Chapter One Hundred and Thirty One

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty One

HERMIONE

"Ezra!" Dad barks, storming forward to stand between us. "This will be the last time you lay a finger on Hermione," he orders, his voice booming with a desperate authority.
My ears are still ringing from Mom's slap. I slowly reboot, canting my head to let the blood flow back into the numb side of my face. The sting is nothing compared to the cold clarity settling in my chest.
"And what if it isn't?" Mom challenges, her arms folded tight as she glares up at him. "Stay on the sidelines where you’ve always been, Jackson. You don't lecture me on how I choose to discipline my daughter."
"Hermione is as much mine as she is yours!" Dad thunders, but his voice cracks.
Mom lets out a derisive snort. "You wish, you impotent fool."
The air leaves the room. Dad recoils as if she’s physically gutted him. He goes silent—not the silence of a man thinking, but the silence of a man who has just ceased to exist.
"What did you just call him?" I demand. My voice is a low, dangerous whisper. I turn toward her, my hand still cupped over my burning cheek.
Mom’s eyes are chips of ice. "Jackson is an impotent bastard posing as your father," she states, her voice flat and cruel.
I scoff, looking from her to the man I’ve called 'Dad' my entire life. He looks resigned. Defeated. It clicks—the years of passivity, the way he let her rule this house. She hasn't just been chipping at his ego; she’s been holding his very identity hostage. Their marriage wasn't a partnership; it was blackmail.
"Aren't you the ultimate slut?" I spit, a wry, jagged grin pulling at my lips. "Who did you have me with? Was it the same man you got pregnant by while wearing my father's ring?"
Mom’s eyes flash with a predatory light. She raises her hand to strike me again, but I don't flinch. I meet her gaze with a stare so frigid it should have frozen the blood in her veins.
"Don't you dare," I snarl.
Her hand hangs in the air, trembling with the urge to hit me.
I raise mine, inches from her face. "Try it. I promise you, this hand will leave marks that won't fade for weeks," I vow, my teeth gritted in a snarl of pure, simmering rage.
Dad is a ghost behind us, paralyzed by the exposure of his best-kept secret. But with a woman like her, no secret is ever safe; she just stores them like ammunition until she needs a kill shot.
"I warned you. Never again," I hiss, stepping directly into her personal space. I’m taller now—stronger. "I’m not that little girl you can bruise to feel powerful. I’m a woman. And if you don't start showing me respect, I will start reciprocating your 'gestures' in kind."
I lean in closer, my eyes fixed on her raised hand, daring her to ignite the fuse.
"Now, you’re going to go back out there and tell the truth. Aiden didn't leave an heir. And if you even think about manipulating my husband's death for your own gain, you will find out exactly why people avoid me. You don't want me as an enemy, Mother. I promise you, you don't."
I don't wait for her to breathe. I grab Dad’s arm—his grip is limp, his spirit shattered—and haul him away.
I lead him into his study and slam the door, locking out the world and the monster we left in the hallway. The second we are alone, the adrenaline breaks. I pull him into me, wrapping my arms around his shaking frame.
"Hermione..." Dad lets out a sound that isn't a word—it’s a strangled, guttural sob. The sound of a man who has lost everything in a single sentence.
He is completely broken. She didn't just betray him; she annihilated him in front of the only person he cared about.
"Dad," I whisper into his chest, squeezing him with everything I have left.
Dad’s body vibrates in my hold, the urge to sob racking his frame.
I can’t bring myself to ask him to let it out. His ego has been bruised enough by Mom weaponizing his secret in such a public, cruel manner. Some of the staff must have overheard; given how Dad is treated in this house, the spread of gossip is a certainty.
"Should I give you some space?" I withdraw slightly, scanning his face. "You shouldn't hold it in, Dad. If you want to hit something, do it. If you want to cry, do it—it isn't a sign of weakness. Let the rage out."
Dad nods tightly, his lips cinched. "I know," he replies hoarsely. He wipes the corners of his eyes with a fingertip. "Stay."
I oblige, falling back into his embrace. This time, he returns it, holding me with a warmth that is purely fatherly.
"I identify with you more than I ever could with Mom," I say, arching back to look at him while our arms remain locked. "I’ve always regarded you as my only true parent. It was frustrating when you didn't support me—when I could have escaped Mom’s overwhelming control—but I understand why now." I offer him a steady look. "I am your daughter. Even if it isn’t biological or legal, you’ve been my father since I was a child. You shaped the best parts of my life. No one can take your place."
Certainly not some stranger who didn't bother to claim me until I was grown.
An appreciative look crosses Dad's features. "Thank you, Hermione," he says, offering a ghost of a smile.
I step back and pat his arms encouragingly. "Cheer up, old man. I expected you’d have developed a thicker skin after years of tolerating Ezra Watson. Don't let her vitriol get to you. Mom’s a terrible person—everyone knows that."
Dad isn’t amused. I know; the humor is dry, a product of my own disdain for the situation.
The weight of my own grief still hangs in the air. We both need quiet to process this. I never intended to mourn at my parents' house—not with Mom lurking like a predator. But my mission here is accomplished. If she chooses to be stubborn, I will show her that I am a chip off the old block. I might even be more ruthless than she is.
I may be no match for her in a direct war—she has more influence and resources—but that only means she has more to lose.
I have no desire to turn my life into a battleground, but if she undermines my warnings, if she dares to taint Aiden’s memory with her agenda, she will regret not ending" me like she did the other baby.
"You have that look," Dad observes, snapping me back to attention.
I blink at him. "What look?"
"The one you get when you’re being defiant. Are you staging a rebellion?"
"A revolution," I correct him. "Mom’s era of the iron hand is over. I’m done dealing with her bullshit. She has twenty-four hours to correct the lie, or so help me God..." I exhale a sharp huff, my shoulders rising and falling. "I have to go, Dad. I hope you choose yourself this time. You have nothing left to hide."
In my eyes, Dad is a saint. Mom has always been the one playing the part of the unfaithful wife. Grandpa would have been furious if he’d known she got pregnant out of wedlock. Dad could have kept his secret by staying single; his family would have respected that. Instead, he saved Mom’s reputation by claiming her pregnancy as his own.
"You love her, don't you?" It suddenly dawns on me why he has been so tolerant of her bullshit, despite being her saving grace.
My biological father must have rejected me for Mom to ever agree to marry Dad. She wouldn't have chosen him if she’d had any other option, and she has never failed to display her aversion toward him through scathing remarks and constant disregard.
Dad nods. "I do," he admits quietly. "But Ezra is simply who she chooses to be." He exhales softly. "Aren't you curious?"
I knit my brows together, my lips pulled into a cold pout.
"About who your birth father is," he clarifies.
"Should I be? He never wanted me. Why should I care about him?"
Dad nods in understanding. "Like your mother, anything that doesn't benefit him doesn't stay in his life. But he did come back for you once."
I look at Dad, surprised. "Really?"
"He needed your presence for a political campaign he was running. The same campaign he chose over your mother in the first place."
"My birth father is a politician?" I scrunch my nose in distaste. I have limited respect for people of that ilk.
"He’s always been nearby."
"Who is he?" I shift my weight from one foot to the other, tension building.
"Senator William Hayes," Dad reveals.
The name strikes a chord, but it takes a moment for the
memory to fully register. When it does, my jaw drops.
No way.