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He has something bigger up his sleeve, I know. I can feel it.
He wants revenge.
He wants to put me in my place for hiding things from him, for playing him. Like he did two years ago when he had Fae arrested just because he wanted to get to me.
To punish me for years of taunting him with soccer.
He settles back in his chair then. “I can’t help but think why. Why would you hide something so big from your own father? You don’t think I mean your future child any harm, do you?”
“You —”
“You don’t think I mean her harm,” he says, tilting his head to the side to look at the photo again, reading off it, “Calliope Thorne.”
“Don’t,” I snap with clenched teeth, “say her name.”
He laughs again. “She must be one special girl, this Calliope.” I clench my jaw again when he says it. “Well, she’s already proven herself to be so useful. A fucking goldmine, I have to say, and I haven’t even met her yet. She —”
“Stop talking about her,” I snap again, and this time, I move.
I stride over to his desk with violence running in my veins, and when I reach it, I put my hands on the wood, bend over and growl, “What the fuck do you want?”
His wolfish smile grows.
He knows he’s got me.
He knows I’m going to do whatever the fuck he wants me to do.
“Nothing really. Just wanted to see it with my own eyes.”
“See what?”
He chuckles. “If you’re still whipped. What is it about her though, I wonder? Is it because she’s a dancer?”
“What?”
He smiles, his eyes flashing. “What, you thought I wouldn’t find out everything, every fucking thing, about the mother of my grandchild?” He chuckles again. “She’s a ballerina, huh? A good one from what I’ve heard. And she’s got her little heart set on Juilliard. My, my. Apparently, it’s one of the best schools and apparently, they’re pretty fucking lucky to have her. At least, that’s what he said when I talked to him, the dean. Turns out, I know him. I’ve asked him to take good care of her. She’s family now, isn’t she? You saw to that. And unlike you, the girl’s got ambition. She wants to dance for the New York City Ballet Company. I think I like her more than I ever liked you.”
My fingers vibrate on the desk, with fear, with dread, as he takes a pause to let his words sink in.
As he makes all my nightmares come true.
“But then, are you sure you want to give her that much freedom? Maybe she’s better off, staying home, taking care of your sweet little kid, who I very much hope takes after its mommy rather than its useless fucking daddy.”
“You fucking –"
Finally, his façade breaks and my father becomes the villain he is. “Watch your fucking tone with me, boy. You don’t want to piss me off. You don’t want to get me upset. Not right now, you fucking piece of shit.” His jaw clenches. “You think you can keep things from me, huh? You think you’re so clever keeping things from your old man, taunting him, rebelling against him. I tolerated that back when you were growing up. With your goddamn soccer and your teenage rebellion and little revenge plans. I let it go but those days are over. Those fucking days are over. You know what you are now? You’re my bitch. You do what I tell you to do. I ask you to jump, you ask how high. I ask you to get down on your knees in front of me, you better be prepared to not only get down on your knees but to lick my fucking boots. And if you don’t, I’ll take your happy little family and crush them under those same fucking boots, you understand, you shithead. Don’t ever keep anything from me or try to pull one on me or I’d be happy to remind you, Roman. I’d be happy to remind you who the boss is.”
Bile surges up my throat.
He’s the only one who calls me that. Roman. And I’ve fucking hated that name for as long as I can remember.
Until her.
Until she chose to call me that, cleansing it with her voice.
Until she baptized that name with her candy lips and gave it a new life.
“How did you know?”
The question is out before I can stop it and now it hangs in the air like a time bomb. The one that I feel lives in my chest these days.
“How did I know what?”
You’d give up your fucking soul for that girl. Your father knew that.
I look at the man I’ve hated all my life, the one who brought me into this world, whose face looks like mine and who’s taught me everything I know, every cruel, mean, bad thing I know.
