AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hate this man, and yet here I am being so friendly and happy because he threw a couple of smiles my way. My mother always reacted to him like this.
Most people do.
I hate myself even more. It makes me sick that I let myself be so needy around him. When he’s like this, giving you his full attention and approval, it can feel like the sun on your face after a long winter.
He changes so quickly, though. I’ve seen him go from laughing to a violent rage within seconds. It’s so hard to predict what will set him off. It means I spent most of my childhood walking on eggshells around him.
If he came home from a day of murder and mayhem with bags of candies tucked under his arm, I knew it was going to be a good night. If he returned home from work smoking a cigarette, with that divot between his brows more pronounced than usual, I knew I was in for a tough time.
I would mostly try to escape to my room on those nights, but I couldn’t always get away before the torment began. It’s as if anytime my father gets remotely upset about things, he has to find someone to take it out on. That was either me or Mama.
He also used to take it out on his underlings. He went through so many staff. Quite a few of them ended up being laid to rest in unmarked graves. I suppose I ought to be grateful that so far my father has controlled himself enough not to do the same to me. Perhaps I mean something to him after all.
My gaze slides to the man at his side, and his pinched little eyes, and too wide lips. I shudder.
Igor has lasted a long time. I think it’s because Igor is a complete sociopath. Nothing seems to bother him. He is calculated and cold. He likes to make people suffer, but he’s in control of where and when he does so. I don’t get the feeling that Igor takes out his rages on other people; he just likes to play with them like a cat does with a mouse.
My father is nowhere near as controlled. He thinks he’s this cold, strong person, but I know that’s not true. My father is a boiling volcano of conflicting emotions, and at any time, he can erupt. When he does, anyone in the path of the flow is going to get burned.
Right now, though, he’s looking at me with a jovial expression. His eyes sparkle, and his smile seems genuine.
“You did well,” he says.
Then he narrows his eyes, the happiness fading as he zones in on my neck.
Oh, no, I think. What now?
He reaches out and brushes his index finger over the side of my neck. “Who gave you this?”
I frown. “What?”
“Someone has been sucking on your neck like a vampire.”
Beside him, Igor laughs, and I grit my teeth at the sound.
I’ve always hated his deep, false-sounding chortle.
“Oh, must be Mack,” I say without thinking. I’m too impressed with the fact she got passionate enough to give me a love bite to mind my words.
Dom and Kirill will be envious when they see it.
“Who is Mack? A boy?” Igor sneers.
Fuck him. What’s with Igor’s obsession with me being gay? I wonder if perhaps he protests too much. Maybe Igor is projecting—not that I have an issue with it—and his obsession with my father isn’t as much a father-son relationship as I’d first thought.
“No. She’s a girl. A gorgeous one. You saw her the other day.”
“The blonde?” My father’s eyes glitter with something close to greed.
My heart sinks. Does he want her? He’d do it … he’d take her from me if he did, and I don’t know if even Nataniele could stop him.
“Yes,” I say warily.
My father’s face lights up as he beams at me. He fucking grins all wide and Cheshire Cat as if I’ve done something he can finally be proud of.
“She’s exquisite,” he says. “You should make her yours.”
“She is mine.” It’s not a total lie. She is. I just share her with two others. “She’s been in danger. It’s why she’s at Verona Falls. She likes me, and I help keep her safe.”
