Chapter 38: In which she learns the whole story.
"Hello, daughter."
Vincent grip tightened on my hand as soon as I dropped my mask. My heart stopped beating as I stared wide eyed at the hazel eyes that reflected mine, so similar yet so cold.
"Didn't think I'd find out you were here tonight?" He pressed down harder on my arm, making me yelp. But the music prevented other people from hearing me. "I'm your father, darling. I know everything."
"H-how?" I gasped out as he kept on backing me to a corner. His hands kept getting tighter around my wrist. Any more pressure and he will leave bruises.
"Remember when Hugh Grant visited Nathan Synclair's office all of a sudden?" He asked. My eyes widened. Hugh works for him? "Look there."
I followed his gaze and found Huge standing with another man a bit older than him, by their familiar features, I could tell it was his father.
"You thought you'd get away with backstabbing me that easily?" Now his nails dug into my hand breaking skin, making a trickle of blood run down my arm. I couldn't suppress my cry of pain.
"ENOUGH!" And I was being snatched away from his grasp and into Nathan's arms.
The music stopped playing at that exact moment. The guests who were nearer having heard a sufficient amount of our conversation, now began to pass it on to the others. Whispers filled the Hall making a hushed sound as the noise echoed.
"Now look what you've done! You've upset my guests." Vincent gritted out.
"And I'm sure they'll be equally upset when they find out that the girl you just tortured, is your own daughter." The voice came from the entrance. “If you want to deny it, go ahead. But I think this DNA test will suffice. And look, you even have her blood on your hands." He held up a white envelope.
"Samuel!" I breathed a sigh of relief as Vincent looked at his hands to check for blood. Found it, along with fifteen other onlookers.
"Shit! Savannah you're bleeding." Nate took my right hand in his and bandaged it up temporarily with his handkerchief.
But by now the whispers around the room had gotten louder. People trying to digest the fact that Vincent McKenna has a biological daughter. And with Samuel bringing the DNA reports, Vincent couldn't deny anything.
Suddenly, the fire alarm went off and everyone started panicking and leaving the room in a rush. Nate pulled me aside to save me from being trampled and the next few minutes passed by in utter chaos. We didn’t know if Sam was alright but I was hoping he was. I had no doubt that Victor had made a run already and it must have been one of his lackeys who pressed the alarm button to save him.
Twenty whole minutes of waiting until everyone had left the hall and then Nate, Samuel and I met at the centre of the empty room.
“Shit!” Samuel clutched his hair. “He fled! Bloody bastard!”
“I’m not a coward to abandon ship, son.” Victor came out from behind the Christmas tree then, followed by Hugh and his father. “Especially when you were the one planning on betraying me.”
We all turned to face him, confused and cornered. But since he knew about me, so there was no wonder he knew what Sam was trying to do.
“Do you really think that I wouldn’t notice you selling my shares to Synclair Inc.? Did you really think my men, who had worked with me for decades will simply just hand over everything to you and let you ruin my hard earned business? Just like that?” Victor smirked. “You thought you were playing me, but I had been playing you all along, children.”
"Be quite!" Now he was outraged. "How could you be such a hypocrite? Your business? You have nothing but 21% of shares! The company and everything you claim you made belonged to our grandparents! You used my mother to fulfill the condition in your inheritance and then tossed her aside! You are guilty!"
"Guilty? Guilty of what?" He spat out.
"Of killing out mother."
The room stood still for a few seconds and then....laughter. Hysterical. Maniacal. Vincent's laughter.
I locked eyes with Samuel, his hands were bunched into fists. He wanted to hurt him...bad, but doing so wasn’t going to solve anything. In fact, I'm very sure Vincent was trying to anger Samuel on purpose to get a reaction out of him.
"You guys...!" Vincent bent over, clutching his stomach as he tried to control his laughter. I dug my nails into my palms to stop myself from slapping him, Nathan's arms went around my waist at the same time.
"Oh! You guys crack me up." He stood up and wiped a tear from his eyes. "Kill your mother did I? Yes, maybe you're right....but that's not such a big deal is it? After all, servants die all the time."
"What! How dare you call our mother a-"
"Because that's exactly what she was Samuel!" All traces of maniacal humor was wiped off his face. "She was a servant at my house, a worthless, penniless whore!"
"Vincent!" The next thing I knew, Vincent was lying on the floor with blood running down from his busted lip and Samuel was being held back by Nathan.
"What is the meaning of this! Get out of this-"
"This is among family, stay out of it!" It was Nathan who spoke to Hugh and his father, who'd rushed over as soon as Vincent hit the floor.
"Truth hurts doesn't it?" Another laugh as Vincent rose from the floor. "But the truth remains the same. I needed to produce a male heir in order to access all my property and your mother needed money to operate on her father. So I made a contract, give me a son and I'll give you one million. Perfect for both of us. And she did prove useful! Look at you-" He pointed towards Samuel, "-here, enjoying all the riches, all the benefits of the world! What more could a man ask for? Now, if only you were an only child, it would’ve solved all my problems. But you had a useless twin sister."
"VINCENT!"
"Why did you let her die?" I cut through Samuel's scream. “You could’ve saved her. I called you thousands of time! You had the money and we wanted nothing more to do with you! Then why didn’t you save her?”
Vincent's smile was the worst kind of wicked. "You actually think I would want to save a woman who was trying to ruin my reputation? She had found out about my marriage so she wanted to contact my wife and tell the press together! The audacity of that bitch! I had to take Samuel away from her immediately. Save her? Ha! I’m the one who let her die! She was diagnosed with cancer during childbirth. All I did, was hid the reports. Bitch had stamina, though. Managed to survive ten whole years after that."
I didn't know when my legs gave out from under me. All I knew was that, one second I was standing and then I was on the floor with Samuel and Nathan on either side while Vincent laughed in insane hysteria.
"Oh! Want to know more? I was the one who pushed my wife off the staircase when she refused to let my son enter the house. Too bad she didn't die, now I just have to spend thousands on life support every month to keep her alive or risk getting discovered by the press."
I wanted to throw up. I could feel the bile rising in my throat, could feel my hands and feet go numb. He'd killed my mother! Purposely hid her reports so she'd die a slow and painful death. He'd also tried to kill his wife when she'd confronted him about cheating on her! And even now, all he could do was laugh at the disaster he'd caused. How low can a person get?
"There is nothing money can't buy you see!” He pointed to the empty room. “A little fire alarm and everyone just disappeared into thin air. Your plan to get witnesses was only worthy of making me laugh. There’s no witness, no evidence and sadly, no more plans. I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life rotting in prison with charges you can’t even fathom! I salute your adorable attempt at playing games with me. But I’m your father, I’ve been playing these games for a lot longer than you can imagine."
"Unfortunately, Mr. McKenna, you won't be playing games for a long time now."
Everyone turned towards the voice, only a few metres away from us. A man stood in a lawyer's uniform, a file tucked in his arm. A woman stood beside him in a knee length red and black vintage dress and mask, her hair styled perfectly in a French knot.
"Who the fuck let you in?" Vincent spat at him.
"Oh! That would be me...daddy," the woman took a step forward and placed a hand on her mask. "Oh, and before I forget…you already signed the rights to your entire property to Savannah, Samuel..." the mask hit the floor, revealing familiar green eyes. "And me."
Beside me, Nate sucked in a breath as Sam helped me up. But I, smiled at her and got off the floor as she came over and gave me a hug before stepping to one side and admiring Vincent's color drained face.
Too bad his shock turned to outrage in a matter of seconds as he yelled out.
"Nikkita?"