With Love

Chapter Thirty-Nine

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I slammed the car door shut as we reached the manor. The front double doors opened and Harvey rushed down the steps, taking in our disheveled appearances. He reached me first, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Breathing heavily, I pushed Harvey's hands off me and pointed back to the car. "Finn, help Finn," I ordered, stomping up the steps in stiletto boots.

Harvey yelled back in confusion, "Finn?"

"Anybody else's ears ringing?" Elijah asked loudly from behind me. "I can't remember the last time I burst an eardrum but I feel like it felt like this—whoa Finn, your one ear is bleeding..." his voice trailed off as I walked through the manor, heels clicking over the marble floor.

Giovanni stepped around a corner and caught sight of me. As he turned back around I called out. "Where the fuck is he?"

Just then, my father appeared from the dining room, my mother following dutifully. She held his hand in hers, her other hand held his bicep.

"Was this you?" I shouted, pointing behind me to outside where everyone was still standing around the car.

Harvey lifted Finn's head to the side as he dabbed at the blood on the side of his face. Finn kept trying to brush it off, speaking too loud but Harvey only said something back while shaking his head and Finn folded, letting him clean his face.

My father cocked an eyebrow. "Was what me? I don't have all day, Anastasia," he added, giving me less than two seconds to respond.

My hands formed fists at my side. "Did you," I began, speaking slow and loud enough for him to hear each accusation in my tone, "Did you send the people in that SUV to kill us?" I demanded.

A gasp echoed through the silence and my mother touched her fingers to her lips. "Anastasia, your father would never do something like that, how dare you—?"

I ignored her bullshit and faced him. "Answer me," I said, interrupting her defense of Satan himself.

He angled his head, giving me a condescending look. "I don't have time for your accusations—."

"Then make time because you're not taking another fucking step until you tell me the truth," I bulldozed over his own shitty defense. "Is this because of Corinne? Because I took away your little informant, you got greedy?" My mother's eyes darted to him. "Regretted giving your daughter the power and wanted it back for yourself, is that it?" I asked with an exaggerated pout, letting my emotions block out the fear of taunting a man like this. "You've already tried to knock one of your kids out of the game, why not try to seal that deal and add a bonus one, huh?" I yelled. I threw the gun I used earlier at his feet, my mother shrieked backward. "Here's your gun back, fat load of help it did with minimal bullets by the way."

"Anastasia Athena Love," my mother's voice boomed, causing me to clamp my lips shut. I stood rigid in my spot. "Your father would never do anything to harm this family, whether or not you believe it," she accused her frown a replica of mine. She brushed her curls back. "You have done nothing but paint us out as villains because you never got your way and now you're accusing my husband of attempted murder?"

My father stepped forward. "Ariadne," he murmured my mother's name, running a hand over her arms.

She ignored him and stuck her head to the side to look around his body. "Do you think he killed your uncle too then since he's trying to kill all of us?" She snapped. A choked gasp came from behind them and I saw Uncle George, his eyes shut in anguish. A stab of pain pierced my chest at the heartbroken look on his face. "Your father sacrificed everything for this family."