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“Daddy?” I asked, my voice turning serious.
“What’s going on?” he instantly asked, picking up the change in my tone.
“Nothing’s wrong, there’s nothing to worry about,” I started. “For the first time in forever, I’m living with women again. It’s strange after living with you and Adrian for so many years.”
“I’m sorry about your mother, Clara. I should’ve done better,” he said in a dejected tone.
“Oh my God, Dad, it wasn’t your fault,” I said vehemently. “Don’t ever blame yourself for her behavior. She made her choice. You’re not responsible for what she did.”
He’d been crushed by her disloyalty. Everything afterward had unfolded just as dramatically. Finding out she was pregnant with another man’s child, a man he’d loved like a brother, and a man he’d had to kill in retribution. Having to keep my mother near, having to pretend to the world that Adrian was his son. He’d ended up loving Adrian, but it’d been a nightmare.
“It’s just…I see the way they live. They talk of love and family, and I want that, too,” I ended in a whisper, a whisper because to speak of such things was breaching the unspeakable. Not only was it not done in my family, but it was taboo. But I was sick of making myself small, twisting myself to fit into my father’s box of what I was supposed to want, what I was supposed to be.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“I see,” he said gruffly.
“What?” I asked, somewhat irritated by his lack of response. It meant that he disagreed.
“Do I really need to spell it out to you, daughter?”
I pressed my lips together. A mulish look crossed my face, which I was grateful he couldn’t see since we weren’t using FaceTime.
He let out a sigh. My heart squeezed. I was disappointing him. I knew I was, but how could I not bring this up.
“I understand it’s hard for you. It’s a substantial sacrifice, but your life doesn’t imitate theirs. They’re women living a woman’s life. You’re a woman living a man’s life. You cannot have it all, child,” he said gently. “Look at my life. I’m a man, a sef, who was supposed to have it all. I didn’t have to face the many challenges you will face, and I still failed. How could you possibly win where I lost?”
“But Dad—”
“But nothing,” he cut me off. “You have huge goals. Huge challenges. You’ll make the biggest mistake of your life if you succumb to the fantasy that you can have a family and run a clan. The respect you have is solid, almost as much as mine. Do not doubt that the Hagi clan will turn their back on you if you’re no longer pure. You made an oath to them as well as to me. You cannot be a fallen queen and expect to rule.”
Fury raged through me. My hands curled into balls, fingernails digging into the soft flesh, leaving marks. Here I was, on the large bed in Tatum’s bedroom, with the little reading nook by the big window overlooking the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and knew in my bones that I could never let him go. I didn’t want to.
“Can I not?” I whispered.
“I didn’t send you there to question the very foundation of your life, Clara,” he replied resolutely. “You cannot have everything.”
He expelled a long sigh. “You were young when our family was ruined, but I don’t blame only her, fiica.”
Daughter. I squeezed my eyes shut. He called me daughter.
“If it’d been only her, the betrayal would’ve been easier to digest. It took sacrifice to build this clan. I neglected my wife and child. Contributed to the destruction of my family. Trust me, I won’t stand by and allow you to make the same mistakes I made.”
He breathed out a shuddering breath. I heard it through the phone, heard his pain. Knew it intimately since it mimicked my own.
“Do you understand?”
I swallowed hard. “I understand, Tata. Have no fear. I know where my allegiance lies.”
There was a long pause.
“I’m going to send Grigore out there to check on you,” he said.
Dread struck my heart. Gripping the duvet beneath me, I clenched the fabric so hard my knuckles turned white. Grigore would figure out what was happening the moment he laid eyes on me.
“No,” I snapped instantly. “I’m living in a household with four other women, one of them is underage. It’s like a woman’s dormitory here. No men on the premises.” I was sure a bolt of lightning would shoot down from the sky and strike me dead for my blatant lie, but I was willing to risk it to keep Grigore at bay.
“He’s not going to live with you. He’ll be at a hotel,” my father tried reasoning.
