Angela snapped her head towards Gael upon hearing the words. Did he just call her mother Mrs. Volkov?

Wait… Volkov…

The gears in her head began turning at a faster pace as if the name was the oil that made every spin smoother. Her eyes widened, suddenly remembering the man kissing her mother in the library. A few memories splattered in her head like paint flickered onto a canvas—blotchy, inconsistent. But slowly, the whole picture began to clear up.

Before the library incident, she was with her mother in a cafe where she first saw Mr. IV. Her mother's eyes bugged out in complete surprise when the man came to their table and sat with them. He was her mother's…special friend, he said so himself, at the same time that her mother blurted that he was her editor. She believed her mother, of course.

Mr. IV introduced himself to Angela, but his name was foreign which felt strange in her small mouth and a little hard for her to say. So she settled on referring to him with his initials. IV for Ivan-something Volkov. Ivan was the name her mother mentioned she left for her father when Angela heard her parents fought.

Her mother's supposed editor. She huffed inwardly, getting sicker each millisecond that she remembered some memories from when she was a child. Her mother used to write stories, spending day and night in the library writing in her notebook, and meeting some people from a publishing agency. Once, Angela tried to search online if Cynthia had any books published, but she didn't find any—unless her mother used a pen name. So she didn't think that her mother pursued writing.

It didn't make sense back then, and she didn't think much about her mother's career, especially because her memory could not be trusted when it came to things related to her mother. But saying Ivan was her editor was obviously just a cover now that she was older and thought about it. Ivan Volkov wasn't her mother's editor; he was her lover. The man her mother cheated her father with.

And apparently, her mother married that man, seeing as they had the same surname now. Did her father know? Did Oliver? Angela's blood began to boil at the thought of her mother's unfaithfulness. She started to think if coming to meet her today was a bad idea. This woman left them and broke her father's heart. She shouldn't be giving her the time of day.

That's one thing to think about. And another about the fact that Gael knew her mother. Had he always known? Or was it just now that he realized he did? 'Just what the hell is going on?'

"How do you know her?" Angela questioned him in a low, tight voice.

Gael opened his mouth, but Cynthia answered first, "He doesn't. Not really. But that's not important right now. I only have an hour. I can't stay long. Shall we?" Cynthia gestured towards the table, turning towards it and taking a seat at the chair at the head of the table.

Angela hesitated. "Tell me," she whispered, her voice begging for him to tell her what she didn't know. The only thing he told her was that her mother might have ties with the Russian mafia. Now, she had more questions in her head.

"Later," he whispered back before leading her to the chair to Cynthia's right.

The dishes came five minutes later, and their glasses were filled with wine. They hadn't spoken to each other until the servers left and the door closed again.

"You're all grown up now, Kylie." Cynthia's voice was calm, yet Angela could sense a hint of sadness in it.

Her mother then talked about a story from when Angela was still five years old, the smile on her face lighting her up like she had the best memories from so long ago. However, hearing her mother talk about the past only made Angela's heart ache. What was the point? Talking about a dead memory when she left and grew up without her? Did her mother expect that this was a grand reunion and Angela would just embrace her and cry into her arms and tell her she missed her?

Gael placed his hand on her knee, giving it a squeeze. He must have felt her tense up. He'd been thoughtful, cutting through the steak on her plate when she couldn't so much as lift her hands to hold the utensils—she had been wringing them under the table, trying to stop herself from doing something or maybe she was nervous about this whole thing.

"Please eat," he softly whispered to her ear.

Her mother was silent again when Angela finally ate. Cynthia was very observant between Angela and Gael, her eyes not judging but merely curious about how they acted around each other.

It was halfway through their dish when Cynthia spoke again. "How about Oliver? How is he?"

Angela, who was still reeling in the midst of all the confusion and anger from being in the same room with the woman she once loved but chose to leave her and her family, stilled her hands and gripped the fork tightly.

The other night, she had a nightmare about the day her mother left, and she woke up with tears in her eyes to a worried Gael. Now, all the pain and anger mixing together was overwhelming that she wanted to get out of the room so badly.

"Why don't you go ask him yourself?" Angela muttered, stopping herself from adding, 'Oh, wait… you can't. You're dead to him.' It was the first sentence she said to her mother since they came in.

Silence engulfed the room, and for a second, she thought that her mother was going to express being hurt, but then Cynthia carefully placed her fork and knife down and took a sip of red wine, her face unreadable. She looked so different from the last time Angela saw her when she was a child. Her mother aged, but she aged gracefully and barely had wrinkles on her face. She must be in her early fifties now.

Angela wondered what her mother was thinking about as the latter stared at the red wine in her hand. That curiosity died fast when Cynthia finally broke the silence.

"Does your father know what kind of man you have next to you?"

Angela's face hardened, not liking the question her mother asked. Gael, whose hand was still on her knee, remained calm as if the question didn't bother him at all. But she wasn't the same. She felt protective of him. "What did you say?"

This time, Cynthia lifted her gaze to Angela. She briefly glanced at Gael before shifting to her daughter again. "The De Lucas. They're people you shouldn't get entangled with. If you know what's good for you, Kylie, you should stay away from them."

Angela's lips parted in disbelief. She scoffed while the words her mother said replayed in her head. She tried to think whether she misunderstood the other or if her mother was really warning her to stay away from Gael and his family. Her chest began heaving, and her eyes stung from all the pent-up emotions swirling within her.

Was her mother—who abandoned her and her family—really telling her "what's good for her"?

Angela sensed the warning that her heart was about to shatter.