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“Papa!” The blow might not have been directed at me, but I feel it deep in my soul, and I don’t think about it as I run to Creighton.
To the gorgeously haunted man with demons who refuse to leave him alone.
“Stay back, Anoushka.” Papa stares at me, still holding the gun to Creighton’s forehead.
The way he looks at me is different from the way he regards the world. He’s not an emotionless killer right now. He’s a worried father with molten eyes and a rigid posture.
I can only imagine what he, Mom, and Jeremy have been through during the time they didn’t know where I was.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks slowly, menacingly.
“No, Papa. Please let him go.”
“I will do that after he’s tortured to within an inch of his life. I’ll hang him from the ceiling and lash his skin for every day he thought he could take you from your family.”
A full-body shudder slashes through my limbs and it takes everything in me to remain standing. “Papa, please…don’t.”
“Do it.” Creighton bares his bloodied teeth in a snarl. “Torture me. Kill me. Stab me to death then continue slicing my corpse like you did my father. You shouldn’t have left me alive back then, but now is your chance to fix that mistake. If you don’t kill me, I’ll come back over and over, and fucking over again.”
“What the hell are you saying? Shut up!” My limbs shake and a shiver skids through me and it has little to do with my wet clothes.
Papa tightens his grip around the gun, probably considering whether he wants to torture him first or just kill him and get it over with.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Creighton speaks to me, but his cold gaze is locked with Papa’s. “Isn’t your family everything that matters? I’m making it easier for you.”
It hits me then.
The realization is so fierce that I stumble a step back, my flip-flops sinking in the sand.
All this time, all those words, all that torture was because he thought I was choosing my family over him.
That I would always pick my family, the people who were behind his childhood misery, overhim. That I would force him to either accept them or I wouldn’t stay with him.
How did my attempts to free him from the past become falsified to the point where it’s now the complete opposite?
“That’s not…” My voice gets stuck in the back of my throat. I’ve always found it easy to talk about everything and nothing, but now I’m stunned into silence.
I can’t find the right words to relay the explosive feelings whirling inside me.
“Your biological father was a scum and died like a scum. He assaulted my wife when he was clearly ordered to protect her, so I killed him,” Papa says coldly with enough cool to make me shiver. “Your biological mother was of a similar breed, too. They both deserved their fate, and as I told your adoptive father, I will not apologize for protecting my family. However, you were only a kid and didn’t deserve to suffer the downfall of their actions, which is why I made sure you were adopted into a good family.”
Creighton’s jaw relaxes and mine falls open.
“Papa, you…you made sure of that?”
“No.” Creighton shakes his head. “You didn’t know.”
“Of course, I did. I followed Richard’s family's downfall long after he was dead. I had men watching your house, recording your mother’s desperate attempts to seduce the DA, an Italian mafia leader, a bank employee, anyone who could get her out of trouble. The night she lost all hope, committed suicide, and attempted to kill you, I was there.”
“Shut up.” Creighton’s voice comes out so raw that I want to hold him.
“I found you passed out by the front door, face blue, and vomit streaked all over your face. I gave you CPR and carried your small body to the hospital. Once you were recuperating, I entrusted you to Rai so she’d get you out of the States and free you of the bloody pit your parents dug for themselves. That’s how you got adopted into the current family you have. I might have taken your past life, but I gave you a new one. So even if you had a grudge, you should’ve come after me, but you were a coward who went after my children and I will not forgive you for that.”
Creighton’s breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in a deadly rhythm. As if he’s trying to expel a gloomy cloud that’s been festering inside him for years.
As if he can’t breathe hard enough or purge the energy bubbling inside him fast enough.
I tremble in sync with him, trying to see the revelations from his perspective.
