat down as she served herself and began to eat slowly.
I had just looked at her again when I heard her speak, "My name is Vanessa," she said with a smile on her face that made me wonder if that was what I looked like once I smiled, soft and almost identical.
"It’s nice to meet you sister!" she said and I simply nodded my head with a smile, again doing my best not to frown at the variable that had entered the game which I couldn’t control.
