Page 67 of Oath of Blood and Joy

Panic pricked at the edges of my composure. Dad should’ve been here. He always was when things went sideways. WhenI scraped my knee as a kid, when Steve got in trouble, when Mom?—

No.

Dad didn’t flinch. He didn’t let fear cloud his judgment. He found the facts, followed the evidence, and cut through the bullshit.

He’d walk in here, demand a blood test, or whip out some ironclad proof that I was his daughter. Case closed.

He could fix this. He had to.

But he wasn’t here.

And that scared me more than anything.

No one answered me.

Enzo’s gaze locked with mine, but his expression gave nothing away. Still, the way his fingers squeezed mine said enough. A silent message I wasn’t ready to hear.

I cleared my throat, pushing down the knot in my chest. “I thought Dad would be here. Is he still possessed?” I turned to Serenity, clinging to a thin thread of hope. “Serenity, did you heal him?”

The tension in the room shifted as attention moved from my nature to my father’s fate, but I could feel Angelo’s eyes still watching me, assessing me like a potential threat his family might need to neutralize.

Serenity stepped toward me, her expression shattered, eyes rimmed with red. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I tried. I tried, but the demon... it had destroyed him.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I wasn’t strong enough.”

Something inside me snapped. Shadows rippled and writhed across the room, mirroring the storm rising in my chest. My breath hitched, raw and shallow. “Then where is he?”

Gianna moved away from Dimitri, her face pale and stricken as she closed the distance between us. “There was nothing wecould do,” she said softly, haunted. “I was there. That thing… it wasn’t your father anymore.”

Something cold and terrible twisted in my chest. I turned to Enzo.

His eyes met mine, and for a moment, he didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stared—until I saw it. The sorrow in his gaze. The guilt.

“Enzo.” His name felt like a lifeline as I searched his face, desperate for an answer. “Is he… is he alive?”

Enzo’s silence cut deeper than any blade.

“No,” he finally murmured. Just one word. Fragile. Final.

A sound tore from my throat—something between a scream and a sob—as my knees buckled. The shadows erupted around me, lashing against the walls like wounded beasts. Enzo caught me before I hit the ground, folding me into his arms. I clung to him, fingers twisting into his shirt like I could anchor myself to something real.

He held me tightly, his voice murmuring something I couldn’t hear over the sound of my grief.

My father—the man who’d once beaten me so savagely under Maximo’s influence—was gone. But I’d known, deep down, even then… that wasn’t him. That wasn’t Louis DuPont.

Louis was the man who took me to father-daughter night at my elementary school, who whispered bedtime stories in the dark when nightmares kept me awake. He was the one who stood between me and the monsters—until he became one.

And now he was gone. Truly gone.

And I would never hear his voice again. But grief wasn’t the only emotion burning through me.

Someone had taken him from me.

Someone was responsible.

Someone would pay.

I tore myself from Enzo’s arms, rage boiling up from somewhere deep and dark. “How did he die? Did Maximo kill him?”

Serenity moved toward me, her eyes swimming with regret. Her hand clasped my arm gently, but the moment her skin touched mine, something inside me snapped.

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