Page 28 of Vicious Little Princess

There was a baseball bat in the corner and Milo strode to it and snatched it up.

Then, as Nico and I stood before my father, Milo swung the bat and clocked my father across the jaw. He let out an ear-splitting scream.

“Broken jaw now too,” Milo said, spinning the bat in his hand.

“Son,” my dad croaked, barely able to speak. “Help… help me.”

“Help you?” Milo scoffed. “Are you fucking kidding me? He’s the one who needs help from you. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna give him. I just walked in on you feeling up your son and choking him out at the same time, fucking threatening him. And all for what? Money? To force his hand there? Or to force yourself and your rule onto him? All of the above, you sick motherfucking demon!”

Nico laid his hand on Milo’s shoulder, well aware that Milo didn’t lose his temper like this. He was as calm and as collected as they came.

Yet here and now he was barely holding his rage in check, now he’d come face-to-face with my father again.

My heart broke that it was for me. That he was hurting for me.

It wasn’t the first time either.

And it had taken a twisted turn and become… sexual… since my eighteenth birthday. Since that very night, actually. Something else he’d ruined for me.

Although I’d tried my best to hide all of it from him and Nico, my father had hurt me too many times to count, and the two of them had seen through my upbeat façade and beneath to the awful truth of it all once or twice.

I knew, I just fucking knew that it would continue on like this for years and years if something wasn’t done about it.

IfIdidn’t do something about it.

Moving away and being here at college clearly wasn’t enough.

Distance wasn’t.

Nothing was.

I was bound to the bastard by blood.

And only one thing could break that link.

Death.

It was the only way I’d ever be free.

He’d brought it here.

I stepped up to him, rage coursing through my veins.

Rage and conviction.

It drowned out all the rest.

It buried the pain, the shame, the grief of the innocent boy that he’d taken from me years ago.

“You’re worse than a monster. Everything you’ve done to me has brought us to this moment. You kept coming, you kept hurting me, kept trying to degrade and humiliate me. You were so desperate to control me and tear me down, so fearful of what I could become, of my potential to completely eclipse you and your success.” I shot forward and fisted my hand in his greasy hair. And this time when those eyes connected with mine, I didn’t feel fear. For the first time in so long. I saw him for what he was. An abuser. A weak man who got off on victimizing others, on hurting his own son. On using and assaulting his own blood. “It ends here tonight. But before it does, before you go to your grave, I want you to know that I did beat you. In fact, I destroyed you. It was me who tipped off the SEC when I found out what you’d been up to. You cost dozens of innocents their fucking homes because of your greed, something that the money you wanted from me is rectifying as we speak. And the rest? The rest is building an empire of my own that will transcend yours utterly. So as you perish here tonight, know that the name Carver will rise and belong only to me, will be known only as mine. The mark you think you’ve made on the world will disappear as though it never was.”

“You… fucking…”

I jerked on his hair, growling, “You’ll die as nothing.”

“Scared… little… boy. That’s all… you’ll ever… be.”

I released him roughly. “You’re wrong. Just like you were about so many other things.”

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