“No!” I cry. “I’m not God, Alexius.”
“Yet he played God over more than two dozen kids’ lives without fucking blinking.”
“I know what he did,” I snap back at him. “I was there, remember? I’m the little girl he tried to whore out to his friend.”
“Yeah, and you ran. You made a split-second decision and ran. Thank God for that. But do you know who wasn’t that lucky? Who didn’t get away?”
Tears lap across my lips and down my chin.
“Brandon Morris,” Alexius bites out, barely containing his anger. “He didn’t run. He couldn’t run. Instead, he got to star in underaged porn along with Pippa Coleman, two days after her tenth birthday.”
My stomach churns. “Stop.”
“Kendal Roberts couldn’t run. So she got locked up in a room with a man the same age as her motherfucking grandfather.”
“Alexius,” Isaia calls. “Stop.”
“No. She needs to hear this.” His eyes slay me as he pins his red-hot gaze on mine, his jaw set and nostrils flaring. “Nathan Garrison couldn’t run. He tried to fight back, but that cost him an eye because he got his face bashed against a wall before some sick fuck raped him.”
I look at the man in the chair, the words coming out of Alexius’ mouth erasing everything familiar about him. The longer I listen to my husband listing these heinous crimes, the torturing of so many children, the less this man looks like my father, and the more he takes on the features of a monster. His depravities rot away his flesh, the scales of his sickness covering him in shadows. Even his eyes seem to turn black, his cheeks a sickening gray.
“Sophie Reed couldn’t run,” Alexius continues. “So she ended up with a needle in her arm and woke up in a pool of her own blood staining the dirty sheets she slept on.”
I move closer to where the monster sits, my thoughts stacking up like a row of dominos, every block morphing my fear into empowerment.
“Samantha Vanguard. Hillary Rose.” Alexius’ voice rolls like thunder in the distance. “Timothy Sutherland. Leroy Jones. Kira Ward. Mia Lancaster. They all disappeared. They were never found. And for the last fifteen fucking years, their families have been living with this open wound that oozes with suffering because they never got any damn closure.” His angered tone echoes around the room, crashing against the concrete walls. “You wanna know what all these kids have in common?” Alexius snarls and points at my father. “Him. He groomed them, whored them, assaulted them, kidnapped and sold them. For what? Not for food for his starving daughter. No. For drugs. To get high. And the worst part is, they couldn’t convict him of all the crimes. Lack of evidence, they said. For the missing kids, they said no body, no crime. It’s disgusting.”
I was so young I didn’t know the details of my father’s case or understand any of it. All I understood was the accusations my mother would spit my way, telling me everything was my fault, that my father left because of me, and that she was unhappy because of me. I believed it then, but now…I know better.
I stop in front of the monster and can practically smell the sulfur leaking from his blackened soul like pus from an infected sore and leprosy that’s eaten away his humanity over the years.
Up close, I can see all the scars on his face. Prison hasn’t been kind to him, not that he deserves any level of kindness.
His jaw hangs awkwardly to the side and makes a crunching, slurping sound as he tries to speak but fails.
Alexius moves in next to me but doesn’t reach for me or touch me as I stare down at the monster. “Nicoli broke his jaw. We thought it best if the fucker couldn’t talk to you. Fuck knows what he’d be spitting at you if he could talk.”
I’m thankful for that. I’ve managed to forget the sound of his voice over the years, and I’d rather not be reminded and forced to think of all the vile things he said to me whenever I mentioned that I was hungry or cold or when I was sick with a fever. Or the sound of his disgusting grunts when he was fucking my mother in the living room while I was locked in the bathroom, listening to their sex parties and orgies with people he’d get off the street.
But none of that matters anymore. My own pain isn’t the driving force. It’s the names—all the names Alexius had said.
I glower down at the monster, feeling nothing but hate and disgust. “For so long, I wondered whether things would have been different if I didn’t run that day.” I clench my fists. “If I had just waited another ten, twenty, thirty seconds. Would you have gone through with it if I had given you more time to change your mind? Would you have stopped your friend?” Tears drip down my cheeks, the salty drops lapping between my lips. “If I had waited just a few more seconds…would you have seen all your mistakes? Would you have had some kind of divine revelation, turned your life around, and become a real father who loved his daughter more than he loved his next goddamn fix?” I hiss, my lips curving into a snarl as I keep my eyes on his. There’s no change in his expression as he listens to me speak, no signs of regret or remorse. It’s all just hard lines of evil, a man bathed in the vile acts of a monster.
Alexius pulls a gun from behind his back, and I don’t even flinch at the sight. I’m no longer scared. I no longer feel fear. What Idofeel is this deeply rooted hunger for…vengeance.
“It’s your decision, stray,” he says, placing the gun's muzzle against the monster’s temple, his finger firmly on the trigger.
For a moment, I look up at Isaia, his worried gaze silently asking if I’m okay, and I reply with a barely perceptible nod.
“I know you have it in you, stray. You’re not that helpless little girl anymore,” Alexius murmurs, and I look at him, his face stricken and eyes determined. “You’re my queen,” he breathes. “You are…a Del Rossa.”
It’s a rubber band that snaps. A resolve that slams against my bones. His words reach all the way to my soul, my veins exploding with an energy that floods my system, and strength that burns my blood.
Alexius is right. I’m not Leandra Dinali anymore. I’m no longer the woman Alexius found in that shitty apartment, saving me from a fate determined by a past molded and shaped by my parents.
I’m me. Leandra Del Rossa.
I lean down, bringing my face close to his, tilting my head to the side as I make sure he looks me in the eye. I want him to see me, toreallysee me. I want him to see that the little girl he said was the biggest mistake of his life, the daughter he called a waste of space and a leech, a pathetic piece of shit who would never be something, is now…something. I’m more than something. I’m strong. I’m fierce. I’m gentle and kind. I’m a friend. A wife and soon-to-be mother. I’m…a Del Rossa.