2. Josephine
Josephine
Ihave never felt anything like the rage that’s coursing through me as I sit next to Sebastian in the back of this fucking SUV. I don’t know what I want to do more: reach to my right and grab Seb’s hand in mine or reach to my left and deck my dad across his smug fucking face.
But I can’t do either, because one of these assholes zip-tied our hands together. So tight, might I add, that I can already feel the hard plastic cutting into my skin. It won’t be long before I’m bleeding, and I haven’t even begun to struggle.
Do. Not. Struggle.
Just wait.
Wait.
Sebastian’s words echo in my mind.
“Do not fight them. Do not argue. Just do as they say until I say otherwise. Do you trust me?”
Yes.
With every fiber of my being. I trust him. I trust all of them.
But most importantly, I trust myself. I trust my strength. I trust my abilities. And I trust my instincts. I know that we will get out of this, and we will make our way back to them.
To Luca.
To Dante.
To Lorenzo.
I just have to wait.
I know I have to. Yet, every second that goes by that I can feel my father’s stare on me brings me closer and closer to snapping. I force myself to look into Seb’s bright blue eyes, and his stare instantly does what I hoped it would. It grounds me.
But I can see it. I can see the hurricane raging inside those deep pools of blue.
It’s a storm I’ve never seen in him. One I imagine being reserved for men like Luca and Dante.
Hell, I’ve even seen it on Lorenzo’s face, but to see such fury raging within him leads me to believe I’m about to see a side of Sebastian Moore that very few people have had the opportunity to see.
“So, Joey, you going to ask me or not?”
And just like that, the little bubble I was trying to surround Seb and me with pops.
My nostrils flare at the sound of his voice, and the use of my childhood nickname sends a shiver down my spine.
It was once a name that was attached to so many happy memories; I couldn’t have counted them even if I tried.
It was the one my dad yelled as I ran into his arms when he got home from work.
The one he used when he wished me sweet dreams. The one that was right at the end of every “I love you.” But all of those memories were tarnished in the blink of an eye once he started using it while he screamed at me and called me worthless, while he burned my skin with cigarettes, and while he beat me within an inch of my life.
He lost the right to call me by that name a long time ago.
“Wait,” Seb mouths ever-so-subtly.
“Ignoring my letters all these years was bad enough; the least you could do is show me some respect when I’m speaking to you. I am your father after all; you owe me that.”
What in the actual fuck?
Seb closes his eyes and inhales deeply. Because, while he knows that I will wait and follow his instructions, it doesn’t mean I’m going to do it quietly.
A maniacal chuckle rumbles in my chest, and as I slowly turn my head to look at my dad, the chuckle becomes an all-out laugh. One that is entirely inappropriate for the situation that we’re in, but I can’t help it nonetheless.
“Something I said funny?” Dad snarls from his spot next to me as the SUV we’re in continues to dodge in and out of traffic.
“Yeah,” I reply as I wipe a stray tear that has rolled down my cheek, and I try to get my laughter under control. “Are—are you fucking serious right now?”
“I suggest you watch your tone when you speak to me, Josephine.”
Sebastian stiffens next to me, and I know he probably wants me to slow my roll here a little bit, but I wouldn’t be the woman he loves if I didn’t speak my mind.
The woman he loves.
“Yeah, that’s not going to fucking happen.
” Out of the corner of my eye, I see a black Audi Q2 in the rearview mirror, and it’s approaching us quickly.
No one else, especially the two men in the front, has noticed it yet, so I choose not to draw attention to it.
“Because, you see, there’s a reason I haven’t opened any of your letters.
There’s a reason I have never, not once, attempted to speak or reach out to you since the day you got sent to prison.
It’s because you are not my father. I lost my father when I was just a girl.
I lost him to an addiction that ruined our family’s lives.
I lost him. The Daddy that I once knew, the man that I loved more than anything, is gone.
” My voice cracks at the last word, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of me missing the man he once was.
“The man that’s sitting in front of me is nothing.
You are a man who tried to break me when I was nothing but an innocent child.
You made my brother fear becoming a man because he lives in fear of turning into you.
You are a man who tried to kill his own daughter before beating his wife to a pulp as we both lay on the ground helpless.
All so you could score some money to buy drugs.
You are nothing more than a piece of shit, dressed in a nice suit, pretending to be someone important. ”
John’s face is now the color of a strawberry, and the vein in his neck, one I became all too familiar with keeping a close eye on, is pulsing.
But as he sits in front of me, I realize…
I’m not afraid of him. I haven’t been ignoring his letters or him for all these years because I’m afraid of him; I’m just afraid of all of the memories he comes with.
Memories that I have tried my best to bury, and yet… they’re always just one bad dream away.
Quickly, I look in the rearview mirror to find the Audi is hot on our heels, and right behind it… is Dante’s truck.
Sebastian must hear the familiar rumble of the exhaust because he shoves my leg with his and whispers, “Now.”
I turn back to John, narrow my eyes, and lean as close as my seatbelt will allow, and just before I’m about to speak, I finally hear the two morons up front as they finally recognize that they have a tail. “So, no, John. I don’t owe you shit.”
And just as his palm lands on my cheek, Dante’s truck drills the back of the SUV.