“Dad...” My voice came out rough, edged with disbelief and something darker. “This is not you.”
The word hit him like a trigger.
His expression twisted further—something ugly and violent flashing across his eyes.
He bent abruptly, grabbed the small metal stool beside the bed, and hurled it straight at my head.
Instinct took over.
I ducked and twisted at the same time, my body moving before my mind could even process the danger.
The stool whistled past my shoulder, missing me by inches before slamming into the wall behind me with a deafening clang.
The impact dented the plaster, metal legs bending on contact before it dropped to the floor in a rattling heap.
“I’ve warned you,” he panted, chest rising and falling heavily, “quit calling me ‘dad,’ goddammit.”
His voice flattened.
“You, your younger sister, your brother — you were never mine. The DNA test confirmed every last one of you is a bastard.”
For a moment—everything stopped.
Sound. Breath.
Thought.
My lungs seized hard, like they’d forgotten how to pull in air, like my whole body had just been kicked in the chest.
“That’s not true.”
The words barely made it out.
“I found out you weren’t mine when you were sixteen,” he went on, voice flat and casual.
“Your whore of a mother thought she was smart. Figured I’d never catch on.”
A short, humorless chuckle escaped him.
“That plane crash that took out your mother and your brother?” He tilted his head, studying me like a bug.
“Yeah. I planned that shit. Made sure they didn’t walk away.”
The room dropped out from under me.
My fingers curled against the wall behind me.
No.
No—
“That’s not—”
“Your slut mother was heading off on her fake ‘vacation’ to spread her legs for her boyfriend,” he went on, ignoring me completely. “
“I’d known she was cheating for months, the stupid cunt.”
His lips twisted.
