A Treacherous King- Dark Mafia Romance

twenty

Maeve

I feel like my heart is trapped beneath a frozen surface. It's beating wildly out of my chest, a high pitched white noise sounding in my ears.

"What?" My voice sounds so far away.

"It's true." Huxston looks like his two worlds have just collided and imploded in a matter of seconds.

My eyes find Caine's. He's still standing in front of me, his expression unreadable. "Why you didn't tell me?" I whisper to him. He just stares back at me, blanked face.

"You deserved to hear it from him." Is all he says, before turning away.

"Lenora and I grew up together." Huxston explains. "She and I were on and off in high school. We argued a lot, mostly about the different visions we had for our futures. She wanted to stay there in that town and raise a family. I wanted to move to the city and start a business. When we graduated from high school, I left. I didn't even know you existed until you showed up at my doorstep." Huxston words splash me like cold water.

He treated me like an employee, like trash most of the time even though I was his daughter. Was he ashamed of me? Had he just felt obligated to help me out because we shared the same DNA?

It makes sense, but it didn't at the same time. Why wouldn't my mother tell me about him? Why would she wait until she was dying to write me that note to find Huxston? It made me angry. Angry at her for keeping me from knowing my own father. Things could have been so different for me. If Huxston would have known about me, he might have wanted to raise me instead of my grandma. I could have been spared the shit show that was my grandma's life.

But how could I be angry at Huxston? How could I blame him when he didn't even know I existed? He could have just pretended like he didn't know my mother, he could have written me off as crazy.

Instead, he'd hired me as his personal assistant. I didn't even go through an interview, he just moved me into my own personal office. He paid me well, gave me bonuses all the time. I realize now that maybe that was his way of showing me that he cared. That he was trying to be there for me in his own way. And maybe he didn't want to tell me the truth because he was afraid that I would ruin the life he had worked so hard to build. I couldn't blame him for that.

I feel so lost. The world I knew crumbling down around me, burying me with its rubble. I look at Caine. He's leaned against the wall again in a causal stance, flashing that cursed blade around. I suddenly feel like clawing his eyes out. I want to make him suffer for allowing me to find out about my father like this.

"I hate you." I say through clenched teeth. Caine looks up surprised, eyes narrowing a fraction.

"There, I told her! So just let us go!" The softness that had been in Huxston's voice when he spoke to me is replaced with vexation towards Caine.

"While this family reunion was nothing short of entertaining, I think it's time for it to come to a bloody end." Caine strides over to Huxston, his blade extended.

"He thinks you killed his mother!" I scream.

"What?" Huxston sounds bewildered.

"He thinks you killed her so he's going to kill both of us for it." Tears are rolling down my eyes now in anger.

"Marina?" Huxston breathes. Caine stops, his back going ridged. "No! No, you're wrong, it was Ivan that killed her." The world seems to stop spinning. The room going eerily quiet. Caine's face is twisted into something unrecognizable.