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Tears filled my eyes. “Okay, I’ll come with you! I’ll come back to Estonia with you.”
He studied my face. “You’re crying? I travel halfway across Europe to come and save your little whore backside, and the thought of coming back with me makes you cry?”
Quickly, I wiped my face. “I’m-I’m just emotional. I’m not crying because of that.”
His lips thinned. “Then you won’t mind if I kill this man, will you? If he means nothing to you, and you still care for your loving father,” he beat his hand to his chest as though I might have not realised he was talking about himself, “you won’t care if he dies.”
I couldn’t seem to stop the liquid leaking from my eyes, betraying me.
He thought of something else. “In fact, you should want him dead.”
Where was he going with this?
“You should be the one to kill him.”
Ah, there it was.
“You-you can’t ask me to do that. I don’t kill people.” I was lying—I’d killed the man back at the cabin, but arguably, that had been self-defence.
“You’re my daughter. If you’re going to run my business one day, it’s about time you started, and you can start with Leo Cornell.”
Fresh tears pricked my eyes. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to be strong, but I couldn’t see a way out of this. No matter what I said, my father was going to attempt to kill Leo, and he might just succeed. Leo wanted my father dead, too, but right now Leo was distracted, and my father had the element of surprise on his side.
“Okay I’ll do it.”
“You’re lying to me again. How am I supposed to trust you to take on my business when you lie to me?”
“I’m not, I swear it.”
Fury crossed his face. “You lie to me for this man...why? Do you care about him because he’s stuck his filthy penis inside you? Do you think that means something?”
He rose to his feet, and I reared back. His men were looking on from the sidelines, apparently enjoying the show.
I took a step back. “Please, that’s not what it’s like.”
He approached me like a lion stalking a gazelle, slow, deliberate movements, preparing to pounce. “Bullshit. That’s exactly what it’s like. You left with a strange man in the middle of the night, ran from your own country, your own father, and now you’re fucking him. You’re nothing but a little whore.”
The word sparked something in me. I clenched my fists and put back my shoulders. I wasn’t going to keep letting him push me around. I’d done what he’d told me my whole life.
“I’m not a whore, Isa. I’ve slept with one man in my entire life. I’m an adult now, and you don’t get to make my choices for me anymore. Yes, I wanted to come to London. I wanted the chance at a new life because I couldn’t stand to spend another day in that damned cabin. I couldn’t breathe anymore. You were suffocating me. I don’t want to run your business. I hate the smell of printing ink and the machines. I hate only being able to see trees and sky in every direction. I want to figure out what I want to do with my life myself.”
“You ungrateful bitch.”
“I’m not ungrateful, I just want to do what all children are supposed to do when they become adults. I want to livemylife, not yours.”
He didn’t reply, and hope bloomed inside me that he might actually be considering my opinion. Was it possible for him to accept what I wanted and leave us all in peace? I pictured myself telling Leo that it was over. I’d make him listen to me, too, and agree not to continue this vendetta against my father. Then my father could go back to Estonia unharmed, and Leo could start to live his life once more.
But then his expression turned to thunder, and the hope I’d been nurturing for the past few seconds went up in a poof of smoke.
A slap across the face sent my head rocking. I barely had a moment to recover before he struck me again across the other cheek, this time harder. I’d already been off balance from the first strike, and this second one knocked me sideways. I found myself on my hands and knees with him standing over me.
Tears filled my eyes. “Isa, please...”
“What do we do to little whores?” he roared. “I should stop you from getting pleasure from sex. That’s what people do with girls like you these days, isn’t it? Cut off the thing that makes you want to betray your family for someone like Leo Cornell.”
Terror filled me. What was he talking about? Female genital mutilation? Surely he wouldn’t do that to me.
He’d kill you,a voice said in my head.What’s a little FGM?
