AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No one wishes harm on my unborn baby—no one!
I punch him again, pulling him from the piano to the floor, kneeling over him, letting years of pent-up rage fly out of me, punch after punch. My mother is screaming in the background when a hand touches my shoulder gently. A calm voice sounds in my ear. “Rome, look at me,” she urges.
It’s the same tone she used to soothe me the first time we met. It does exactly what it was meant to, and I stop hitting my father.
I turn to look at Ingrid, and her hand caresses my cheek as I pant for much-needed breaths. Our eyes lock, and she nods at me with a small smile. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay… I promise.”
My chest floods with love for this woman.
I don’t know how she remembered exactly what she said to me the first time we met, but those words were what I needed to hear right now. I sink to my ass on the floor beside my father as he coughs out a line of blood moving to sit beside me. Ingrid slides in on the other side of me, wrapping her arm around my shoulder.
Mom picks up her cell, shaking her head. “I am calling the police. You are no son of min—”
“Lucia, stop!” Dad grunts, spitting out another line of blood.
She hesitates, then places the cell on the table. “He assaulted you. Unprovoked!”
Dad looks at me, then chuckles, shaking his head. “It’s about time you stood up for something. Growing up, all you did was shut down, act out, then run away to that damn club.”
I furrow my brows at him. “So that’s what you were trying to get me to do growing up? Be a fucking man?” I ask.
He exhales with a shrug, hesitating to reply, but he finally finds the words he’s looking for. “The world I live in, Romeo… there’s standards to be upheld, an image to protect. I’m in the public eye twenty-four-seven, which also means my family is too. I may not have been the best father growing up, but my publicists and agents were firm on me maintaining a certain brand—”
“Fuck you, Dad… I was just a kid. Bella was just a kid. Who gives a shit what your agent wanted. You should have cared whatwewanted… whatweneeded.Weshould have been your priority. Not your damn image!”
Dad sniffles, wiping the blood from his face. His eyes glisten with his regret. “I could have done better… I should have done better. I pushed you and your sister away, which is the exact thing I was trying to avoid. I wanted us to maintain the image of a happy family, and by doing that, by forcing it and my views on you kids, I tore us apart.”
I glance up at Ingrid, and she weakly smiles, giving me the encouragement I need right now.
Fuck. He is trying. Maybe I need to ease up a little.
“You just gotta stop, Dad, you and Mom. Stop trying to force your views on us. Bella and me… we’re grown adults, with our own lives, with our own ideas, and people we want to spend our lives with. You have to stop trying to control us. I know what we do affects your brand, but honestly, Dad, the world knows about me being in an MC. They know I’m your problem child and that Bella is the golden child. So please… let us live our lives the way we want. Ingrid and I are the real deal. I’m going to be a father. Can we celebrate that instead of fighting?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “You really love her and this kid you’re having, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Dad. They’re my world. And you might not think we’re going to be good parents, but I can promise you, we’re going to befarbetter parents to our kid than you were to me and Bella.”
Mom scoffs out her disapproval while Dad dips his chin in response. “That’s fair… but we do love you. Both you and Bella.”
“Thenwhy the fuckare you treating Bella’s diagnosis like it doesn’t exist?” I growl at him.
Suddenly, Mom bursts into tears as she runs out of the room, rushing for the kitchen. I furrow my brows as Dad exhales. “That’s why! Your mother doesn’t want to admit to Bella that knowing her illness is terminal is killing her. Your mother is such a strong-willed person that she doesn’t want Bella to see her breaking.”
I throw my hands in the air in exasperation. “That’s always been the problem with this family, Dad. You don’t tell us how you’re feeling. It left me and Bella to fend for ourselves, to depend on each other because we felt like you didn’t care about us… At. All.”
He moves to stand and offers his hand for me to take. I hesitate but then take it, and he helps me up, pulling me into an embrace I wasn’t expecting. My eyes widen, but I sink into the hug.
“I love you, Romeo. I always have. I always will. Your Mom and I will do better at showing that, especially with our grandchild on the way.” He pulls back, looking in my eyes, his face a bloody mess. “But I need you to promise you’ll come to LA and visit us more.”
I turn to Ingrid, helping her off the floor, and pull her to my side. She nods, and I clear my throat. “We’re moving back to LA, Dad. We’re going to be staying with Bells to help her through her illness, so we will be here for a while.”
A genuine smile lights his face, tears glistening in his eyes as he grips my shoulder. “Well, all right then… we will unite as a family around Bella and do everything we can for her, all while helping you, Ingrid, with your pregnancy. Okay?”
A slow smile creeps over my face, and I exhale. “You mean it, Dad?”
“Yeah… I spent years not being there for my family. It’s about time I do exactly that. I need to man up and be the dad I always should have been. Now I’m gonna go clean up, but how about you stay for a while, and we talk more about your time in New Orleans, and you tell us everything you’ve been up to.”
“You really want to know.”
