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I gave a slight nod.
“Pearl had been your father’s prisoner for a long time, about three months. Cane and I only stole her because she seemed to be the one thing your father cared about. At the time, I had no idea about your mom. He must have kept her a secret on purpose. So, I stole Pearl to get revenge. I intended to rape her and kill her.” He spoke about his horrible intentions without skipping a beat.
I didn’t react at all, not surprised.
“When she was in my possession, she fought my men with a kind of battle rage I’ve never seen. She punched, stabbed, did everything she could to get away. I cornered her like a wild animal, and she was about to turn the knife on herself. She was willing to kill herself because being a prisoner for another moment was unbearable. I respected her for it, respected her for fighting as hard as she could until she realized there was no way out.”
I imagined a younger version of Pearl holding the point of a knife against her stomach. I imagined the moment they met each other, not seeing a hint of romance there.
“I got the knife from her, and instead of being cruel to her like I should have been, I asked her permission to put a syringe in her neck and put her to sleep. Instead of leaving her at the base, I took her back to my house…where we both live now. Long story short, I couldn’t rape her like I planned. I couldn’t beat her like I planned. I respected her way too much…admired her way too much. I wished that my sister had that same kind of fight, that she hadn’t given up. So I bargained with Pearl for her freedom. I told her if she worked off a jar of buttons by pleasing me, I would let her go. It’s not any better than raping her, not when I leveraged her freedom against her in exchange for fucking.”
I listened to every word, transfixed by the story. He really was the biggest hypocrite I’d ever heard of.
“I think I fell in love with her that first time we interacted, when she killed one of my men and fought until the very end. When she was in my captivity, she still fought me constantly, not just with her fists, but her words. I respected her…she forced me to respect her…and that made me love her. Our stories are very similar…”
“Identical.”
He nodded.
“You’re the biggest hypocrite on the planet.”
He shrugged. “I won’t deny it. And I won’t apologize for wanting more for my daughter. Now that you know this, you can run off to Vanessa and tell her. You can turn her against me. You can drive a wedge between us so you don’t have to deal with me all the time. I’m giving you power over me…just as I had so much power over you.”
It was tempting. I’d been punished for committing the same crimes he committed. He kept me away from the woman I loved for months, put me in mortal agony. But the idea of getting my revenge wasn’t appealing…not this time. He confided something to me that he didn’t have to tell me. Just as I gave him a loaded shotgun when we first met, he gave me a loaded gun in return. But these bullets could really destroy him.
He stared at me as he waited for a response.
“There’s nothing I could ever say to Vanessa to turn her against you.”
His eyes softened.
“She loves you. She loves all of you more than anything else in the world…even me. So you never have to worry about your daughter turning her back on you. Her love is unconditional. I never hear her say anything about bad about any of you, and when I say I think you’re the biggest asshole on the planet, she tells me not to talk about you that way.”
His eyes softened even more, turning emotional in a way he only did for his daughter.
“But I will take your secret to the grave, Crow. I don’t want to rip her family apart. I’ve never wanted that. I love her too damn much to ever cause her pain. She needs you to be happy.”
“She needs you too,” he whispered. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that.”
I didn’t accept his apology. It would be a while before I was ready. “Are you going to tell her I screamed at you?” I stormed to his front door and practically broke it down when I knocked. When I yelled at him, I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. I just told him he was lower than trash and I didn’t care whether he lived or died. I meant every single word I said, and even now I hadn’t apologized for it. If he told Vanessa, she wouldn’t leave me, but I knew she wouldn’t be happy about it.
