Alice in a Twisted Wonderland (BL 18+ Completed)

Chapter Twenty Two: Knox in Purgatory

Knox Sinclair came home at 6am, wrapping his bruised knuckles with a bandage while the handlers take the dogs to get breakfast.

Someone's car was in the driveway. My heart dreadfully drops to my stomach, but I remain emotionless to prepare—

Slap!—for that. "Why did you get the card declined, huh?! Tell me, Knox! You embarrassed me in front of my friends during dinner last night!"

I could feel blood on my tongue, but I just looked down on my mother. "I simply stopped you from spending half your monthly allowance on a single dinner. Then what, you'll ask me for more money? Then what's the use of a fixed allowance?"

"You're even talking back!" She pushed me, but wasn't strong enough to knock me down. She proceeded to slap me all over the head until I had to stop her. "You had no right to decline my card, you can't do that! You're just like your father!"

I know, so I pushed her off to the ground before she could cause further damage to my face. "Enough! Go back to your house, you have no right to leech off what father left to me!"

This isn't the first time. We've had this conversation at least monthly. I walked away just as I usually do, but behind me, I heard sobs behind me, for the first time in a while.

"My son... doesn't want anything to do with me... after what I've done for you?" She sobs. "I gave you this life... I chose a man that could give you this life! But you just throw me away like I'm nothing!"

That hit me right in the gut. It's true: I'm not a natural-born Sinclair. This woman, who used to sleep with men just so she could have a place to stay, gave birth to me and raised me in what's next to homelessness. Food stamps, welfare, charity... for the first 5 years of my life I didn't sleep in a bed.

Until, my mother got a job as a florist and regularly flirted with a wealthy billionaire who was getting some flowers for his ailing grandmother. One thing led to another, and my mother married him.

They didn't have a child, and this man refused to leave his fortune to his gold-digging relatives. Since I became his little obedient stable boy from the age of 9, he was more of a parent to me than my mother was. While she indulged in luxury and wealth, I stayed and studied the business with my mother's husband, who appreciated my company.

Soon, my mother was found to be cheating, and Father Sinclair only recently found out about her hidden history with prostitution and drugs. They divorced, she was granted alimony, and it wasn't a tough fight for Father Sinclair to claim custody of me since she didn't want to waste money taking care of me.

"For all the misfortune in my life," Father Sinclair once said in the hospital bed, holding my 13-year-old face as I fought the tears that dared form in my expressionless eyes. "... I have never expected to be given a son as great as you. An innocent child... who longs for nothing but a parent, and looked at me trying to find that. I hope... I hope..."

I cut him off, "Don't worry, Father. I wished for nothing but a Dad, and you gave it to me tenfold. I don't ask for anything else."

"You never ask me for anything, dear child," he chuckled weakly, "So let me give you one last thing."

This man gave me his fortune when he sadly died of cancer years ago; with no one by his side but me. His lawyers organized the funeral, and those who couldn't be bothered to visit him while he was alive came crying the heaviest upon his death. I'd like to think that people only love you when they need something from you. His wealth, which all was given to me.

I only needed a man to be my father; he needed someone to be there for him. Nothing is free, love isn't unconditional.

"Go home, mother," I tell the woman sitting on my floor before I walk away from her. Just like how she left me in this mansion without even an ounce of concern for my well-being. No matter; I'm taking care of Father Sinclair's company just as he took care of me. Everything is in its rightful place.