Chapter 94 DADDY TROUBLES
SLOANE’S POINT OF VIEW.
Lucien places me gently on the soft, cushion-like couch backstage, and kisses my forehead softly before asking;
“Are you okay? Any panic attacks?”
“No, I’m just….this is so weird,” I reply, a humorless chuckle escaping my lips, as I clutch the sides of the couch tightly.
“Do you want anything? I can have them leave if you need them to.” He offers, but for some reason….I wanted to know the truth.
Before I can tell him not to worry, Valerian, Ms Vale, Seraphina, and Ace walk through the curtains, their footsteps soft as they walk closer to us.
“Sloane.” Valerian breathes out, but Lucien isn’t having it, because he rises to his feet and fixes Valerian with a harsh glare.
“Do you realize what you’ve done? She’s fucking scared, and it’s all because you didn’t fucking think before acting.”
“Believe me, this was the best way we could have gone. We spoke to a specialist, and he advised us to tread carefully because of the hypnosis you were under. If we had done anything else, she might have lost her mind, and that would mean we’d lose her forever.” Valerian says through clenched teeth, staring at Lucien with hate-filled eyes.
Lucien doesn’t back down, though; he stares him down too with the same expression.
“Wait….I want to know everything. You said Uncle Reginald….my dad…..he’s the one responsible for the fire? How can that be possible He’s been the best father I could have ever asked for.” He winces at that, and I instantly regret the way I said it. “No offense….but he saved me from my mother, the crack head who made my childhood miserable by leaving me on an abandoned bus stop at night so she could get a heroin and cocaine fix. I’m sorry, but I don’t know how you expect me to just believe you all of a sudden.”
“There was no such thing as a bus stop. The woman responsible for putting you under that hypnosis was arrested a few years ago as part of our plan to ensure this would go perfectly. Apparently, she placed that scenario in your mind and your subconscious, so you would always think that you were at that bus stop, even though it doesn’t exist. We have a recording of her on my burner phone; all you have to do is ask to watch it.”
Ace interjects from where he stands beside Serpahina, who still hasn’t looked away from the spot behind the curtains.
“Yes, honey.” Ms Vale whispers and walks over to me with gentle, slow steps until she’s seated in front of me. “I swear on my life, this was not done to pretend or confuse you. If you like….you can call Reginald…..have him confess everything himself. He’s been rallying behind the members of the board, as well as some of the major shareholders, to see if he can get you to sign everything over to him without you even knowing it, since you’ll be twenty in a few months. He hasn’t been successful, which is exactly why he hasn’t been back from Australia.”
“No, he’s in London.”
“That’s what he wanted you to think. The bastard’s been in between Australia and Colombia all this time, seeking a way to get everything our ancestors have worked for, what rightfully belonged to just you at first, but now to you and your siblings. If you don’t believe us after the call, we can go to the hospital of your choosing and get a DNA test, where it will be proven that we are telling the truth.”
I pursed my lips and stared up at Lucien. I didn’t know what to fucking do.
Could it be possible that my dad…..Uncle Reginald was all that they were saying about him? Could the man who tucked me to sleep whenever I was scared of monsters under my bed or inside my closet be responsible, or hell, even capable of arson? That too, a deliberate one, and murder?
Would he really leave me in such torment over the woman I have called my mother for so long….and for what? To torment me… or what else could be his fucking gain in all this?
I pulled my phone from where I’d kept it backstage and unlocked it. Staring at my father’s contact, all I could feel was a mix of nervousness and the urge to get to the bottom of everything once and for all.
Clicking on the contact, I watched it ring for a few seconds, the taste of my fear palpable in my mouth as my heart pounded loudly in my ears.
On the fifth, and final ring, he finally picked up, “Hello?” His voice, for some reason, was much harder than usual.
We’d been live-streaming the whole play… could he possibly have seen everything that happened?
“Hey, Dad. Um…..I wanted to ask you a few questions.” I said, my phone on speaker.
“Why? You’re there with your real fucking family, right?” He said, his tone much harder and filled with venom. I paused for a moment, staring at the speaker in disbelief. ‘Dad-“
“Don’t fucking call me that!” He yelled through the phone, interrupting me. “You’re such fucking ungrateful. Why the hell didn’t you just stay fucking dead? If you had, this bullshit wouldn’t have happened. You want the truth, girl?” He spat, and I swallowed harshly, as tears welled in my eyes.
“You think I raised you out of some bullshit feeling of love?” He chuckled and scoffed at the same fucking time, like the fucking thought amused him so much. “You were never supposed to know. Do you think I raised you out of love? Out of some pathetic, fatherly devotion? No. You were leveraged. My ticket into everything your fool of a father thought he could deny me.
He had everything I wanted but could never get, because our foolish parents thought only brains could run the business, when I had the fucking brawn! I could have taken us to greater heights if only they had allowed us to deal in the things I wanted and stopped fucking with investments, wine, and the food section of the business. If only they had given me a fucking chance!
He had it all — the name, the damn fortune, the respect.
And me? I was the fucking shadow, the brother no one wanted. Do you know what that feels like? To be overlooked, spit on, and treated like I was nothing more than a fucking afterthought?
So I took what mattered most to him. You, after I made sure to kill that pathetic mother of yours, who only ever had eyes for him, even though I wanted her first!
Yes, and you know what?
I paid that filthy addict to play your mommy. Every bruise, every tear, every sleepless night you spent wondering why she hated you, why she always hurt you, why she never seemed to fucking like you — that was all part of my design.
I needed you broken, Sloane. Fractured. So that when I whispered into your mind, when I pulled the strings, you would bend. You would obey, like the perfect I wanted to make you out to be.
You call it torment. I call it shaping. I carved you into something I could use, something that would be perfect for me. You were mine, do you hear me?
Mine.
Not Valerian’s.
Not that blonde witch’s.
Certainly not Ravenscroft’s.
And you think he loves you? That man on stage? He left you to burn once, Sloane, and I was the one who picked up your small body and pulled you out of the fires threatening to consume you to death. He let me take you. He was too weak to stop me then, and he’s certainly too weak to stop me now.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking you belong with them. The world only ever remembers the powerful, and I made you powerful by breaking you. Without me, you’re nothing more than a lost little girl, clinging to scraps of memory and false promises.”