Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(74)

I apologized to Daisy.

“At the hospital, they said someone was supposed to watch her to make sure she didn’t go to sleep.” Natty stood up from the couch and crossed her arms. “I’d watch her but I don’t even want to look at her.”

“I’ll do it,” Win volunteered, though he didn’t sound particularly enthused about the task.

“Listen, Natty, don’t be cross. I think I found out who tried to kill us.” And then I told them what I had learned that day.

“You can’t keep going on like this,” Natty lectured me. “Running around and not telling anyone where you’re going or what happened. I’m tired of it. And, for the record, I don’t want to end up with no brother and no”—her voice broke a little—“sister either, Annie.” I stood to embrace her, but she pulled away, then ran down the hallway to her bedroom. A second later, I heard the door slam.

I turned to Daisy. “You can go home now, if you want.”

Daisy shook her head. “I can’t. Mr. Kipling called to tell me I should stay on guard overnight. He was extremely concerned about your safety.”

“Fine, but you should know that I had to dismiss Mr. Kipling this afternoon.”

“Yes,” Daisy replied, “he said that, too. He told me that he would be personally covering my salary.”

Daisy went to the hallway to stand watch.

I sat back down on the couch. Win went into the kitchen and came back with a bag of frozen peas for my head.

“It’s probably too late for that,” I said.

“It’s never too late for frozen peas,” Win said cheerfully.

“Aren’t you angry at me, too?” I asked.

“Why? Just because you put your life in danger and didn’t tell anyone what you were doing? Why should I care? I don’t worry about you at all.”

He set the peas on my forehead as I had done so many times to Leo. I winced a bit at the cold. I stretched up to kiss him, but my head started to pound. I lay back down on the pillow. “Sorry,” I said.

“Do you think I even want to be kissed by you? You’re pretty much horribly deformed at this point.” He leaned down to kiss me lightly, sweetly. “What am I going to do with you?” His voice was gentle and low.

Because I still needed to make sense of it myself, I decided to describe for him the baffling events of the day, ending with Fats’s request that I abdicate any leadership position in Balanchine Chocolate.

“Would it be so awful?” Win asked. “What he was essentially saying to you is that you could walk away.”

“But what about Leo?” I asked. “What about Daddy?”

“Nothing you do for Balanchine Chocolate will bring either of them back, Annie.”

It was good advice. The truth was, the quickest way for me to destroy Balanchine Chocolate and my father’s legacy—such as it was—would be to get into a war with Fats over leadership. Besides, what did I know about running a chocolate business anyway?

I moved the bag of peas so that it covered my eyes, too. Even my eyes were starting to hurt. It felt peaceful to be in the cold and in the dark.

*   *   *

I hadn’t been to the Pool since I’d made my speech before going to Liberty the prior year. Aside from Fats, so many of the people I had known were dead, gone, or in prison, and while everyone was vaguely and literally familiar, I didn’t really know any of them personally. That was the thing about organized-crime families—you shouldn’t bother getting too attached to anyone.

Fats had asked me to explain about Mickey’s disappearance and Sophia’s involvement in the poisoning and in the hits on my family, which I did. Then I stated that I supported Fats in his desire to be the interim head of the Balanchine Family. Lukewarm applause followed this sentiment. Fats himself gave a brief speech regarding his vision for the Family. His vision didn’t seem to be markedly different from any of the previous heads of the Family: mainly things about ensuring the quality of the product and limiting supply delays, etc. Finally, Fats opened up the room to questions.

A man with a curly mustache and round eyeglasses turned to me and said, “Anya, I’m Pip Balanchine. I wonder what your dealings with the new district attorney have been like. Does she seem anti-chocolate?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “The only things she cares about are money and advancement.”

The men laughed at my assessment.

A black man with reddish hair piped in, “You’re a good guy, Fats, but you run a restaurant. You really think you’re up to heading the Balanchine semya?”

“Yes,” Fats said, “I do.”

“’Cause personally I am tired of the unrest. It doesn’t make for good business and it certainly doesn’t make for good chocolate. I think we sell ourselves short. The poisoning should have been an opportunity to overhaul the business, not…”

The meeting went on a while longer though my presence barely seemed necessary. Daisy Gogol stood behind me as was the convention at these meetings, and occasionally, she would nudge me. But what was I to say? The truth was, some part of me really was happy to let Fats run the company. Maybe I’d learned something about cacao but there were still so many other aspects of the business I didn’t know. And the endless garbage Yuji Ono had fed me about my being “a catalyst”—well, maybe I didn’t have it in me to be a catalyst. I had tried to call Yuji Ono the day before to confront him about everything that Sophia Bitter had said. I still had so many questions. Had he helped plot Leo’s murder out of love for Sophia or hate for me, or had there been other reasons entirely? Had he ever really believed anything he’d said or had he just preyed on me because I was young and susceptible to flattery? What had he known about Simon Green? But the number I had for Yuji Ono had been disconnected. He was as much a mystery to me as he had ever been.