“But I knew.” With no alcohol to distract me, my hands fly in the air as I speak. “I knew. I’m so stupid. Seriously, I’m so stupid. Why didn’t you try harder? You could have got him to let me go earlier. Before this!” I throw up my ring finger and snatch the bottle back for my turn.
“Me?” He points to himself, flabbergasted. “Um, were you there when I tried to talk him out of it. Oh, that’s right you were too busy trying to jump out of a window.” He swipes the bottle back and chuckles, shaking his head.
This is no laughing matter and I’m one second from telling him that, when the door flies open, and my father bursts through.
He takes one look between Dante and I and assumes the worst. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Oh my god!” I look up to the roof. “Just when I thought it couldn’t’ get any worse.”
This is my hell. How could life turn so quickly?
“Lilliana! Out Now.” My father orders, like I’d ever fucking listen to him again.
It snaps something inside, and if I thought I was off the deep end before, all hell is about to break loose because I will not be contained.
Not anymore.
And not by this piece of shit.
“No.” I look back at my dad. “You fuck off.”
I’m not sure when it happened, but Dante has moved to stand between us. It must have been when I was having a brief whinge to the guy people think is in charge. But my father’s face says I’ve crossed a line, but I don’t want to just cross it, I want him to know today exactly how I feel.
“What did you say to me?” His voice incredulous. “How dare you be so disrespectful after all I have done for you.”
I burst out laughing because what the actual hell? That must have been a joke. “What you’ve done for me? You must have really hit the free bar hard tonight huh?”
I’m asking for it, I know, but screw him. I hate him with everything inside me. Him and Sergei on equal playing fields, and that says a lot.
And just like the animal he is, he charges me. Throwing chairs out of his way as he tries to get his hands on me. I back away on instinct and Dante steps to him, holding my father back with one hand on his chest.
“You ungrateful piece of shit. I raised you. I fed you and clothed you. This is how you repay me?”
“I owe you nothing. The day you refused to save me from that maniac after I begged for your help is the day you became nothing to me. Less than nothing. You may as well enjoy tonight because I don’t know what happened, but come the wedding, don’t expect an invite.”
He laughs.
My father laughs.
It starts off as a simple chuckle that grows into a full-on belly laugh. A laugh that ends with an evil, maniacal cackle and words that cut to the core.
“You stopped existing to me the day you were born.” He spits on the floor. “Murderer.”
My body stills, everything in me stops, and I see red. My hands are balled in fists at my side. That never gets old, no matter how many times I hear it. No matter how many ways he says it.
“I did what I had to do as a father,” He looks at me in disgust, his true colours pouring out. “Sending you on expensive trips. At least it got you out of my face for a few weeks. You fucked everything up with Sergei with your foolishness. But you can bet I won’t let you mess up this new pipeline for me. You will honour this arrangement, or it will be the last thing you ever do.”
An eery calm washes over me, and for some reason his words have quelled my fiery deranged rage to a calm bubble of hatred.
Ice fills my veins and my voice. “You hated me since I was born. You don’t deserve the word father. Not from me, or from your other kid’s life you fucked up.”
He tries to step forward again, but Dante won’t budge, and I hate he is here to hear this. To see this. To see how right he was by calling me scum. Our family scum.
“What about him? Your brother is doing the honourable thing by his family. Which is more than I can say for you.”
“Me? Me? You have no idea what I had to do for this family. You sent me to a monster. You knew what he did to me, and you didn’t care. Don’t tell me I did nothing. I did everything you ever asked my whole life. I took your shit over and over because I didn’t think I had a choice. So right now, I’m telling you, you can drop fucking dead and go straight to hell.”
My eyes don’t break contact, and I hope my hatred shines through. I hope it comes out as poison, but it doesn’t matter because I will have the last laugh. He is dying right in front of me and has nowhere to go but six feet under.