Page 78 of Bears Not Included

It’s been three weeks since Faith was brought back to me and Yenin was killed for his sins. Faith regained consciousness, and we do nothing but talk as she recovers. We talk about everything else except what happened to her. She’s not ready yet, but I know she’s going to be okay. I see her will to live and it makes me so proud of her.

I heard from the Kepplers. They’re living in Florida and loving it. I heard from little Hazel and her grandmother, Mrs. Peters. They’re thriving with good health, peace, and love. Callen saved them from a different kind of life altogether.

I spend my days with Faith and my nights with my husbands. And not one night goes by that they don’t touch me, make love to me, or fuck me. I cling to them, hot and sweaty, wet with their cum and mine, and still they want more of me. As if they can never get enough of me.

And every night, I sleep with a hand cupping my pussy, keeping their cum inside me as they continue to breed me. I can’t wait to be pregnant. But there’s one thing I need to do first before I know whether I’m pregnant or not.

Something that has bothered me for ten years but I kept pushing it aside because I was so starved for affection.

That man sitting in the chair in the glass room is my father.

I asked my husbands to bring him in. I didn’t need to explain myself to them, and here he is, frightened, confused, and still with hatred in his eyes when he looks at me. This isn’t about him working for Kirill Yenin or trying to marry me off to him, although he should die for what happened to Faith as well. But this is different.

“Livia, what is this? What are you doing?” he says when he finally sees me. I know he doesn’t recognize this person I’ve become. I’m different now. I dress like a regular billionaires’ wife, and I act like the wife of kickass crime lords.

“Did you murder my mother?” I get straight to the point. I feel nothing now for this man I tried to please all my life. For ten years, I tried to hide the scary thought that he killed my mother.

Because how could my father possibly kill my mom? He wouldn’t, surely. But it’s as clear as day to me now, a decade later, that my mom wouldn’t have left me. She loved me too much.

“Are you crazy? You’re just like your mother, you crazy fucking bitch. Livia, release me right now.”

I nod, and Callen does what he does. He rearranges my father’s face. It does not take long at all before he starts sniveling, but he doesn’t confess. Not until Deacon takes a set of pliers to his nails and Mason jabs him in the throat.

“She was crazy. She was acting crazy, I had to—” he cries. “Please. Let me go.”

“No, that’s not why you threw her off the balcony. I want the truth. I want to know everything that involved my mom. She wasn’t always sick. You made her that way. Why? Why did you make her think she was crazy?”

“I didn’t—”

I close my eyes as Deacon, Callen, and Mason persuade the truth out of him. His shrill cries and the gurgling sound he makes roll off me like nothing. But he’s such a coward, and he caves moments later.

“She knew my secret... Please, please, stop. I beg you.”

I gesture for my husbands to step back.

“Go on.”

“She knew my secret, and I couldn’t let it get out. She was going to tell our friends, people were going to know so... I started drugging her with anti-psychotic medications. She was a horrible woman; she wouldn’t listen to me. I told her I had changed. I didn’t deserve how she threatened me.”

“Why did you kill her?” I ask.

“The meds I was giving her weren’t working. She… had a moment of lucidity.” He struggles to speak with his bleeding face and his bleeding nails. “She remembered that day, and she said she was going to take you and leave. I couldn’t—”

“What secret?”

He hesitates. He knows he’s not going to make it out of here. But he uses that opportunity one last time to hurt me. He tells me his secret as if he’s proud of it now.

I’ve completely insulated myself from this man, but his secret still revolts me. It disgusts me. I feel the vomit rising in my throat and I wonder if I’m going to choke on it. I want purge my memories of this heinous man but they run too deep.

I falter, because I never knew this about him but my mom did. She knew and she was forced to stay in his sickening trap. The room around me spins. I’m going to fall then as if through the glass, I feel their hands on me, lifting me up and willing me to have their strength. With just one glance they tell me they’re going to make him suffer as only they know how.

And that’s when I stand tall. My rage, my disgust, my sadness, and my regret for being to him, have all merged into nothing. I truly am someone else now.

I glance at my husbands. I’m theirs. I’ve always been theirs. I don’t need anything else.

“Is that why you hated me so much? Because I was a girl, you sick bastard?”

I don’t wait for him to answer what I already know to be true.

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