An Heir for Alexandros: The Greek Billionaire's Baby Read Online Free PDF Page B

sometimes quite ruthlessly. Briza, the youngest, was clever, like my mother. Even at an early age she had a head for figures. She hated our father more than any of us, because everyone was forced to compete except her.”
     
    “Because she was female?”
     
    “That is what Briza thought, but it was really because she was so good with numbers. Our father planned to have her replace my mother as finance director, and he gave her little choice in the matter. Our father raised us with fear and want as bedfellows. He said that way, we would learn the true meaning of life. It started when I was about six years old. One day, there was only one bed for us to sleep in. He’d send us to school for the day, and whichever of us he felt did the best would get the bed. The rest of us would have to sleep on the cold floor. Eventually, Peter turned against me and Darius. He tried to keep us up late, and destroy our homework. At school, he would get us blamed for things we hadn’t done. Anything so that he could get the bed.”
     
    “Didn’t your father ever figure out what Peter was doing?” Kally asked, trying to keep the shock she was feeling out of her voice. She had pulled a tablet out of her purse, and was making notes as Alexandros spoke.
     
    “He encouraged it,” the Greek sighed heavily. “According to him, Peter was showing real survival instinct. A few weeks later, we started competing for food in the same way. Two of us would get just enough to keep us alive, but the most successful one would eat well. 'I don’t support failure!' he’d say. 'If you want to eat, try harder to succeed.'
     
    “We started to hate each other not long after that. I thought of my brothers as my competition. Some days, when my stomach was on fire with pain, I truly wished they didn’t exist. We stole food sometimes, but we’d be beaten for it when we were discovered. Cheating was okay, but somehow, stealing wasn’t. As we grew, everything we did was judged by my father. Chores, schoolwork, our level of obedience. More and more, he gravitated toward Darius. He was willing to spy for my father, and was the easiest to control.”
     
    “You say you thought of your brothers as competition. What about Briza? Was she forced into this too?” Kally intoned.
     
    “No, and I used to despise her for it. I hated her for fighting her situation when it was so perfect. She fought my father tooth and nail. She always had all the food she needed. She never had to sleep on the cold, bare, floor. She didn’t have two sisters trying to sabotage her at every turn. All Briza had to do was get perfect scores in math, and agree to become an accountant someday. I could never understand why she kept on about studying chemistry. Sometimes, I would steal her food, and threaten to hurt her if she told anyone. I used to call her every vicious thing I could think of. I tried to make her suffer so her life would be as bad as mine. As I’m saying it now, it’s hard to believe, but hunger can drive people to do terrible things.”
     
    “Your father had no compunction about turning his children against each other?” Kally asked incredulously. She was picturing the children she had seen on the subway having to fight for one plate of food. “Didn’t your mother try to stop him from carrying on that way?”
     
    The look that came over Alexandros’ face made Kally wish she hadn’t asked.
     
    “She tried,” Alexandros replied quietly, with a sad glance at one of the curio tables. “Whenever she challenged him, or provided us with food, she suffered for it. I used to run away to my grandfather’s house when I couldn’t take them screaming at each other anymore. My grandfather never had much, but he was always happy to take me fishing. Once, he somehow managed to take me to an ice hockey game. How he managed to afford the tickets is still beyond me. He told my father we were going to go fishing. If he knew where we were actually going, he might have