How to Kill a Man in Thirty Seconds

Chapter 67: Betrayal

Night had fallen when I sat before my father's grave.

My head was a mess, all the memories of my childhood rushing back like a flash flood, leaving me with the sudden feeling that I couldn't breathe.

LIAR.

FAKE.

The heartless words rang in my head and try as I might, I could not stop them. The sharp stab of betrayal was taking me out, piece by piece, hurt and disappointment filling my every cell.

I remembered now.

All the sudden business trips he would take on the weekends.

Caleb Roman's words came rushing back to me.

Missing money. Huge amounts of cash withdrawn at once from the company accounts and never returned, by Anthony himself.

Val figured he was involved in something he shouldn't have been in. She started to investigate, little Charley, to catch him red handed, to make him stop. And so he fired her. He fired her so that no one would ever find out.

My heart clenched as Adrian's words flooded my mind, realization hitting me like a fifty tonne truck.

My mother started experiencing pain... She tried everything. But failed.

She managed to get the divorce she wanted, and managed to get custody of me, almost magically.

My father had paid for the cancer therapy. The divorce case, the lawsuit.

That was the missing money Valeria had discovered. The dirty little secret she had been fired over.

It felt like my heart had shattered into a thousand pieces, each tiny piece stabbing at me in fury. My face fell into my hands and the tears returned with vengeance.

I wanted to forget.

I wanted it over.

He had been my strength, even after his death. My strength through every shitty moment life threw my way, even through Oliver's passing.

And now he was a fraud.

Shock overpowered my every cell, confusion mingling with it.

"How could you?!" I was screaming before I knew it, clutching my hair, yanking on it with everything I had because I didn't know what else to do, "Mum trusted you! She gave up on everything for you! She gave up on her fucking life to bear your child! How could you?! And why his mother?" I choked on a sob, the air leaving me, "Why her?"

The stone stared back at me in silence.

And when the anger had died down, I fell to the floor.

And wished, with everything I had, that my father was here to explain things.

To calm me down like he always would. To set the world upright again.

The harsh winds blew that night. It sent shivers down my spine that left me praying for warmth.

But I couldn't return home. I couldn't look into my mother's face knowing what I did. The weeks, months, years she's spent, mourning his loss. The conviction with which she had stood up for him, placed her unwavering faith in him, even through all the harrowing court cases.

His memory had been her strength.

My trembling cheek pressed against my father's stone as I lay on the floor, cold mud seeping through my clothes to cover my body.