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“Why do you ask me for answers that you know will hurt you, Helena? Why?” He mimicked her question with a cruel snarl in his voice.
“Because,” she lifted her chin for a heartbeat before looking away again, “she wasn’t loyal to you, Papa. She doesn’t love you like I do.”
Helena tried to smile prettily, but her face, like her heart, was ugly to him. Misshapen.
Standing, he placed his hands on the surface of the desk and leaned toward her so she could clearly see his face and hear the tone of his voice. “You do not need to know why I want her, Helena. I do not keep you with me to hear your opinions. I do not keep you with me to hear your complaints.
“I keep you with me because I need someone to do what I can not. You can go where I can not. You can put things into motion that I can not. But if you continue to argue your own self-interest than I can easily replace you with someone who can.
“Are. We. Clear?”
She tried to glare back at him, but he saw her upper lip trembling and any pride he felt quickly melted away.
“Yes, Papa.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted a hand and cupped it to his ear. “What. Did. You. Say?”
“Yes. Papa.”
He heard it clearly that time and nodded in agreement. “Now, since you can’t follow simple instructions, you will be taught that it is better to do the first thing I ask. Or the second will be infinitely worse.”
He snapped his finger and pointed at the base of the wall where the pieces of crystal still sparkled in the light. “You will pick up those pieces. One by one and put them in the trash.”
“Papa!”
Helena looked as horrified as he had hoped.
Her face drained of all color. “My fingers! I’ll need a brush! Gloves!”
“And you’ll have neither!” His voice crashed through the room and made her flinch. “I would have left the mess for the cleaners, but you insisted on staying when I told you to leave. So you will do this.”
He reached down and picked up his briefcase. Setting it on the polished black surface of his desk, he put the file folders away inside and closed the lid with a resounding click from the secure locks.
“When you are done, call. One of my men will come and inspect the room, Helena, dear. If he is satisfied that you picked up the pieces, he will bring you home.”
“And if he’s not?” She hardly sounded like the same woman who’d bit back at him earlier.
“If he’s not then you will stay here until it’s done.”
Crystalline tears pooled in her eyes. “But, Papa-”
“Do not make me any more angry than I already am, Helena.”
He glared at her, all pretenses gone.
“Do what I tell you or face the consequence.”
When she nodded and lowered her gaze to the floor at her feet, he picked up his case and left the room.
When he returned to the house, he would turn off his phone and enjoy his whiskey.
Helena could do with some discipline.
She could wait until the morning.
After all, with all of those pieces, it was likely a foregone conclusion that she wouldn’t finish until morning anyway.
He’d have the rest of his evening to focus on Cygny and what it would take to make her pay for turning her back on him.
Yes, he’d make her pay.
