My muscles freeze. There’s a voice in my head screaming no, no, no, don’t go. Don’t leave me. I’m five years old again, reaching for a mother or father who will never come.
“When that day comes, it is my final wish that you remain in an alliance with Fraternitas. Do not let your mother’s sacrifice go to waste.”
I knew it. I knew he blamed me for her death. “You never loved me, did you?”
“I do this because I love you.”
“No, you never loved me, and you never loved her,” I rave. “I know you didn’t. You never avenged her!” He wants me to be a mastermind like him. Uncaring. Unfeeling. Willing to do anything for power.
But he’s the one who refused to avenge my mother’s murder. For a decade. As soon as I found out, I did something about it. I may be reckless, but I’m not a coward.
My father’s face is purple. He could be having an aneurysm right now. I’ve done the equivalent of stabbing him in the heart.
I don’t care. He deserves the pain. He took my mother’s paintings down from the walls. He’s done everything to erase her from his life, and I will never forgive him for it. “That’s why you never speak of her. You can’t even say her name. You failed her.”
He stares at me. That’s right, Papa, I can wound you, too. But it doesn’t feel like winning. It feels like we’re both pulling each other down to drown in the mud.
After a long moment, he gets himself under control. My father is gone. The robot that’s commandeered his body since Shoshonna Bosco was murdered is here. “If you would grow up, you would understand. There are things more important than vengeance. I had a child to protect.”
My face splits into a bitter smile. “Good news, Benjiro. You don’t protect me anymore.”
29
Bella
* * *
I storm out of my father’s lab. Kaiser’s waiting there. He probably followed our shouting down the stairs. “Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say in a flat voice.
My father followed me out. I turn my back on him as if he doesn’t matter.
“I’ll see you at the engagement party,” he says.
“Don’t fucking bother,” I toss over my shoulder and walk out. Fuck him.
Fuck everything.
I thought talking to my father would help, but it never does. My father stands there like a rock and lets my rage wash over him, and in the end, he’s not moved.
I hate it so much.
I hate him. He’s my only family, and I love him, but I hate how he is. I hate that I want him to be proud of me.
Well, he made it clear today that he’ll never be proud of me.
If that’s true, then I have nothing to lose.
It’s time to fully enter my supervillain era.
By the time I get to the car, all my emotion is spent, and I feel like curling into a ball under an oak tree and hibernating until the leaves cover me. I could do it, too. Kaiser would protect me.
He’s the one who watches over me, not my father. What I said was true. Everything my father told me was probably true, too. We’ve laid out the brutal facts between us, and nothing is solved.
I’m so tired.
“What happened?” Kaiser asks.
