I turn around and point an accusatory finger at his chest. “Don’t you dare. The list of your transgressions could fill entire pages. He did it to protect me, surely.”
I am about to punch in the third number when a low growl thunders in his throat. “He was about to sell you.”
I can’t believe he would stoop so low. “Lies.”
He grabs my elbow, spinning me around, a manic look shadowing his face. “Lies? Fucking lies? You paint me as the villain and keep that piece of shit to the highest standards.”
A scream rips from my chest. “He wouldn’t do that.” I sound like a broken record, but with every second, my world threatens to implode.
“No? He called a meeting to celebrate our engagement only to deliver us to our greatest enemies. They ambushed us, locking us in a warehouse on your precious compound. No fucking guilt as he left us there to die. They tortured my father, and they were about to kill me next. It wasn’t what made me turn nuclear, though. It was the asshole who kept saying, ‘Good that you loosened her up for me.’ In excruciating detail, he told me what he would do to you while his men kept laughing in my face and spat at my father’s corpse. A man who loved you like a daughter.” He recounts the story with such chilling precision that I brace my arms around myself, needing warmth. He continues, eyes dead, “Your father made a shitty business deal and was about to lose everything. Instead of asking us for help because he was too fucking proud, he sold us out. I erased their entire bloodline so no one would even dare get to you. I killed your father’s men, one by fucking one, as I clawed my way to you. Your dear compound was the place he would have buried me and my father. Instead, I set his fucking corpse on fire, burning him with the rest and watched his kingdom turn to ash.So fucking hate me, Zara. I will never be sorry for killing him. You can keep the bastard’s name, but my son will never carry it.”
By the end of his speech, his chest ripples and his hands tremble, his entire posture contorted in agony. He is telling the truth, but accepting it means… fuck…
“I need a moment.” I punch in the last number, and the elevator opens. The doors close just as his eyes find mine. What stares back butchers me, no spark left.
His men surround the underground garage, and when they see me, they straighten, looking at each other with clear indecision.
“Keys.”
One hurries to comply. “Yes, ma’am.”
Inside an SUV, I turn the engine on with one destination in mind. From the corner of my eye, I see a tinted sports car entering the garage, an uneasy feeling knotting my stomach. Damn, focus.
The problem is not that I don’t believe him. It’s that I do, but I need a minute to myself, to gather my thoughts. Deep down, he knew what it would do to me, so he preferred to lie, hide the truth, and bury it.
My father’s betrayal was my breaking point. I idolized him.
The man who lied to me my entire life.
The man who was about to sell me.
I reach the mansion and open the gates, needing to soak in the embodiment of his love for me.
Inside, everything looks as it was before my rampage––a shrine.
How can this man still love me when I don’t deserve his love?
Nothing is out of place. No sign of destruction. All the pictures hang back in place, and I fall to my knees, ugly sobs tearing from my chest.
Clutching my belly, I say, “You have the best father, baby. I don’t know about your mother, though.”
I lose all sense of time as I cry, each tear cleansing my soul and strengthening my resolve to face any hardship and overcome every obstacle. Nothing can and will stop me.
After the unavoidable but productive breakdown, I emerge as the queen of my life, choosing him. Only ever him.
I need to return, not wanting him to think I left him. He never abandoned me, and I won’t either. Not in this lifetime. Not throughout my existence. Never again.
All I want to do is love him. Love him with everything in me until I am nothing but dust.
35
VIAN
She left, abandoning me to the cruelest fate—longing for her until my dying breath. My life force bleeds out of me. She ripped my chest open, exposing a heart beating a hollow rhythm, echoing with the ghosts of a shattered dream.
I stare at the elevator doors closing in on me, locking me in pitch darkness, and sink to my knees—a fallen king who has lost everything.
The fucker must laugh at me from hell. He won.
