MISHA
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"My perception senses are the best there are, brother. I actually knew this was going to happen even before papa passed away. I heard him in a call with Pieter, saying that if was in another course when you all came to study in the US, you should all take care of me, and make every guy who dared to try courting me disappear, for good or not."
Dio mio, she knew from back then? It's been 6 years. We were all with each other in Pieter's room, back in the Santorini villa in Milan, when zio called.
It was so menacing. But we got the warning.
"But Mia," Bram frowned, "why didn't you even try to befriend him?"
"Yeah," Alessia nodded, "that way you would be able to get to know him better, in a way that you would learn what he likes, and be able to court him in your own way. Maybe even make the disdain turn into good affection and then love."
"Oh? Is that what you all do to know what the person likes?" She asked, weirdly fucking surprised.
Again, I couldn't contain the laughter that bubbled into my chest. But this time it was not me. The other also laughed out of dismay.
And Leo, more than the others, seemed like he had just learned something and that he wasn't very happy with it, "Dio santo, Mia. You stalked him, didn't you?"
The laughter died in all of us, as we stared at her, and she began laughing.
"Mia!" Her mama gasped. "Dio mio, what did your papa taught you?"
Zoe Maud covered her blushing face with both her hands, "He… he said that if I learned how to hack, it would make it easy for me to learn everything I wanted about anyone I wanted, without having to ask, since I was shy and struggled to socialize with people. I just… thought to learn it so I would be able to know all I could about him, because I was curious, and he would open up if I asked."
This girl is insane. She learned how to hack because of this? For this damn bastard who doesn't even recognize and reciprocate her feelings?
"Mia belle, oh, santo mio," nonna Giulia growled. "You papa knew you liked him from the very beginning?"
After a minute, she denied, "No. He learned it later."
"Hah, I think I'm jealous," zia Anna groaned. "You told him?"
She denied again, "No."
Papa chuckled, "That ass was the smartest guy I've ever met. He definitely noticed it. Or maybe he hacked your stuff and learned there, if you noted something about the boy down online."
"When did he learn it?" Zia Anna asked.
Zoe Maud bit her bottom lip, "Little after we go to the US. I was… huh," she turned fifty shades redder, "I was talking in my sleep. Then he saw the… hmm, he saw something I had on the boy, and connected the dots. He messed with me about it for seven fucking months," she groaned. "Making naughty jokes, mocking me for being so courageous and confident about everything but this. Ugh, it was driving me mad." What?
He joked about it instead of getting jealous? Zio Christoffel? Christoffel Von Barnhardt? Uh?
And everyone seemed to notice that, because they all frowned, "Wait," papa gasped, "you're telling me that idiot, who was absolutely possessive with jealousy over his girls, especially you, laughed and joked about it, instead of going after the boy and trying to take his life for stealing his precious little daughter's heart? Chris? Christoffel? Christoffel Von Barnhardt? Are we talking about the same person?"
"Santo Dio," Vlad groaned, "zio Chris almost skinned me alive when he learned that Ju and I were a thing, and that she loved me in a way he didn't quite like. He was annoyed with me for three months, and in the very beginning he was pretty much red with anger. Hard times," he groaned.
She seemed very amused by that, "I remember, when we got back to the apartment, he kept cursing you for ages. It was adorable. I would curse you just to enjoy cursing someone with papa."
My brother gasped, "You cursed me? Why?"
She turned all serious, "Because you stole my older sister's heart, what else? I mean, sure, I knew you were going to date even before I left for MIT, it was obvious, but papa chose to stay blind about it until you asked to date her."
Hah, given how she threatened him even before her papa did, it shows that his blood sure runs thicker on her, and his genes finally won the fight against Zia Anna's in a one sided massacre, as we can see. Dio, she even told his temper, mind, and possessiveness. Doesn't even need a DNA to know who her papa is, she's a female version of him, which is devastatingly… intimidating and amazing.
"Besides," she scoffed, "papa adored the kid in question. Who's not a kid anymore, but still. Sure, he was a bit annoyed, but he was actually happy. He told me that there was absolutely no one else he could see me with but this boy, and that from what he knew of him, he would definitely notice me sometime. And that I shouldn't give up, because everything that comes to us with struggle, hard work, patience, and with not giving up no matter what, stays with us."
My papa choked on his drink, "He told you he could only see you with this boy?" When she nodded, papa gasped again. "That he liked him?" As she nodded again, papa's jaw dropped. "And you love him since you were 6?"
"Yes, zio," she frowned. "Are you alright? Why are you acting weird?"
Papa blinked, "I'm just stunned. I never thought he would be so acceptable when it came to you of his kids. He was extra overly protective of you. He didn't even like my boys near you, because me and your mama wanted you all to marry each other. He was the only one who firmly disagreed that you would never be with Leo, even though we always thought that, he said Leo was too soft-hearted for you and that he was not your type. That the guy would have to be headstrong to deal with you, because of your personality."
She blushed again, "Papa also knew Leo was gay, by the way. He always knew. Before he was certain, he kept telling me Leo was going to date Luigi. Papa always had the best eye for this. He knew Pieter would be with Anastasia, Willem would be with Irina, Hendrik with Camilla, Bram with Alessia, and though he did not really enjoyed it, he knew Julia would be with Vladmir, just as he also knew whom Emma would end up with," then she grinned viciously, "and it's not Grigori Mikhail."
All the elders and our parents frowned.
"But we all always believed that they would be together," zia scoffed.
"Just like you thought I would be with Leo?" She purred amusedly. "I mean, sure, if you think these two love each other, that it's reciprocal, you can keep thinking that, but papa was never wrong, and his eye for this was better than yours, that is for sure."
"Is that why you're being all against Misha with Emma?" Maria asked.
Zoe Maud picked her now alcoholic juice, "Sure," then she drank it all at once.
But a part of me told me that there was something in that 'sure' that made it sound like that was not the only reason. That she was keeping her real motivation to be acting extra bitchy to us, to herself. And that part of me was the one who reminded me that-
Before meeting and marrying zia Anna, Christoffel was solely friends with my papa, making so she would consider my papa, Christoffel's friend instead of zia Anna's, since she was always closer to Christoffel and seeing things from his side.
Which is beyond absurd.
It's absurd, right?
…Right?
It can't be me.
Zoe Maud hates me.
There is no way it's me!