“We agreed you would disappear when you got free.”
“We agreed nothing. You need to remember your place,Watson. I hold all the cards, remember?”
“Let my daughter go, whatever you’re doing doesn’t involve her.”
“She has everything to do with it, but then again, she’s notreallyyour daughter, is she?”
There something in the way Naylor says that last part. “W-What?”
Naylor smirks. “I’ll leave you to it. Seems you have a lot to talk about.” He strides out of the room, leaving me alone with my father.
I can’t look at him.
“I didn’t know this would happen.”
I huff out a laugh. What did he expect was going to happen letting a convicted murderer, rapist and abuser out onto the streets?
“What did he mean?”
He swallows. “Nothing you need worry yourself with.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I snap, pinning him with my eyes. “Tell me it’s not true.”
He drags the chair I was sitting on earlier and takes a seat in front of me. He leans forward on his elbows. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Oh my god...” I gasp. If I wasn’t already sat on the floor, I’m sure my knees would’ve buckled.
“Your mother had an affair.”
“Who?”
“A man named Tobias Grimes.”
“Wait… He was the leader of The Cobras, right?He’smy real father?”
He nods.
Tobias Grimesismy father.
I let the words sink in, they’re so unfamiliar and strange to me it doesn’t seem real. My mind is racing, skipping from one thought to the next.
“Regardless of the fact you don’t share my blood, you aremydaughter.”
“You’ve had a funny way of showing it,” I shoot back. “Did Grimes know about me?”
He nods. “He targeted your mother specifically. I was in a position of power and he wanted something to hold over my head, something he could use that could benefit him. He got your mother pregnant on purpose. He had no intention of being a part of your life.”
Bile crawls up my throat, my mouth filling with saliva.
This can’t be happening.
My father clears his throat. “You were never supposed to find out this way, Kaia.”
“You mean at all? You were never going to tell me, admit it.”
“What good has it brought you by knowing?”
“That’s why you wanted me to be more like you, so I’d be less like him. That’s why nothing I ever did was good enough for you, why I always seemed to disappoint you.”
