AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My world is shattering. Dad isn’t the honest and upstanding man I spent my entire life looking up to. He’s a thief. A monster no different from Andrei and the rest. I hold out hope that he is still an honorable thief. That he did it for us, but he went too far.
But somehow, I feel like he’s still hiding something from me. He still wants me to look at him the way I’ve always looked at him—as the dad who was there for us, and not the monster who destroyed our family.
“Does anyone else know?” I prod gently. I wait for him to confirm my suspicions and say my husband’s name. To tell me Andrei’s plan for me if I survive this nightmare.
He doesn’t answer and softly sings along with the music as consciousness slowly slips away. My anger builds as I watch Dad find a peace that will elude Emma and me once he leaves us behind.
He can’t leave before I tell him how I really feel.
“I don’t even know you anymore,” I tell him tearfully. “How could you do this to us? I thought you loved us. But you’re a worse crook than the crooks you stole from.”
The words seem to rouse Dad as he becomes delirious from the effects of chemo. I debate calling the nurse but decide to take care of him myself. I am a fool, constantly being used. I should walk out of this room and never see him again, but I can’t. Deep inside, I hope Dad will tell me something to make me believe in him again.
I reach to take his hand, and that’s when he jolts awake again. But the expression on his face hardens, and the father that I knew—the one that I loved—disappears.
In his place is the man that he used to be for the Bratva.
“You.” His eyes flash with rage as he grabs my wrist. “You bitch.”
“Dad.” His grip is tighter than it should be for a man on his deathbed. “You’re hurting me.”
His face twists into a sadistic mask, and he stares at me disgustedly. In front of my eyes, my mild-mannered father becomes a person I don’t know. The tightness on my wrist increases.
“You bitch! You whore! Youwantedit to happen. Why did you go to your nephew? Why did you have to tell him anything? We could’ve had it all, but you just had to open your big fucking mouth.”
I gasp in terror.He thinks I’m Mom …
And as much as this sudden shift scares me, it’s an opportunity for me to learn the truth.
The real truth.
The one that got Mom killed.
The one he’s still hiding from me.
“Tell him what, Gerald?” I ask, doing my best to imitate my mother’s voice.
He clenches my wrist painfully. “You shouldn’t have told Kenney those bastards touched you. You shouldn’t have told him that they fucked you. Did you think he could help? A cop against the Bratva?”
“Gerald,” I plead. “You owe me. I did it for you and the girls. Where did you hide the money?”
“You fucking gold-digging whore, I heard you in there. Inourmarriage bed.” He stares at me with intense hatred. “That’s all you cared about.Mymoney. I’ll leave it for the girls, but you’re not getting a single fucking penny. That money is mine to give, not yours. You want that money? You earn it on your back like the whore that you are!”
“You’re my husband,” I say the words that Mom must’ve said to him so many times. But the next words are from both of us. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“You never knew me.” My father stares at me with intense hatred, making my skin crawl with fear. “You only knew Gerald Reyes, the pathetic accountant who couldn’t provide. You never knew the version of me that actually amounted to something in his life.”
“And who would that be?” I ask.
“Sava Khodemchuk.”
His grip lessens until I can finally wrench my hand out of his.
I stare at this ruined person. He raised me, he laughed with me, he cried with me. But I don’t recognize him anymore. The mask he wore my entire life has slipped off, and all I can see is a villain I can’t run from. He was my dad. A mild expression replaces the viciousness on his face as he slips into a slumber and starts to murmur lyrics to The Doobie Brothers’ “Minute by Minute.”
Was he always like this? Has he been lying to me my entire life?
Chapter 26
