He slams the door behind himself so viciously that the glass quivers for moments after. The bell jingles on from the force.
My heart stops in my chest when two fingers tap my shoulder. Carmen steps out of the way before my flailing limb gets her in the face.
“You good, boss?” she asks, forehead creased.
That,I think.That is what real concern for your well-being looks like.
I swallow down the lump in my throat, fighting mortifying tears that fill my eyes. “I just need a moment, Car.”
Because I’m not okay. In fact, I don’t know if I ever wholly will be.
***
By the time Otto drives me home, I’m no longer convinced I’m unscathed. A fever has taken hold of me. Within me, myriad contradictory emotions are at war. All of them feel like my undoing.
I’ve never seen myself as an angry person. That’s my father.
But it’s as though mere contact with him has infected me. And now it’s in me. This vicious, monstrous anger pulsing beneath my skin. It breathes fire in every direction.
At my father, for still being exactly who he’s always been. At myself for never being immune to foolish, painful hope I always let him plant, just for it to never bloom. At whoever is threatening him. At my mom for dying. At Iosif, for buying me instead of just pulling me out of the Pit. At the Yuris, for caring about me, and doing it so well, I’m more keenly aware than ever that my own flesh and blood doesn’t. At reality. At fantasy.
This anger is so different, and yet not different enough, from a deluge of grief.
Have I just been mourning the wrong parent all this time?
My mom died, but she never wanted to leave me. But my dad has chosen it over and over. Has chosen it, and so much other shit, over me. He would choose anything but me, his own daughter. Until he needs something from me.
Realizations ping around my head like a bowling ball, knocking down pin after pin. My feet carry me through the penthouse—past the kitchen where Iosif and I have shared so many conversations now, past the hallway where we have fought, and fought, and reconciled.
I find myself at his office door without intending to.
I’ve already twisted the knob and thrown the door open before my brain catches up.
This, too, I don’t regret.
They’re killers,my father had said.You’re a fucking toy to them.
Unknowingly, he shakes salt into the wound when he looks up and greets, “Evening,kukolka.Time for dinner?”
His tie is loose around his neck. His shirt is untucked, the sleeves rolled up his powerful arms. Despite his exhaustion, his smile is brilliant.
I can’t speak. My day crashes over me like a tide, knocking me off my seat. I drop into the seat in front of his desk. Idly, I remember this is where I signed the papers that started this all.
Iosif has rounded the table in seconds. His hands cup my cheeks, drawing my eyes up to his. “Janella? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t you get tired of saving me all the time? It can be sexy when you call me that, but I’mnotin the mood to be coddled.”
I’m never this sharp with him. A part of me feels rotten about it. Another—and this one closer to the surface, more potent, and in the driver’s seat tonight—enjoys unleashing this ugliness, drowning me from within.
It infuriates me that he doesn’t even react. Why doesn’t he recoil? He stands there, and he takes it. If anything, he looks fascinated.
“Don’t,” I gripe, and smack his hands away from my face. “I don’t know why the hell I came here.”
His hands don’t move.
“I don’t believe that,” he says flatly. “You came because you can. What happened today?”
I scowl at him, always so far above me in every sense. Tonight, I hate him a little for it. “You don’t want to know,” I assure him.
