A part of Raaf expected William to act frantic and accusatory, but instead the older man simply watched in silence as he dismissed the other men with a nod.
He turned to William then, asking politely, "Shall we go inside?"
Sara's father answered him with another nod, and the continued silent treatment left Raaf no closer to figuring the older man out.
The call Raaf had received earlier was from one of the scouts he had on his payroll; it was how he found out about William's impending visit, and why his timetable had gone from well-planned to totally fucked in a matter of moments.
That call had told him he would likely find William as unpredictable as his daughter, and while that indeed appeared to be the case, this was one of those instances when it gave him no pleasure to be right.
"Would you like anything to drink?" Raaf asked as Sara's father took a seat.
"I'm good, thank you for asking, Mr. Karvelas."
And there it was, Raaf thought broodingly as he folded his length into the chair across his guest. The first shot had been fired, and not once had he expected it would come from Sara's father.
"You appear to be well-informed about me, Mr. Perez. Not only do you know my name, but you've also managed to find me."
"You will unfortunately have to thank my daughter for that."
Raaf's gaze narrowed. "She doesn't know where we are."
"I suspected as much. But when I asked her the time, her answer was enough for me to make the necessary deductions."
Well, fuck.
It was just his damn luck that the only woman he wanted turned out to have Sherlock Holmes for a father.
"I'm sure you have also deduced my reasons for coming here."
The old man obviously wanted his Sara back, but since Raaf had no plans of letting his dove go—-
"Your daughter is eighteen years old," Raaf said quietly. "She is of age to make her own choices."
"And you are suggesting that she would choose you? Is that what you are trying to say?"
"I know you'll find this hard to believe—-"
William cut him off with a shake of his head. "No, Mr. Karvelas. You will be the one who'd find this hard to believe, but I know and understand where you are coming from. I am not here to tell you that Sara does not care for you. She is her mother's daughter, and even though I've done my best to shelter her from the likes of you, one cannot stand in the way of destiny. She still found you—-"
"Actually," Raaf could not resist pointing out for some reason, "I was the one who found her—-"
"Then I am an even bigger failure as a father. It was my job to protect her, but instead I let the kidnapped son of a cult leader take her away from me."
Raaf fought to stay calm. There were no official records that connected him to the cult. He had spent a fucking fortune to make sure of that. So how the hell did this old man from a small fucking town in New Fucking Jersey know the name he had taken after the trial?
"I told you, son. I know you. Because there was a time, I was you."
"Who the fuck are you?"
Sara's father frowned. "Language, boy."
"Who the fuck are you, sir?"
William snorted. "That was funny. I'll give you that." And as much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to see how his Sara could have fallen for Raaf Karvelas.
But even so.
"It doesn't matter who I am...or who I was. What matters is for you to understand that you are not good for my daughter...just as I was not good for her mother."
"Sara thinks she's in love with me—-"
But William only ignored this. "John Wayne Gacy. The Night Stalker. Gary Ridgeway. Henry Lee Lucas. Ed Gein—-"
Raaf's gaze blazed with anger. "I'm nothing like them—-"
But William also ignored this, too. "Do you know one of the things that all of those men have in common?"
"They chose to kill," Raaf bit out, "and I never—-"
"Those men became evil because their parents were evil...just like you."
Raaf felt sick to his stomach. "That woman isn't my biological mother—-"
"And your biological father? Didn't he rape your mother?
Fuck. FUCK. FUCK!
"Gacy and company suffered unspeakable horror done to them by their own parents," William emphasized, "and they had never been able to recover from it. What more a man like you, who had not only suffered such horror yourself...but had also inflicted that same kind of horror on others?"
The younger man refused to say a word this time, but then he saw the muscle ticking in the other man's jaw, and William knew now was his best chance to twist the knife deeper and harder into Raaf Karvelas' conscience.
"Do you really think any amount of therapy can effectively destroy the fucked-up things living inside of you? I know Sara cares about you, but do you really care about her? Because if you do, then you should know that you don't deserve my daughter...and you never will."