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“Well …” I don’t even know how to answer because I know the things a person is pushed to do when faced with death. I tried to sell out my father just to get out.
Doesn’t that make me just as much of an awful person as he is?
“Exactly.” My father steps forward, closer toward Beast. “You’re still my daughter, even when you don’t want to be. And this is my house, my hideout, whether either of you likes it or not,” he says. “The only one Lex didn’t find, apparently. No thanks to you, of course.”
“Papa, stop,” I tell him as he approaches Beast. “Please.”
“No, all of this happened becausehecame to our house.” He points at Beast like he’s the unwanted one. “Becausehetried to murder us.” He’s full-on raging now, and Beast is just sitting there, oozing in rage. I can tell he’s holding himself back, physically restraining himself against the couch, nails digging into the fabric as though they’re claws meant to restrain him.
“I could’ve given you the money. It was right there in the warehouse, waiting for your fucking owner. You could’ve taken it back to him, and we could’ve lived our life in peace,” my father rants. “Instead, you chose to make our lives a living hell.”
Beast’s fingers push into the couch so hard they almost break as he stands up, towering over my father with a kind of fury that could wake a sleeping volcano.
“What choice!?” Beast yells out loud. He tilts his head and shows my father the scar on his neck. “He implanted a fucking torture device. This is how he kept me on a ball and chain.”
“I don’t see anything—”
“Because your daughter cut it out of me!”
“Gross,” my father mutters.
Beast steps forward. “You want me to make you feel how gross I can get?!”
I swallow away the lump in my throat. “PLEASE!”
My voice makes them both stop.
“Papa, please, believe him. Lex literally electrocuted him. I saw it myself several times. It hurt him so much that it forced him to obey.”
My father turns up his nose. “Still … pain shouldn’t be the only measure to make a decision.”
“You were willing to sacrificeherto save your own life,” Beast growls back, pointing at me.
“That’s what comes with the world we live in, the business I do,” my father says. “You have no clue what kind of pressure I’m under to maintain—”
“I KNOW!” Beast growls, his voice heavier than I’ve ever heard before. “Iknowyou.”
My father frowns. “Well, I don’t know you, yet you keep involving yourself in our business. You’re free now. Why don’t you just run away and leave us be?”
“Becauseshesaved me,” Beast says, fishing the flower from his pocket to show it to my father. “She gave this to me …” He narrows his eyes at my father. “The night you killed my parents.”
My father’s pupils dilate, and he takes a step back. “What …?” He looks at me, searching for answers, but I don’t even know what to say. “When?”
Beast’s face darkens. “I was the boy who escaped.”
My father’s face slowly loses all its color as he begins to realize the magnitude of his actions. Of everything that led us to this moment, this place.
“It’s you … you’re the reason behind all of my misery.”
CHAPTER17
Aurora
My.Misery.
Not a single second did he think of me.
My fingers clench around the candleholder so harshly that it almost snaps in two.
