Page 35 of Thicker Than Blood

“You loved him,” I said softly.

She raised her eyes and nodded with a sad smile.

“I loved him, but he never loved me. It was never a love marriage for him. I couldn’t live with the stigma of divorce over me back then and I couldn’t let him go.”

“You know about his daughter? My sister?” I asked, the word sister feeling foreign.

“Your sister? From that woman? Never! I’m not racist, but—”

I slammed my fist on the table to cut off her words, knowing they would be crude and vile. The impact was sharp and loud, causing the dishes and cutlery to rattle and jump with a spoon clattering to the floor. Whatever she thought of Amari’s mother was what she would think of Amari, which was unacceptable.

My mother flinched and she put her hand out to reach me but I recoiled from her touch.

“You knew,” I hissed, my voice low with an underlying tremor. “All this time, you knew, and you said nothing. Both of you.”

She opened her mouth to respond but I raised my hand in the air.

“Who else knew?” I asked coldly.

“Andreas,” she said, suddenly looking her age.

My mother was still beautiful at sixty-one but at this moment I didn't recognise her. Not my father or my mother with their web of lies.

“What he left them didn't diminish what you built together and that is all I will say on the matter, Mother,” I said standing up, tossing the napkin on the table. “I have to go.”

“Stefanos—”

“Don't, Mum. Not right now,” I said leaning over to kiss her cheek before I left to call my uncle from the car.

As soon as the call connected through the Bluetooth I pounced on my Dad’s older brother. My dad had been sixty-six when he died and my uncle was three years older than him.

“What do you know about the Jenson family, Uncle Andreas?” I asked, refusing to consider what it meant for Amari and me.

The car was silent and I slammed my hand off the steering wheel in frustration.

“Stefanos, my boy, it was complicated,” he said softly, his voice flowing through the car speakers.

“Give me the quick version,” I said, biting the words out.

“Christos met Thema when she was leaving her husband. It was a bad situation for her and her daughter. She ran out in front of your father's car. They grew to become friends until it began to blossom into more. He explained to your mother how he felt but she refused to divorce him,” he said with a long sigh.

Family meant everything to us. My father was split in two.

“Cora threatened to take full custody of you and deny him access if he ever divorced her. You were only eleven or twelve at the time and your father was put in an impossible position. He tried to separate from Thema but they loved one another too much. So he made it work where he tried to balance both sides of his life. He loved his children more than life. In the end he—he never wanted to hurt you,” he said with another sigh.

I blinked away the tears, feeling sick at referring to Alcina as a bastard. I was the only bastard in the Karalis family.

“Do you want me to come over, son? We can talk.”

“No thank you, Uncle Andreas. I will come over, I-I just need to sort a few things out first,” I said, knowing I wanted to hear more about my father’s life.

“You are welcome anytime, Stefanos. I think your father would want you to know now, but while he was alive he worried about you finding out and what it would do to your relationship,” he said.

I frowned, wondering if this was why he made me executor and a trustee for his will. The letter, his letter, was something that I skimmed over and threw back into the file.

“I will visit soon, Uncle Andreas—thank you for being there for my Dad,” I said, glad that my dad had some support in his complicated life.

For the rest of the drive, I contemplated everything I had done since my father's death and by the time I considered every potential scenario with Amari. There was no version of her ever forgiving me for what I did to her and there was no version of me being able to live with the guilt of what I did to her or her family. My father’s family for twenty-four years. My mother wielded me as a weapon to control my father’s life.

---