“You should have aimed higher,” he said, voice calm, almost thoughtful, as if he were correcting a minor mistake at the table instead of commenting on the bullet I’d put in him.
“Believe me,” I said evenly, meeting his stare, “I tried.”
His lips twitched, almost amused, as if we were sharing some private joke. “I always knew you had a sharp tongue.”
The words slid between us, thin and poisonous.
“You dishonored me,” he continued, taking a slow step closer. His shoes echoed softly against the floor. “Running off with him. Letting him touch you.” His gaze dragged over me, clinical and cold. “You made yourself worthless. His whore.”
The physician, the guards, even the blood spreading through his shirt were secondary. What mattered to him was that Dmitry had taken what he considered inventory. Not a daughter. A commodity.
“Well,” he added lightly, as if considering options at an auction, “maybe not entirely worthless. Perhaps I should sell you to the highest bidder. Let them take what they want and recoup some of the loss.”
The men behind him didn’t react, and neither did I. He wanted my outrage, wanted me to beg. But what he wanted most were my tears.
I gave him nothing.
“Do you understand what that means?” he asked.
I kept my mouth shut, and let him hear his own voice echo back at him.
“It means,” he said, tone flattening, “I can’t allow you to exist like this. You were meant to secure alliances, strengthen networks, and increase value.”
“I’m not a stock portfolio,” I snapped back.
He smiled slowly. “You’re exactly that.”
His fingers caught my chin, not violently, but firmly enough that I felt the pressure in my jaw. He tilted my face upward, examining me like something damaged but salvageable. It was ownership disguised as discipline.
“I was never yours to bargain with,” I whispered.
His grip tightened, thumb pressing into the hinge of my jaw. “I fed you, clothed you, educated you, and gave you every single fucking thing you have. I paid for you.” His voice dropped lower. “By every account, you are an investment. And I can do what I want with my investments.”
Something inside me went still. “You caged me,” I said, the words coming sharper now. “You monitored my calls, chose my friends, and decided what I wore, what I studied, and who Iwould marry.” I swallowed the burn in my throat. “You were never a father.”
His expression didn’t change.
“You never loved me.”
His grip stayed firm and painful. “Sentimentality is a weakness,” he said.
“No,” I answered. “You are.” For the first time, something flickered in his eyes, something he’d let no one see. Offense.
“You think Dmitry is different?” he asked. “You think he isn’t part of the same machine?”
“I know he is,” I said. “But he doesn’t pretend it’s clean.”
“And that makes him noble?”
“No. It makes him honest.”
His jaw clenched slowly, like he was grinding down something bitter. “You’ve chosen wrong,” he said.
“I chose myself.” The words didn’t shake, and that seemed to irritate him more than if I had screamed and hit him.
For a moment, no one moved. The physician appeared at one of the bedroom doorways, and my father’s men stood at attention, weapons visible but not raised. The blood soaking through my father’s white shirt was spreading steadily, dark and heavy, but he ignored it. Maybe I’d get lucky, and he’d bleed out.
His gaze never left me as he let go of my chin and took a step back. “You think this is rebellion,” he hissed. “You think this is strength.”
