Balotelli-Bale Series Book #4: THE OTHER MAN PART 1

Chapter 33: Wicked Tales

A/n: New Chapter

"...You and I will always be unfinished business..."

Margaux's POV
"So..." I closed the two story books in my hands. My daughter looks troubled. That is just the look I was waiting on. "Do you think Snow White and Cinderella are happy?" She frowned at me. I don't think my daughter is daft but she sometimes keeps quiet when I ask her things. "Madeline, answer my question. Do you think Snow White and Cinderella are happy?"

"No."

"Why not?" She is staring at me wide eyed. "It's because they have stepmothers and stepmothers are wicked. Do you want a stepmother Maddie?"

"No!" She shook her head.

"But you will have one."

"No!"

I gave her the books. I ripped out the ending of the stories. For Snow White I left it where she's dead. For Cinderella, when she's locked up. She opened to check. She started crying, especially about Snow White. I made sure to emphasize that she died when I read the story. I ran my hand over her blonde hair. "You will have a wicked stepmother who will give you a poisoned apple and you will die."

"I don't want one. Please mommy. I don't want one." She is crying.

"There there ma cherie. Crying doesn't solve anything. If you want something done, get up and do it yourself. I don't want you to have a step mother but your father... daddy is making sure you get one."

"No." She buried her face in my side. I smiled triumphantly.

"Keira will be your stepmother."

She wiped her eyes and looked at me. Once again she looks confused. "Keira is nice."

"Of course she is! That is how wicked stepmothers start of! Remember Cinderella's stepmother? Wasn't she nice when Cinderella's father was still alive?"

"Yes she was." I wiped away her tears. She has pretty blue eyes. Nothing about her is me. She's all Nick.

"And then her father died..." I gave her a second to start crying again. I raised her chin so that she looks at me. "And then was she still nice to Cinderella?"

"No."

"Hmmm... imagine that. Stepmothers pretend to be nice. And then they become wicked and evil! Do you want a poisoned apple?"

"No!"

"Do you want wicked step sisters and to be locked up?"

"No mommy I don't want that!"

"Daddy wants Keira to be your new mommy. He wants to replace me because he hates me Maddie. Nick hates me." I told her. "Keira is the wicked step mother. She will hurt you and use you like a servant. Do you want to scrub floors?"

"No! I don't want a step mother. I don't want to scrub floors!"

Playing with her imagination is my best shot at manipulating and twisting her mind so that she turns against her father and that woman he is playing around with. I will use Maddie to bring Nick to his knees until he is begging to die.

"You have to join me Maddie. We have to hate Keira together so that daddy doesn't marry her. She will take daddy away from us. She will break our family."

"No. No." She spoke sadly before she started crying yet again.

I held her close to me hating that she was soaking my Prada coat with her tears. But this is just the beginning. By the time I am done with Madeline, she will hate Nick so much he will be  miserable.