Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
The realization settles in me like lead.
I should have known better.
But somewhere, buried deep beneath all the fury, all the scars, all the years of distance—I wanted to believe.
Just for a moment, I wanted to believe.
And that’s the worst part of all.
“Would you like to pray, Father?” I ask, voice hollow.
He sneers, his lips twisting. “Did you listen to a thing I just said? I’m giving you instructions, boy. Listen!”
I nod once. “I heard you. But you’re also in this bed, and it might be one of the last times you and I ever speak.”
His glazed gaze sharpens for just a moment. “I’ll see you married and bedded to one of the women I’ve chosen for you before I leave this damned earth.”
I shake my head slowly, exhaling. “You? How are you going to manage that from this bed?”
He tries to lift himself onto his elbows but falls back from weakness. Still, his eyes are ice cold.
“I have my means. I’m not dead yet. I’m the most powerful man in the world.”
I let out a slow breath, forcing down the rage crawling up my throat. He’s always been like this. Clutching at control like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. Maybe it is.
“You’ll have to get an annulment from that little slut you ran to Vegas with, of course,” he sneers. “But that’s mostly taken care of. I’m the most powerful man in the world,” he repeats, full of impotent rage. “Don’t you know who I am?”
My breath stills in my chest. Because my attention is still frozen on the first part of his maniacal little rant.
“What do you know about Moira?”
I stand, towering over the deranged old man with his lingering delusions of power.
And then I remember the fear and confusion in Moira’s eyes as she left me that day. The way her hands trembled when she packed her bags. The way she wouldn’t—couldn’t—look me in the eye. And the fact that this fucker already tried to pay her off once to leave me.
Realization crashes into me, painful as needles spiking into my skin all over my body. Why haven’t I kept my eyes on him? I should have known he wouldn’t stop. I just saw no reason for him to press the issue. I didn’t realize that suddenly there was a deadline.
It’s all so clear now.
She didn’t want to leave me.
She had to.
Because of him.
Something inside me breaks. A tether snapping loose, untamed rage surging up like a tidal wave. My hands are on him before I can stop myself, shaking his frail body like I can rattle the truth out of him.
“What the fuck did you do?”
His eyes shift slightly sideways, unfocused. And then he starts moaning.
“Sarah… Sarah, I didn’t mean it… You were my best bitch. Sarah, come back… Don’t leave me alone… You’re the only one who ever loved me… Sarah, listen…”
His arm reaches out to the side, grasping at nothing. At the phantom of my mother. As if she’d waste her afterlife haunting him.
My stomach twists. He isn’t here anymore. Not really. He’s back in whatever hell he crawled out of. But he can relive his past sins and cling to the ghosts of the women he broke another time.
“Hey!” I cry, shaking him again. “Don’t fade on me now, you fucker. What did you do to Moira?”
He finally looks back at me, his eyes widening in confusion.
“Who are you?” he asks.
Something dark and rotten unfurls inside me.
This is the first time in my entire life my father has ever looked at me and not seen a piece of himself. His possession. His legacy. His puppet. He sees nothing. And somehow, it’s so satisfying even as it cuts deeper than anything he’s ever done.
He starts flailing, reaching for the call button.
“Help! I’m being attacked! Who let this man in here? I should have the best security! Do you know who I am? I’m the richest man in the world! I’ll get all of you fired!”
I step back, staring at the crumbling ruin of the man who spent his entire life trying to play God.
Frightened. Frail.
I did some research on the disease on my way here. Cognitive decline—rapid, unforgiving—often happens when the disease is acquired externally, the way my father did.
But the bastard stayed lucid just long enough to destroy the only thing that ever mattered to me. Just long enough to make sure I’d suffer.
I step forward again, leaning down until I can whisper right in his ear.
“I hope you die a slow, painful death. Terrified and alone, like the little boy you made me my entire life, you sick fuck.”
His breath hitches.
His lips tremble.
And then I turn my back on him while he continues to shout pathetically, his voice already cracking apart under the weight of his own decay.
FIFTY-SEVEN
March, Six Weeks Later
MOIRA
Fucking drugs, man. And not the fun kind, either. I’ve been taking the kind a doctor prescribes for the last two months, and they’re total ass. This is what I get for letting Kira talk me into seeing her psychiatrist friend. I mean, at least they had something more novel to call me than sex addict.