𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥'𝐬 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 ✓ [𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐓𝐖𝐎]

chapter thirteen ✕ a's the name

 

𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐲
𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐦
❀⊱┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄⊰❀
[unedited]

"Andrea-Marie." Antonio says. "She should be almost twenty-two now."

  "You dragged us here to introduce us to your illegitimate child?" Angelo scoffs. "I'm sure you have plenty of those, but I can hardly see how we should care?"

"Because she's not mine." Antonio says softly.

  Angelo opens his mouth to speak, but realization suddenly strikes him. He stares down at the picture in his hand.

"How?" Armando asks, bluntly. "Mama is . . . dead. She has been for more than two decades now,  so there's no possible way this girl is our sister."

  Antonio looks cautiously between his sons.

Angelo's eyes begin to fog slightly as he whispers. "Is she-"

  "No." Antonio affirms. "But Adelasia didn't pass the day you've always thought she did. She left."

  Angelo stands abruptly, almost overturning his chair in the process. He paces the Persian carpeted floor, struggling to keep his composure.

  "Angel-" I begin to stand, but Armando catches my arm across the table. His eyes fleck up to Angelo for a moment before returning to me and he shakes his head in warning.

  I sit back down, concerned but compliant.

"What do you mean she left?"

  "To this day, I don't know why exactly. I'm sure it was easier to do so if everyone thought she was dead. Her mother knew. I couldn't get a word out of that woman all these years. I did some searching of my own and found that she had immigrated to the United States. A little while later she became pregnant and had Andrea. Adelasia raised Andrea for four years before she passed. You boys would have been 18 and 20 when she died."

   Antonio sighs, settling Andreas picture back into the box and shutting it.

"I know you both loved her. And I'd rather have had you thinking I was behind things, than to think she abandoned you. But, I've always doubted that theory. Adelasia wasn't the type to do that. Therefore, whether or not Andrea's my blood, I feel inclined to care for her."

  "Funny how you didn't feel the need for that same care when we were growing up." Angelo says, pure resentment in his tone.

  "And that, I regret. And now that I'm seeking to retire, the least I can do is leave you all with my assets. But you'll have to find your sister first. I doubt she'd be very receptive to meeting me, but I'm sure she'll be glad to get to know her long lost siblings and-" Antonio looks over at me. "Friend."