Instead, he nodded curtly and whirled back around, quickly walking out the front door. The beautiful dark-haired devil disappeared, leaving me all alone.
In a foreign house, with no place to go and nothing to do.
But safe.
Days passed in deep silence. No voices, no music, I didn't turn the TV on. I didn't speak, I didn’t sing, I didn’t hum. I made no sounds.
I slept to my heart’s content. I finally had no deadlines and no alarm clock. No rules to adhere to.
For the first time in my life.
I sat on the beach in the morning, afternoon, evening, and sometimes in the middle of the night too. I swam for as long as I wanted. I ate the food thatIwanted. Or didn’t eat at all. I dressed the way I wanted. I did and IwaswhatI wanted.
I’d never lived this…free.
Security patrolled the small property, always there, always visible out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t mind. The guys resembled MMA fighters, but they didn’t even look my way. Their objective was to protect me.
The thought ran through me at the speed of light—for the first time in my life, someone was protectingme. Like I was a princess in a castle.
I moved through the days, catching myself wanting Alex to come back and visit. As much as admitting it made me question my own sanity, there was no way to deny I liked spending the day with him. I wanted more time. More time to just be in his presence.
But I also thought about someone else.
My father.
Day and night, the puzzle was rearranging itself in my head. I didn’t care how he felt now that I was missing. Was he sad? Angry? Vengeful?
Hopefully, all those things. Hopefully, he suffered.
Because Sebastian Moretti was a follower of rules and principles, one that he was determined to impose on others.
The first principle was: it’s either his way or no other way. He believed he was always correct and his opinion was the only one that mattered. He bulldozed through everyone's feelings—
No. He didn’t see or acknowledge that other people had feelings. Real feelings weren't for him, anyway.
He’d split feelings into two categories: masculine and feminine. Calm, centered, confident, brave, strong, determined, engaged, and stimulated; those were all masculine in his eyes. Weak, docile, pleasing, happy, impatient, worried, scared, overwhelmed, and vulnerable; those were all feminine.
He would pass thoseteachingsonto me when I was growing up—engaging me in long conversations and lectures about what it meant to be a man and a woman. And I ate all that shit up. I believed in it all until my first year of university.
I entered undergrad and almost had a mental breakdown. Had I been misled my whole life? Tricked? Kept in a dark dungeon of my father’s twisted and unreliable rules? Why were all my classmates so…free? Free to choose, free to be.
That’s when I was able to name it. Rage. Not anger, not frustration—rage. I turned from a docile and scared little girl to a furious and deeply unsatisfied woman.
But it’s incredibly hard to break free from old and familiar ties. There was no way to escape, no way to disentangle and leave, because above all else, I was Sebastian Moretti’s daughter. Hisonlydaughter, his only family.
Resentment brewed inside me, growing stronger with every year. No mother to turn to—we lost her to cancer when I was only four—it was always just me and him. And he was always too overprotective. Strict to a fault. Controlling all my actions, words, and thoughts.
So there I was—top law school graduate with asumma cum laudediploma hanging above my desk, better suited to be in the trash can instead. Because that achievement wasn’t mine—it was his. There was a pipeline—law school to assistant United States attorney working for Sebastian Moretti—that was non-negotiable.
My fatherthrivedin his job. It gave him life, put an extra pep in his step, and offered the feeling of self-worth that we all chase, but it drained me. I was a zombie, merely existing within a set of strict rules. Every morning, I swallowed tears as I stepped inside the building extra early, just like him.
I was twenty-six, and dead inside. My job sucked the life out of me. My father hovered over me as if I were an inmate serving a life sentence. My apartment? Picked by him, in the neighborhood he deemed safe and acceptable. Getting to work? He would pick me up. Groceries, gym, going out to eat? With him.
Until he found someone suitable to pass me off to, and I was too blind to see it. As soon as Xavier and I began dating, it was like he loosened the reins, but just slightly, to make sure I didn’t notice.
Xavier was everything a partner should be, according to my father. He was strong, rich, a provider, and he showered me with attention.
And when it all began to go downhill with Xavier, my father refused to see the signs. Refused to accept my words or listen to my fears.
