Page 74 of Shâhzâdeh

Bâbâ bust out laughing so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes. “Eson, are you sure you are ready to be married? I would never desire my wife to grovel to me. I vill go and tell her how sorry I am my bloodline is so unvorthy to be attached to hers because of zhe abominable way zhey behaved. Vhat she has done me and zhem great honor zhat we did not deserve all these years. I will zhen beg for zhe honor of taking off zheir heads zhe way I have desired for almost fifty years and all vill be right in our vorld.”

It was my turn to laugh because he was advising me to be deceptive after advising me to be honest. “So, manipulation.”

“Do you believe zhat your mother isn’t esmart enough to know vhen I’m flattering her? Zhe beauty of our relationship is zhat she knows I do it so she never feels wrong. A soft life for a woman doesn’t stop at just paying bills. It extends to zheir emotions. Zheir egos and zheir hearts need protection even from zheir own kindness. I will always be zhe person zhat does zhat for your mother. Ensure zhat you are zhe esame for my future daughter-in-law.” He raised his brows pointedly and I had to admit, my daddy was smooth as hell.

“I vill take notes and ensure to practice vhat you have preached.” I put my hand on my heart to seal the vow and my father just waved me off and stood up.

“Good. Now get out of my house. I am a blessed man zhat my estamina is estill more zhan enough to esatisfy boz your mozer and myself. I plan to test the bounds of the boz of us tonight and I do not need you to interrupt.” He walked around his desk, leaned over and kissed my cheek before playfully patting the back of my head. “I could not ask for a better son. Now vrite esonnets for your mother’s new best friend. And make sure if necessary you tell her vhat she’s getting into.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Metallic rain

VANYA

“THIS IS VANYA.”

“Are you ready to come home yet?”

I should’ve hung the phone up. The safety of my office didn’t prevent the memories from flooding back in. But with one glance up and seeing all I had accomplished, I was ready to do battle with whoever I needed.

“What are you calling me for, Johnathan?” I rolled my eyes and had to admit, knowing I had people on my side gave me more confidence than before.

“What am I calling you for? That list is so fucking long Ana—”

I rolled my shoulders back my anger now the fuel for me to put this asshole in his place. Him sending someone after me to drug me pissed me off. When Xerxes told me to give him time, I’d agreed. But with this fool calling me I couldn’t lie. I wanted him out of my life and off earth as soon as possible. “My name is Vanya. Don’t call me that bullshit ever again.”

“Is that the type of language that you are using now? You see how you’ve been since you’ve left the family? You’ve fallen so far from grace—”

“SHUT UP! God would you open your eyes to how you’ve been manipulated your whole life? How we both have been? Fuck, what is wrong with you? It’s like you crave this shit.”

“You sound just like the ghetto hood rat they always said you were going to turn into. All those times I thought that maybe they were wrong, you just proved them right.”

I chuckled because he absolutely wouldn’t be able to have a full conversation without bringing up the Kennedys. “Oh yeah? Like when they said that without them, you would’ve been a thug? That college was going to be too hard for someone of your intelligence so they made you get your real estate license and work for them for years for free? Hmm? Is that the type of solid decision making our dear parents provided for you? You were in the top twenty percent of your class. You could’ve gone a lot further than you did. But ignorance equates to compliance. They couldn’t let you get too far away or around people who were too different from them. Otherwise you might start thinking for yourself and then where would they be?”

“You disgust me. You have shamed the entire family with everything that you’ve done. You need to come home and make it right. We’ve already discussed how you can make—”

I straight out laughed at him thinking I owed him or the Kennedys anything. “I’m not making anything if it means it’s for their betterment or yours. Besides, if I’m so terrible, why do y’all want me around? You should be trying to keep me as far away as possible.”

Johnathan scoffed loudly through the phone like his disappointment was supposed to hurt my feelings. “And to think I thought you were a good wife. I’m sure that—”

“I don’t care about what you think, how they feel or anything else. I’m free of all of you. I’m done with all of you and I don’t want to hear from you again. If you contact me again, I’ll be filing harassment charges.” I hung the phone up frustrated and glanced up at my door to see Navi standing there.

“Anything I need to know?” She was very calm despite the way she heard me yelling.

I propped my elbow on my desk before placing my hand on it. “Yes. My original family is crazy and if anyone with the last name Kennedy calls in here, don’t let them through.” I looked up at her to gauge her reaction to my request.

Her face remained relatively passive but the way her forehead creased showed she was curious. “Okay. There seems to be a story there.”

“I don’t think you would believe me if I told you.”

“I grew up in a whorehouse until I was school aged.”

That caused me to sit up in my chair because I know I hadn’t heard her correctly. “Wait, what?”

She giggled sarcastically and leaned against the door frame. “Yeah. Our mother was trafficked into the country we believe. Or brought from somewhere else to a tiny house in Georgia. We were born there and didn’t know much about the outside world.”

“You don’t sound… devastated about any of this.”

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