Chapter 42 Heath #2
“Let me do that? It’s my fucking life.”
“And I care about you.”
I frown deeply. “Care about me? You’re fucking kidding, right?”
Dad shakes his head. “I had my reason for staying away.”
I scoff, my eyes burning from all the pent up rage. “I’m warning you for the last time. Move.”
He doesn’t reply.
“Whatever fucking happens now, is on you.”
Wiping my nose, I swing my arm back and aim a right hook at his nose.
But much to my surprise, he catches it mid-swing, his grip like iron.
Before I can even react, he twists my arm with punishing force, the pain sharp and instant.
In one fluid motion, he drives me back into the same fucking wall where he had pinned Alex Hanson.
“Xavier, let him go!” Mom cries out.
“Carol, get me a glass of cold water please,” he says instead.
I try to wrestle my arm out of his hold but he is strong. “Let me go!”
“I will once you calm down and listen to me.”
“Listen to you! Are you fucking crazy? Nothing you say is going to make me hate you less.”
“I know but we need to talk.”
“Talk! I don’t want to fucking talk to you.” I clench my teeth. “Because of you another person in my life is going to die. You hear me. She’s going to die if you don’t let go of me right now.”
“He’s not going to kill her,” Dad says with such confidence that my body believes him.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know his kind. He won’t kill her. But he will kill you if you don’t calm down and think with your head.”
Turning to my friends he says, “You both should go home. Heath and I have a long conversation that is overdue.”
Sebastian look at me. “I’ll be in your room.”
I nod.
Once he leaves with Marie, I turn my neck and glare at my dad. “Let go of me.”
“If I do you won’t listen to me.”
I groan in frustration. “I don’t believe a single word out of your mouth. So even if you speak, it doesn’t fucking matter.”
A long moment passes before he asks, “Do you really blame me for Em’s death?”
“Yes,” I grumble.
That’s when he lets go of me. I turn around to attack him, but what I see is a face full of despair.
“I deserve that,” he whispers.
Mom comes with a glass of water. Her eyes are red and her cheeks puffy. She hands it to me, then faces her husband and glares at him. “If you ever do that to him again I will never speak to you.”
Regret flashes through his eyes. “Mia Cara — ”
She faces me. “Here drink this.”
I take the glass from her even though I don’t want to.
Dad sighs. “Not that you care, but I think you should know that I feel guilty about leaving you.
Before Emery… and after her death. It's my fault that she died. Maybe if I had been here she wouldn't have.”
I gulp down the water. The cold water seems to help me calm down. “It's too late to feel remorse. What was supposed to happen, happened. I won’t lie and say I don’t blame you, because I do. If you hadn’t been so hungry for money and power, maybe things wouldn’t have been so awful in our lives.”
“I wanted you two safe. To live somewhere where no one could find you two and hurt you. To have a normal childhood. I have a lot of enemies. People are greedy for the reputation, power and wealth I've built up for years due to hard work. All the — ”
“Spare me your sob story. I'm least interested in it.” I hit a nerve as his face harden.
“How about some truth?”
That piques my interest.
“What about it?” My stomach ties in a series of knots.
Mom stares at him, and he meets her gaze. They share a silent moment before he turns to face me.
“The reason why we left you and Emery in this town. The truth that I've always hidden from you — ”
“Will you just fucking tell me?” I raise my voice, getting agitated with every miserable second that passes.
Dad swallows hard. “Shortly after you were born, your mother and I attended this important company party. We could’ve skipped it.
At least, I wish we had…” He clears his throat, and for the first time, I see him nervous.
If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that my dad isn’t afraid of anything or anyone.
At least, that’s what I’ve come to believe from the very few moments I’ve spent with him.
“The party started at eight and was supposed to end by eleven. We left you at the penthouse, sleeping. Your mom made sure you were fed so you wouldn’t wake up hungry, and she left some milk for you in the kitchen in case you did.
Paulina, our maid, was the one who looked after you for those few hours.
It was only for a short time, so we left without worrying. ” His face turns serious.
“When we came back, you were gone. We checked the cameras, and it turned out Paulina had taken you. We had no idea how she got past the building’s security, but somehow, she did.
Your mom was in agony, weeping and screaming the second she saw you weren’t in the room.
I called some of my best men to search for you, but we couldn’t find you that night. ”
Silence disperses in the room, and tension gathers within the concrete walls.
My heart is racing in my chest and my mind is carefully holding onto the details he’s giving me.
I feel something inside of me stir, reaching out to him, an invisible thread that connects me to him.
“That night was the worst night of my life, son. The stress and fear I felt that day was nothing I had experienced before. It was a fucking nightmare I never thought I’d have to live through.” We lock eyes, but I quickly tear my gaze away from him, unable to hold the weight of his words.
“Police were at our door, and their men were searching for you. You were only three months old — so small, but so loud.” He smiles, and for the first time, I see him like this — soft, almost vulnerable.
“My security team was on the search too, but nothing came up until the morning. Paulina called me, demanding ransom and some favors. She wanted five million dollars, her brother released from jail, and fake IDs and passports. I was able to fulfill all of her requests except for bailing her brother out. He was facing some serious charges, and getting him out wasn’t going to be easy. ”
My heart climbs up to my throat.
“I didn’t want to get him out. Believe me, I didn’t. I hated that I was in a position where I had to do that. Later in the afternoon, she sent me a video of you, lying cold, only in your underwear, with winter just around the corner. You could’ve gotten sick, and I... I had to make a choice.”
My mind and heart are a fucking mess. I sweep a hand through my hair to relive some of the tension stirring inside of me.
Mom wipes her tears but stay quiet otherwise.
“I put my best lawyers to work, paid a hefty amount of money to anyone and everyone I could so they’d let him go. All the while, I felt filthy for doing something like that. But I had to. You were with that psychotic woman who was... hurting you.” His voice drops, almost a whisper.
“By ten that night, I’d given her everything she demanded.
She dropped you off on a bench in the park—naked.
I rushed you to the hospital, and you were fine.
I drove back home to your mom, who was overjoyed to see you.
She held you that entire night and day, not putting you down for a second.
It was maddening. She kept you close, terrified that someone might take you away again. ”
I’m too stunned to utter a single word. Too surprised and bewildered to form even the simplest sentence. My mouth is dry, as if the words just won’t come.
“When Emery was born, we left you two in this town, making sure you’d be safe, away from us... away from me. Because of me, you got kidnapped. I couldn’t risk a repeat. So, I didn’t think twice and sent you both here.”
"Is this the truth?" I ask, my eyes searching his face. He doesn’t look like he’s lying.
“All of it,” he says, his deep voice heavy with meaning. It touches my heart, and I step back, the weight of his words settling on me.
“And you never thought to tell me?” I accuse him as anger swims through my veins.
“I did. Multiple times. But every time I looked at you, I realized I had to set a criminal free. That you were kidnapped because of me. I was consumed with guilt and rage. And that’s why I never visited you. I distanced myself, speaking only when it was absolutely necessary.”
I burst out laughing. Humor cripples my sides and squeezes my heart as I crack. I can’t believe he let me hate him instead of telling me the truth.
“I can't believe you. You let me hate you for years. Just because of this. You could have told me. You should have told me.” I shout at him but he doesn’t even flinch.
He sighs. “And let you know that I had let you down. That in order to save you I did something I hate myself for every single day. That my money and hard work couldn't offer you basic security and a life that should have been normal for you. Maybe I should have told you. But I'm glad I didn’t."
I walk over to him, my fists clenched. “Why the fuck are you saying this?”
“Because nothing will change the way you hate me. Or extinguish the fire that burns for me inside you. Now that I’ve told you the truth… You hate me more, don’t you?”
I want to say yes. I want to scream that word at him, but somehow, I can’t find the courage to spit out that three-letter word.
The pain of the past and the raw truth of the present hit me like waves crashing in my stomach, mixed with an intense fury I can’t contain.
I don’t know what to do with him. Or what to say to him.
“I’m not a good man. But I’ve tried my best to keep you away from the evil. Even if it meant you being away from me and hating me.”
I stay still and silent.
"You can hate me all you want, Heath. But I'll always protect you. Always look out for you. You're all I've left anyway.”
“Emery died because of you. You weren't there,” I whisper those words that have always haunted me.
Dad nods. “I know I’m the reason. And I carry the guilt and blame with me every day.
She was my daughter, after all. You can’t imagine how I felt when I saw her in that hospital bed, hooked up to wires, sleeping.
The rise and fall of her chest was the only reassurance she was still alive.
But it was also the trut — that she was there because of me. ”
He meets my gaze, his voice rough. “I’m not a good father. I know that. I’ve failed you and Emery countless times. I hate myself for it all. I blame myself for everything. I deserve the way you treat me, the way you talk to me, or look at me. I deserve it all.”
Tears prick at my eyes, and I resent myself for showing any emotion, any weakness to him.
For him.
But I can’t help it.
“But you’re also all I’ve got left. The one child who’s alive and well. I want to make amends, Heath. I want to make things right.”
I chuckle and shove him away from me. “Make amends? You just held me back from saving the girl I fucking love.”
He frowns. “I held you back to protect you. That man was drunk and angry. He would have hurt you to get back his daughter.”
“Now he is going to hurt her,” my voice breaks. My eyes fills with tears and for the first time I feel more helpless than I ever have in my life. “I can’t fucking lose that girl. You don’t understand.”
“You just love her.”
I run a hand through my hair. “No, I don’t just fucking love her. She is the reason why I’m a better person. She is the reason why I’m not in darkness. And she is the reason why I want to fix things between us because she believes you two really love me.”
Dad watches me and his eyes hold so much sorrow and regret. “I can save her if you stay here.”
My body goes rigid. “What?”
He takes out his phone and scrolls through it, his fingers moving quickly. “I’ll send someone there to keep an eye on things. If it gets too much, he’ll step in. But there’s one condition: you stay here. Because I know evil when I see it. I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”
I can barely get a word out. “Do you mean that?”
He pauses, glancing up at me before giving a slow nod. “You said you don’t just love her. If that’s true, then she must mean a lot to you.”
“She does.”
“Then I’ll help you but you have to listen to me.” He gives me a stern look.
It takes everything in me to not roll my eyes or give him a sharp reply.
“Can I trust you, Dad?” I ask.
He freezes at that word, his throat tightening as he gulps hard. “You always can, son.”