“You know what? You were right the other day; we are not supposed to be on speaking terms.” He got to his feet with a grunt. “I will leave you now.”
“Don’t forget our discussion earlier.”
“I’ll be sure to,” he said before making his way out of the gazebo, careful of his injury.
I sighed, watching him until he was out of sight, carrying the amusement from our back-and-forth with him.
“Evening, sir,” greeted the receptionist at the motel when I reached her. “We had the room cleaned as usual; everything is in place.”
I nodded, slipping her a bundle of banknotes. “Thank you,” I said. “Did you, by chance, happen to feed him this morning?”
The woman frowned. “What?”
I sighed. “Never mind,” I told her before walking away, knowing she had cleaned, meaning he had been fed.
When I reached the room I shrugged off my coat, seeing his quiet figure in the chair, staring out the window like he usually did.
I walked over to him. “Do you ever use the bed?” I asked, settling on the windowsill, watching his frail form, looking as sickly as ever.
My father sighed. “The cars keep me company.”
“There’s a TV in the room to keep you company,” I reminded him, but he didn’t seem to acknowledge that. His gaze was focused solely outside the window. “I would have come by sooner. But there was a little chaos; I had to handle it,” I said, but he remained quiet. “You won’t ask what it was about?”
“You will tell me anyway.”
“Not really. I don’t think I want to revisit it. But there is one thing I think you should know, though.”
He dragged his droopy eyes up to look at me. “What.”
“I know where the painting is, and soon, I will have those flash drives. Soon you will be out of here; you’ll get the death wish you so badly long for.”
His face tried to form a frown. “You still want to burn down my empire; you are still vengeful.”
I scoffed. “After all these years, one would think you would register the fact that burning it all down is how we will end. Did you think your wife burned down that church with her and your other children for a show? She was showing us how it would all end. Your thirst for power, money, and status. The fire can take it all away. It’s a cleansing we both need, unfortunately.”
He was quiet for a stretch of minutes. “I am disappointed,” he finally said.
“Why?”
“This was not what I wished for you, Elio.”
I dragged in a deep breath and let it out as I spoke. “You did this with your own hands.”
He shook his head. “No.Youdid this. Your head was never going to be fixed. You want to end up like your mother only because you are just like her. Crazy. Delusional. Pathe—”
My backhand connected with his cheek in a hard slap that had his head swinging to the side at the impact. The sting bit at the back of my hand as I stood upright, my anger simmering. “You won’t be seeing me for a while. Hope that will teach you a lesson on how to control that godforsaken tongue of yours.”
“You won’t succeed.” He wheezed. “You don’t have the spine to do it. To burn it. You are too weak; you would have done it if you really wanted to do it. That is why I am not worried. It won’t work. You willfail.”
I clenched my jaw so hard that I felt pain.
Slowly, tentatively, I leaned down, looking him right in the eye, reveling in the hate and fear I spotted there as I spoke.
“Why don’t we wait and see.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Zahra
