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“Oh, this... this is nothing, Gianna.” His eyes hardened in a steely gaze, and he ran a hand down his tie, smoothing the dotted brown fabric on his chest. “I have gone to lengths and done way more than this. Remember six years ago? When your mother died?”
His question hung with an uncomfortable silence, like a pregnant dark cloud over our heads. Trickles of ice made the hair on my skin rise. Max eyed me, but I didn’t even find the strength to make eye contact with him.
Remember six years ago?
Oh, I remembered six years ago, alright. I was young, and it was the most eventful time of my life. That was when I met Maxim, who unapologetically turned my life upside down and jiggled my heart until it only beat for him.
But that was not all. My mother died six years ago, and my father stated that pointedly.
Too pointedly.
My brows wrinkled between my forehead, and I shook my head when the insinuation dawned. A doubtful scoff slipped past my lips.
“No…” I shook my head, a dry smile forming on my lips. I waved a hand in the air and pressed it against my mouth. “No way.”
“It’s clicking, isn’t it?” His pupils lit up.
There was no way my mother’s death was linked to her husband. I vehemently refused to believe it.
My hands dropped to the side, and I glared at him. “You are not saying what I think you’re saying, Dad. There is absolutely no fucking way that my mother’s death had anything to do with you.”
He grinned like I had just announced he was about to get the Nobel Peace Prize. “But it did. It had everything to do with me. That bitch wanted to leave me, she chose you over me.” He sighed, as if he was merely inconvenienced having to tell the story. “She couldn’t stand the fact that I was disciplining you any longer and wanted to leave. I got angry, pulled the trigger and she died. It was your fucking fault. None of it would have happened if she didn’t try to protect you from me.”
I felt like all the air had been pumped out of my lungs. Blood rushed to my ears. I wanted to pull my hair and scream. I was staring at a monster—my father... He was a bloody monster. How had I survived that long with him?
My vision blurred, and I put another foot forward, the rage inside blinding and forming a temporary confidence.
“My—my fault? You killed her because she wouldn’t allow you to use and abuse me any longer?” My mother died because his ego was bruised? He killed her because of that. “You’re a monster.”
“There are two types of people in the world, Gianna. The monsters and the weaklings. The preys and the predators.” There was not even the slightest hint of remorse in his eyes when he spared Max a glance. He appeared bored. “I, on the other hand, wanted to rule the world and I didn’t care what I had to lose. You were the perfect tool for me to achieve my goals. You were born and raised for that purpose, but the woman I loved tried to take you from you. She had to go, but you ran away to raise this idiot’s bastards. I can’t forgive that.”
I couldn’t take it. Breathing became a task too difficult and every motivation to stay strong was slowly slipping away. I gasped, clutching my chest as if it could take the immense pain away. “This—This is sick.” I massaged my temple. “You are sick!”
I screamed till my throat hurt. “God, I hate you! I hate you so much,” more tears blinded my vision. “If I could make one wish, I’d wish I could have someone else as a father.”
“Then you’d have probably not met this idiot Vadim, and the world would be a better place. Look, sweetheart, it doesn’t matter how much you hate me. The mistakes of the past happened, and the events of the present are currently occurring. What matters is that in this battle, I am going to win, and this city will be mine.”
“You’re delusional if you think you’re going to leave here with a triumphant smirk on your face.”
“You think I’m delusional?” He smirk. “Gianna, you are more like me than you would ever admit.”
I shook my head and couldn’t say a single word. This was so unbelievable. “I am nothing like you.”
“We share the same blood.”
“We are nothing alike! I am nothing and will never be anything like you!”
An ugly sneer masked the grim expression on his face. “You forget, your children are dying.”
A sob broke through my lips. This was undoubtedly the most difficult situation I had ever found myself in. How was I going to come out of this? “I am not doing it. I am not killing Max or my children.”
“Then you have to put a fucking bullet through me first before either of you walk out of here alive!” He roared, the sneer gone and replaced with red-hot fury.
In that moment, a quiet hush spread through the room. It was faint, but I picked up on the light shift of Max’s feet on the concrete behind me. I realized that during the altercation with my father, he remained quiet, and while a quiet Max wasn’t strange to me, this was one time when I picked up on the clear signals he sent without even having to see his face first to be sure.
He’d been planning something.
His confidence and certainty were so strong, I could almost taste it in the air.
