Page 3 of Cruel Deception
After Mom disappeared, Dad dumped me here like trash. Said girls were distractions. Said I was too loud. Too much. Not worth the trouble.
He loved Vincent—my younger brother. Called him the heir, the pride, the future. I was just a mistake that talked back too much.
So I learned to survive.
At sixteen, I started working wherever I could—waitressing, cleaning, even underground clubs. The money was barely enough. So I started lifting things. Just little things. A hundred here, two hundred there. A bottle of perfume. A wallet. A pair of shoes I’d sell online.
Cute crime. That’s what I called it.
Not enough to make headlines. Just enough to survive.
I sat down on my old, torn armchair, legs aching. The file stared at me like it held God’s secrets. I reached for it—
Bang. Bang. Bang.
My blood turned to ice.
Someone was at the door.
No—pounding at it.
I scrambled to my feet, shoving the file under the loose floorboard beneath the rug. My mind raced. Could it be the man from the club? The one I kissed? The one I robbed?
God, that kind of man didn’t knock to talk. He looked like he snapped necks for a living.
Another bang. The door shuddered.
My breath caught. My door wasn’t strong. A couple more hits and—
Crash.
It burst open.
My heart dropped.
But it wasn’t the biker. It wasn’t the mafia men either.
It was worse.
Him.
My father stepped into the room like he owned it. Like he still owned everything. He looked older now—lines cut deeper into his cold, chiseled face—but the arrogance was the same. That aura. That invisible crown he wore like a curse.
I hadn’t seen him since I was ten.
And now, here he was, standing in my rotting living room like it disgusted him.
He took one look around and sneered. “Show some respect, Charlotte.”
My fists clenched.
I sat across from him, forcing calm through my bones. “I don’t show respect to men who break into my house.”
He scoffed, settling into the sagging armchair like it offended him to sit in something so poor. “This shack? It’s just one of my properties. I could sell it tomorrow, and you’d be out on the street.”
Of course he would say that. Of course he could. And yet he let his own father die here, working himself to the bone to feed a child he didn’t ask for.
Disgust boiled in my throat. I hate the smug tilt of his mouth, the way he looks at me like I’m nothing. My blood boils.
