Page 110 of Raphael (Belles & Mobsters 5)

The boat was moving very slowly and I hoped we were still close to Raphael’s island.

I reached for the door handle of the cabin and pushed it down.

Open.

The door was open. That was a good sign. Right? Leaving the bedroom, I went down the hallway, then made it up the stairs and toward the front of the boat. I was right, the boat was moving slowly.

One step. Another.

The light flickered in one of the rooms. I turned my head in its direction, and it was when I finally saw him. My father.

The same cruel eyes. The same cruel smile.

He was older, his hair thinner and wrinkles on his face more prominent. His glasses hid his eyes, but not the cruelty. He wore an expensive suit, probably to show his dominance. His platinum hair, so much like mine, was slicked back and his frame seemed smaller somehow.

I could take him down. If I have to, I’d wrap my hands around his throat and choke the living daylights out of him.

“Finally awake,” he purred in that voice I hated so much.

“What’s going on here?”

My attempt to sound strong failed. My mouth was too dry, my voice too weak.

“I’m going to tell you a very interesting story, little Sailor,” my father drawled. “It’s about you, me, your mother, and Anya.”

I attempted to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. It felt like sand in my mouth.

“You hurt Anya,” I spat back at him. My stomach coiled in revulsion. “I don’t need any of your stories. You disgust me.”

He threw his head back and laughed. A sinister kind of laugh. “But you’ll get it anyhow, little one.” I swallowed hard, fear filling my expression. “You’ve always been scared of your own shadow.”

God, how much I hated him. It was the blinding kind of hate that made you do the unthinkable kind of crime. I could kill my own father and never lose sleep over it. That was how much I hated him.

“You raped your own daughter,” I hissed, the old familiar acid bubbled up in my throat. It was revolting. “Over and over again. You destroyed her childhood. Our childhood.”

His cruel gaze roamed over me with disgust, like he was evaluating a piece of trash under his feet.

“You’re a disgusting piece of shit,” I spat out. “Sick in the head and my happiest day was when I walked away from you and Mother.”

He sighed with feigned distress. “Anya was never my daughter.” The admission was like a detonated bomb.

“What?” I stuttered, confusion clear on my face.

“It means that Anya wasn’t my fucking kid,” he spat out. “Did marrying fucking Santos make an idiot out of you?”

My father’s eyes raked over me and it took all I had not to put my hands in front of me to cover up as much of me as I could.

“Am I your kid?”Say no. Say no.

He must have seen the wistful expression on my face because he offered a tight smile.

“You’re mine.”Extinguished. It was a short-lived hope. “You don’t think I’d have let you off the hook if you weren’t mine.” The venom and insinuation in his voice was unmistakable, and I swore my complexion had to have turned deathly pale.

“Who’s her father?” I questioned, but he remained silent. “Your kid or not, how could you hurt Anya like that?”

“Because her father touched something that belonged to me,” he spat out. “Your mother learned since then that it was a mistake. She was used to high class living. But it was too late. She got knocked up. With that fucking bastard that I had to raise as my own.”

“You didn’t raise her,” I hissed. “You tortured her. Made both of our lives hell. You should have just given us up. You should have let her find a family that wanted her.”

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