Adam fixed his tie in front of the mirror. He wanted to be in good order. Anna had lived with Maxwell much longer than she had with him, and she must have gotten used to her brother's starchiness. He intended to surprise her with his ability to dress properly for a date. He could also be a social and elegant man. He would do it for her. He'd swap his jeans and T-shirt for a suit and tie, if that's the way she liked it.
"Where are we going?" Bonnie asked in her pajamas, lying on the bed without looking at him, flipping through a magazine with a bored look on her face.
Adam looked at her in the mirror and suddenly felt guilty. Bonnie had been a good companion for him. He shouldn't mistreat her when they were alone.
"I'll take you to lunch tomorrow." He promised, to see if it would cheer her up a bit.
Bonnie stared at him in surprise.
"That's... new..."
"I can't treat you well around Anna, or she might think we're engaged. She's very jealous. I've already lost her to jealousy once, I can't let it happen again."
"Then we'll talk again tomorrow Adam." She said, turning her attention back to the magazine. For a moment, she thought about talking about Genevieve with him, but as she still didn't know what creatures they were, she would keep it a secret. They had to think that she didn't suspect anything.
Adam, however, wasn't fooled. Bonnie was furious about something. But she didn't want to worry about it that night. At lunch the next day, they would understand each other. He was already on his way out when he heard hurried footsteps resounding in the silence of the apartment. He opened the door and went after Anna. She looked beautiful with her long golden hair, which reached her waist, loose against the light pink of her suit. He smiled. It was clear as day that Anna intended to make him think that this was not a meeting between two lovers, but a business meeting. But he had different plans for both of them. He waited for her to get into the elevator and went down as well. He stood next to her while she hailed a taxi, and she didn't notice him. She was distracted by her thoughts. He got into his car and followed her taxi. He watched as she entered the restaurant and parked in front. He waited for the valet to come and remove the car before entering the restaurant. He saw the waiter seat her and walk away. He felt like he could stay there all night, staring at her from afar, admiring her face and her beautiful, unusual features, which he would never stop admiring, her exotic yet aristocratic beauty. Anna was a unique woman. And he knew that she was no longer the eighteen-year-old girl who ended up subjecting herself to paying a debt that wasn't hers. No. She was now a determined and independent woman, in terms. She knew that her income was provided by her father, and by Maxwell, and that she kept it all, without spending a single penny. That was one of the things his detective discovered that afternoon. But there was much more. He knew he would have to use heavy blackmail to convince her. After letting her wait for him, he went inside and met her.
"Adam... I thought punctuality was a feature of your personality. You always say you like elegance and it's not very polite to keep a lady waiting..."
Adam laughed.
"I arrived with you. But I admired the view for a while. It's been so long since I've been able to do that..."
"Then call the waiter back and let's place our orders. I don't want to stay here a minute longer after dinner."
"Why are you in such a hurry?"
Anna looked at him to answer, but was silenced by the arrival of the waiter with the menu. He left a menu for each of them and walked away. Then Anna turned to Adam.
"I have a husband and son. They don't even know I'm gone. I want to get back before they notice I'm gone."
"You didn't tell Maxwell that you'd made an appointment with me?" he asked wryly. He asked wryly. "Anna! I underestimated you!"
"I'm not hiding anything from him, I just haven't had time to talk. Now, you've got it all wrong. This isn't a date!"
"For me, it is. And after you've heard everything I have to say, you're going to leave here with me and go straight to a hotel." He said calmly.
Once again, Anna was prevented from speaking by the waiter's intrusion. They placed their orders, and as soon as he left, Anna returned to the subject.
"You jump to conclusions too quickly, Adam. I'll never leave here with you, and before Maxwell wakes up and misses me, I'll be lying next to him. I'm no longer that child you could manipulate with your blackmail and charisma."
"Max will be asleep for a long time yet..."
"Why are you saying that? What did you do?"
"I put sleeping pills in the water in your room... I confess I was afraid you'd drink it, too, and I hoped you hadn't gotten into the habit. As for Max, if you haven't noticed to this day that he doesn't sleep until he's had a glass of water, it's because you're not as happy as you make out."
"Of course I know that." Anna said impatiently. "Adam, I asked for this meeting to find out more about my mother. I want to know where she's from, and who she was. You let slip that you knew something about her..."
"I know very little about who your mother was. She was Irish. When she fell in love with her father, she was banished from her family because she was betrothed to a witch who led her clan."
"Do they know she had a baby? How did she fall in love with my father?"
"I can't tell you about her paternal relatives, they're so insignificant that I haven't bothered to find out... But your mother's family, yes. They knew of your existence, but I know that she fled Ireland, ran away from her fiancé, when she had a revelation in her dreams that your father was the one for her. She was crazy, Anna. She fell in love with Henry before she even met him. However, there was a sanity in her madness, because she knew the time, place and date when she would meet him. Of course, she was the most sober person we've ever met. His mother, Anna, she was a haze. And that's all I know about her. I didn't investigate her romance or her personality, although I sometimes had to confront her love story to understand some things, but it was always convenient for the werewolves that everyone believed she was crazy. We couldn't contain a mist at the height of its power."
"What does it mean to be a mist?"
"That, I'll reveal to you another time."
"Did you know that your father killed my family?"
Adam pressed his lips together.
"He killed every descendant of yours, Anna. Every distant cousin, every... And he wanted to kill you, too."
"So... Max knew that too? That his father wiped out my family?"
Adam stared at her with dark eyes.
"What is it, Anna? What has Max done to make you believe he's a decent man?"
Anna felt tears burn her eyes.
"Dad didn't tell me any of these things... He knew too and... I don't have anyone to trust."
"I don't think your father thinks you should know some of the details."
"My father is the human who represents the monster in each of us, Adam. You're not the most bloodthirsty monster in the world. Humans carry that title."
"The day I shaved Sarah's hair, I took the opportunity to pretend to torture her to death. I asked her a few questions, and she answered me. She knows a lot, or everything, about her mother. You'll have to get it out of her if you want to find out anything else: "benim kötü küçük cadım."