21. Verity
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Verity
“ I hate you.” I whisper towards the man in front of me.
My father turns in his seat and scowls at me. “Hate? After everything I’ve done for you?” he snaps angrily. “You ungrateful little bitch. I saved you from yourself . You are a danger, a loose cannon. I can’t trust you to behave in any kind of decent manner.”
I shake my head, sitting in the backseat of his car with security guards on either side of me. My father is in the front seat. He huffs before looking forward again, but I can see his eyes on me in the rearview mirror.
“I’m ashamed of you.” He snarls.
“Ha.” I laugh. “How can you be ashamed of the person you created? I am the way I am because you made me this way.” I hiss.
I see his fists clench in his lap. “If you were how I made you, you’d be obedient and placid.”
I stare past the security guard at my side, ignoring the rifle on his lap. I look out of the window at the scenery whipping past the car. We’ve been driving for hours. I’m tired. I’m scared. I’m worried about Rufino and all I want is to be back in his arms.
Obedient. I chuckle. If my father thought that overbearing control was going to create an obedient daughter he was mistaken.
“All of your rules, all of your attempts to stop me from living my life - they made me this defiant. I had no choice but to fight back against you so that I could find out who I was.”
“Who you are doesn’t matter.” He shouts. I see the guard next to me tense up. “You are nothing but what I say you are.” My father blurts out.
This conversation is getting me nowhere. It’s stealing my energy. Energy I need to save for when Rufino comes to rescue me.
My father has a deeply ingrained inability to understand anyone’s opinion or perspective other than his own.
I’ve tried so many times to reason with him throughout my life. To make him see things from my point of view. It’s never worked. Not even once. I can’t imagine that changing now.
“What are you going to do with me?” I sigh, thinking of the convent in Europe. I’m delighted to be going that way since it would be simple to get away from there. They won’t be prepared for someone like me. I’m smarter than their systems and useless little locks. I’ll get out, I’ll contact Rufino and he can come and fetch me. We’ll run away again. This time we won’t be found, and we’ll never come back.
We can be together.
I close my eyes and lean my head against the backrest of the car.
My father hasn’t answered my question. He isn’t going to. He likes to keep his plans muted because it’s another form of control for him.
I’m too tired to push him. I’ve been pushing him since we drove away from the motel. I was so heartbroken I couldn’t turn my head to look back at Rufino. I couldn’t process the idea of leaving him behind.
Now I regret it.
But when I close my eyes, I can see his face. I can feel his touch against my skin. If I keep my eyes closed, I can pretend I’m with him.
I must have dozed off in the car because I wake up to a guard shoving me. “We’re here. Get out.” He snaps.
“Where?” I stammer, confused and annoyed.
“Get the fuck out. Stop wasting my time.” He points his gun at me.
I look forward, but the rest of the car is empty.
My father isn’t in the front seat anymore. The car is parked underground somewhere. I recognize nothing.
Sliding across the leather seats I climb out of the car and stand next to the angry security guard. I don’t recognize him either. Another new recruit. None of the men last long with my father. This one won’t either.
He’ll fire him, or the guy will just disappear, of his own accord or my fathers. Anyone who disagrees with my father disappears.
“Move.” He huffs, jabbing the barrel of his rifle into my ribs.
“What the fuck is your problem? Calm down, asshole.” I snap back at him.
He pushes me towards a grey door. I open it and step through.
It leads into a dingy foyer with an elevator in the corner. The place smells of dust. Stuff and cold.
“The elevator.” He commands.
I push the button a few times in annoyance. Then stand back and wait for it to arrive.
The silence is awkward and tense. Where is my father? What is this place?
A soft chime beeps through the air and the metal doors slide open.
I step inside before he tells me to because I don’t want to be jabbed with a rifle again. My ribs are already bruised, when I poke them they are spongy and breathing is painful.
He knocks the butt of his gun against the number seventeen and the doors slide closed.
His breathing is so loud. It’s annoying.
Everything is annoying.
We ride slowly to the seventeen floor and the asshole pushes me out of the elevator into a hallway. “Move, dammit.” He snarls.
I lift my hands in a sign of surrender, hoping to ease his aggressiveness. All the while I’m taking everything in, counting how many paces from the elevator. I look to see an escape route.
A door at the end of the hallway is open. I walk towards it, assuming that’s our destination.
I don’t know what I expected to see when I walked through the doorway, but a nice, clean apartment was not it.
Its modern and bright with enormous windows spread across two walls of the corner apartment that let a lot of natural light in.
“What is this place? Who lives here?” I ask, stepping inside.
My father’s voice answers me, coming from the kitchen on the right.
“This is the safe house where you will be staying.”
My mouth drops open. How will Rufino find me here?
“Please, let me go home rather.”
“You don’t belong at home. I don’t want that kind of trouble in my house because you can’t be trusted.
“I’m your daughter, not some prisoner.” I shout.
A sharp slap stings across my face.
I turn to face the guard who dared to hit me. I’m waiting for my father to tell him he’s fired. To kick him out. To tell him he’s done for daring to touch me.
“Don’t speak to your father like that.” He says, his eyes tracing over my body.
I look him up and down, furious at the audacity of this man.
“Who the hell do you think?—”
“Thank you, Roger.” My father says, grateful because this random asshole just slapped me through the face.
I spin towards my father with an expression of shock on my face.
“If you don’t care what happens to me, then just let me go. ” I demand.
He shakes his head. “You’re wrong sweetheart. I care. I care about how your behavior affects the family name. I care about what people think when they look at you and know that you carry my blood in your veins.”
I am finally beginning to understand.
My father never cared about me as his daughter. Only for what I represented in the public eye. It’s the reason he never accepted me.
It’s the reason he fought me on everything. I am supposed to be a replica of him. A mirror image of his choices and his life.
He will never let me free.
He will never allow me to live my life the way I want to.
Desperation seeps into my pores. I am an animal in a cage, and he is the ring master. Poking me with a stick and demanding I do the tricks he wants to see.
Genuine panic floods me. I can’t stay here. I will never see the light of day again.
Without thinking it through I run.
There is no proper plan to get out of here, but I have to try.
I bolt straight for the open door I dodge the outreached hand of the guard standing closest to me.
Someone behind me cocks their gun.
“Don’t fucking shoot her your idiot.” My father snaps. “Bring her back.”
I hear nothing else because I am half way to the elevator already.
I’ve never run this fast in my life.
My lungs are burning when I reach the silver doors.
Gratitude overwhelms me when I see the elevator is waiting there. I skid into it and slam my hand repeatedly against the G button.
“Close dammit. Please close.” I yell at the doors.
They’re getting closer. Their heavy black boots are loud down the enclosed hallway.
The doors close.
I hold my breath.
Just as the doors slide the last few inches closed their angry faces appear in the gap. But they were too slow. And now I’m free.
I grin as the elevator carries me down to the parking garage again.
Not knowing where I am in the city is going to make this more challenging, but it’s ok. I’ll find a way. As long as I am out of my father’s reach there is a chance.
However, when the doors slide open again I am staring at the barrel of a gun.
My heart sinks.
I was stupid to think he didn’t have additional guards on the ground. My father is known for his cautious nature and placing extra men at every corner.
The guy steps into the elevator with a smirk, forcing me to take a step backwards as the gun presses into my forehead.
“Hi, sweetheart. Were you going somewhere?” he laughs.
I bite my lip. Tense. Hopeless. Terrified that I will never see Rufino again.
I don’t want to exist in a world where we are not together.
The guard shoves me back into the small apartment.
My father is sitting cross-legged on the sofa, waiting for my return.
“Verity, you have used up my last thread of patience.” He says, standing up.
“Dad, please let me go. Please don’t do this.” I beg.
“Lock her in the room and stand guard outside the door. The man who lets her escape will get a bullet in his skull. Is anything about what I’ve said unclear?”
“No, sir.” They chorus in response.
Rough hands push me into the room and the room door slams shut behind me. I hear the lock clicking into place.
It’s a beautiful room, with crispy white bedding and a neat adjoining bathroom. Under different circumstances I wouldn’t mind being stuck in here for a while. But this is a prison. I don’t see the modern decor or soft lighting, all I see are four walls keeping me away from the man that I love.
A holding cell designed for nothing other than my heartache.
I curl up on the bed, crying from the overwhelming helpless feelings that are drowning me.
I want to have hope - but I’m also scared of it.
Because now I will find out if Red really meant everything he said to me.
Will he tear the world apart for me? Will he burn it to the ground to find me?
Or was it all just a game to him?
Something to fill the time in between the monotony of general life.
For me it was real.
I’ve never felt love like that before.
I can only wait now - to find out if he is coming to save me.