Chapter 35
Davian
The Mentor’s Daughter
First Day in Court
Atli ?rvarsson
Like a man possessed, I stared at the portrait of the Richter family.
Joseph's hand on Lorette's waist, Brittany on a chair, offset in front of the two of them, a doll-like smile on her face. No marks on her skin, nowhere. To the left of her, Anthony.
Was his smile as fake as the rest of this family?
The footsteps in the hallway on the second floor made me prick up my ears, and when I realized who was entering the study behind me, my whole body stiffened.
“I'm sorry you had to witness that.”
Joseph walked past me to the whiskey glasses.
“There are good reasons why I kept this to myself.”
He smiled, shook his head as he filled two crystal glasses with whiskey.
“Wherever this girl shows up, things break.”
His smile disappeared.
“Beautiful things.”
He put the bottle back, his hands trembling.
“She's like a poison that I wanted to keep away from this family, but Anthony brought her here with the ridiculous illusion that she would fit into our family.”
For the first time, he looked at me, walked over, and held out the glass.
Completely absent-minded, I stared at the orange liquid and took the glass with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Joseph immediately turned around and walked around the desk, staring up at the gold-framed painting.
“And now she's illegally enrolled at Maplecrest and is trying to blackmail me because she knows exactly how much it would hurt this family if the whole town found out about my mistake.”
He took a hasty sip and pressed his lips together.
“We all make mistakes, Davian.”
Taking a deep breath, he took another sip.
“I regret nothing more than ever having crossed paths with her mother.”
The wrinkles on his face seemed deeper than usual. His hands wouldn't stop trembling, no matter how many sips he took.
“Quillon Veritas is your daughter.”
Saying it out loud didn't feel real. Not right. But maybe it was my voice that felt toneless and hoarse, as if I weren't quite there.
Wherever this girl shows up, things break. Beautiful things.
Where they all saw chaos and wreckage, I saw an opportunity for change. Wild nature sprouting from the cracked concrete, trying to reclaim what had belonged to it from the beginning.
“Onera is a mistake I bitterly regret.”
Avoiding my gaze, Joseph took another sip and pulled the corners of his mouth upward, as if Quill were a court case he had lost. Unpleasant, but not worth mentioning. Yet always remembered.
“She should never have existed.”
The mere thought that I would never have met her if Joseph hadn't cheated on his wife struck me like a double-edged sword.
Would I still be here?
I swallowed, feeling like a stranger in my own skin, not knowing if I would be able to hold Joseph's gaze if he weren't already avoiding mine.
I had kissed my mentor's daughter, touched her...
A daughter who, because of the life he had left her in, had wanted to throw herself off a bridge.
Images of purple bruises corrupted my mind, causing my free hand to form into a fist.
My body no longer resisted the truth, even though it destroyed, with a sharp blade, something that had formed between me and my mentor over the course of twenty years.
And he didn't even know it.
Joseph had assured me he would have my back, only to end up holding a gun barrel to the back of my head.
And he didn't even know it.
How could I have been so blind? So ignorant? How could I not have seen the signs?
Images of her wrists flooded my gradually clearing mind.
What had he done?
“The trial wasn't a custody case,” I managed to get out, stepping up to the desk and setting the glass down so it wouldn't slip from my hands.
“Her mother sued me,” he growled, the resentment in his voice unmistakable. “Accused me of things I had never done, which cost me my license as a prosecutor.”
Things he had never done.
“As gratitude for all the money I gave her for that ungrateful child.”
With his next sip, he emptied the glass, set it down on the table, and ran a hand over his crumpled face.
“I tried to be a father to her, lived a double life for years because I had hope for that child.”
Again, he shook his head. Again, that laugh that made my second hand form a fist.
“But I refuse to believe that Richter blood runs through her veins. She’s stupid, doesn’t even have a high school diploma, and now she’s becoming a criminal.”
My fists clenched.
Fiercely, I tried to hold on to the pounding of my heartbeat.
“I'm just waiting for her to make a mistake and end up behind bars. This world is a better place without her.”
Something inside me exploded. So forcefully. So violently that it shattered me to my core.
“Joseph…” I pressed out, but he interrupted me.
“Don't worry.” He grabbed the glass, spun around, and strode back to the whiskey decanter.
“Onera will soon be leaving Maplecrest, which is why you should select a new candidate this weekend.” He filled his glass two-thirds full.
“Because I think it's obvious that she's no longer a viable candidate.”
What I did next was purely impulsive, uncontrolled.
I strode toward him, snatched the glass from his hand, and threw it into the fireplace, where it shattered into hundreds of pieces with a crashing hiss, causing my mentor to flinch.
“Davian...”
“You have a drinking problem and you hurt your daughter, and all you can think about is that goddamn position at Maplecrest?!”
I was sure the whole house had heard me, but I didn't care. For a moment, I couldn't maintain the facade I had trained myself to keep up all these years.
It took all my effort not to do what Anthony had failed to do earlier, all my effort not to grab him by the throat and squeeze until he bore the same wounds as his daughter.
I felt sick.
Joseph stared at me as if I had thrown him off balance. And I stared him down until he... laughed.
“Is this your way of thanking me for everything I’ve made possible for you?”
He didn’t take me seriously, turned away from me and reached for my untouched glass before stepping back around the desk, but this time not without keeping a close eye on me.
“Are you seriously going to take the side of a child?” His amused laughter ruined me. “I taught you better than that, boy.”
“What have you done, Joseph...” I pressed out, stepping toward the desk that prevented me from getting closer to him. “What have you done?!” It just burst out of me. “She's your daughter!”
I clenched my teeth.
Joseph's expression softened.
“You are more of a son to me than she could ever be my daughter.”
I had never asked for that.
Quill had never asked for that.
Nineteen years ago, when he had taken me under his wing, he had had a baby. A daughter who had needed a father. A girl who now believed she was broken.
What the hell had he done?!
I wanted to tear that massive desk apart, wanted to take out all my frustration on Joseph until he finally realized what he had done, even though that wouldn't be enough to satisfy the newly ignited, devastating rage inside me.
I would drag us both into an abyss...
And he didn't even know why.
Before I could completely ruin both of our lives, I did what I was best at, even though it gave me the final kick in the gut.
Waves of Opulence
Ahmet Kenan Bilgic, Turgut Mavuk
Hastily, I turned around, stormed out of the study, through the hallway, fighting the urge to destroy things around me, to yell, or even turn around and storm back into his study.
“Davian,” he called. “Davian, come back.”
He didn't want that.
“Davian!”
I quickened my pace down the stairs, hurrying through all the salons on the ground floor until I finally found my daughter with Lorette and Brittany in the farthest salon.
“Lara.” She got up immediately. “Get your jacket.” Lorette got up too. “We're getting out of here.”
My voice was aggressive, and I was sorry, because Lara wasn't to blame for this mess, even though it crossed my mind at that moment that she must have known something about it.
We stared at each other, her face pale, her expression... guilty.
Damn it, Lara.
I looked around frantically.
Quill wasn't here.
Where was my last hope? Where was she hiding?
“Davian,” Lorette began, but I stormed out of the salon, searching the entire ground floor for the woman I couldn't leave behind in this snake pit, but she was nowhere to be found.
Panic overwhelmed me.
“She's with Tony.”
I flinched.
Standing in the doorway with the jacket in her arms, Lara looked at me as if I might do to her what Joseph had done to Quill.
Calm down, Davian. Calm down, damn it!
She's with Tony. She's safe.
Footsteps on the stairs made me reach for my daughter's arm.
“Davian!”
She had to get out of here. We had to get away before something unpredictable happened and she had to watch.
I was sure that if I ran into Joseph in the hallway, nothing would stop me, so I pulled Lara through one of the back doors onto the lantern-lit stone terrace.
She followed me, and I didn't let go of her until we had made our way around the house on the gravel path and were rushing down the driveway.
“Dad, I wanted to tell you, but Quill asked me not to tell anyone.”
I sped up even more, and she could barely keep up.
Quill deserved better. She deserved someone to go in there for her and beat the hell out of Joseph. She deserved someone to prove to her how unacceptable it was to physically and emotionally trample her.
I squinted my eyes in anguish.
This man had taken me in, cared for me, pulled me out of a hole, and given my family a future.
This wasn't fair.
Quill deserved more than I could give her at that moment. She deserved everything.
“I didn't know he was hurting her. You have to...”
“Lara...” I blurted out, overwhelmed.
“Dad...” She sounded as desperate as I felt, her tone breaking my heart despite all my anger at the situation.
“I believe you, just please give me time to process it!” I managed to say in a controlled yet angry tone, causing self-hatred to wash over me.
She should never have kept something like this from me.
The shrill crash of breaking glass made us both stop abruptly.
Ruin or Redemption
Ahmet Kenan Bilgic, Turgut Mavuk
Lara stared back at the house with a horrified expression, then at me.
A loud thud, as if something had broken, completely finished me off and I spun around.
“Dad?”
“Go to the car.”
“But...”
“Now!”
Without turning back again, I started to run.
There was only one thing on my mind.
Quill.
I would grab her hand, get her out of there, whatever I lost in the process. She was worth my world collapsing. Because without her, this world would no longer be turning after all. I didn't just owe it to her. There was nothing else in this destructive life that gave me meaning except her.
Some want to be rebels,
some want to defy those who try to cage them.
The difference: one of these serves self-liberation,
the other self-expression.
– Blue