Stepbrother | ✔︎

38 | drapetomania

drapetomania [ drape•to•man•ia ]
n. the sudden urge to run away

My heart was hammering in my chest, but I managed to keep a stone-cold expression on my face. Sean was looking at me, waiting for a peep of some reaction. I knew that I had to play my cards out correctly if I wanted to make it out alive.

"What crap? If there's any crap going on here it's you. What is this place? Is there where you've been half of my life?" I asked, turning the tables. For a second, guilt flashed in his eyes before he took a step towards me.

"There's a lot more to the story, baby girl," he told me. This caused confusion to settle at my bones as I raised a brow suspiciously.

"Before I explain anything to you, I need you to tell me the truth about those Italians. I've heard that you were in an intimate relationship with the Don. I'm not a fool, Orabella, and I raised you to be a lot better than a liar," he stated angrily, turning the tables once more. My brain was spinning, trying to find ways to get out of this one.

"What else was I supposed to do, daddy? They were all threatening to kill me and I didn't know why! The only thing I could was pretend to be happy with him," I cried in the most pleading voice I could muster. Sadness dawned on his face as he believed my lie.

"Now, I might as well just go back to that place. All you've been doing is lying to me. What is all of this? Is this the reason why they had taken me in the first place?" I cried, yelling just to prove a point. Sean walked me back over to the couch where he sat me down.

I sat the bag of my tampons down on the floor as I waited for him to speak. A small smile made its way onto my face as he looked at me. He looked like the man that raised me. A man that wouldn't do so much as rape a woman in front of her son and murder so ruthlessly. How could he fake that?

"You're the only person in the world that I've ever loved. You are my little girl, and I wanted absolutely nothing but to make sure you lived the life that I've never gotten to. I'm not a good man, but I know for a fact that no one in this world can say that I'm not a good father," he told me. I was staring deep into his eyes, my acting all gone as I listened to him.

"There are things that I have done that I'm not proud of. After I had you, I stopped. One thing that I never stopped doing, though, was lying. The person who I have been lying to is you," he continued.

"I've only lied to protect you from myself. The truth is, I'm Russian-you're Russian. I was born in Moscow, Russia with no family. In Russia they do not treat orphans very well. My life wasn't easy as a child, and before I had one to take care of on my own, I always believed it was fair to make life not easy for anyone else as well. I have no excuse for my past, and I have no excuse for the mistakes I have made," he spoke sadly. I could see the pain in his eyes as he remembered everything that happened.

"The reason why the Italians took you was because of something terrible I did in the past. I hurt his mother and his father. What I did that day was mostly a blur because I was high and drunk, but sometimes I get these nightmares about it. I get nightmares about a lot of the things I did when I was blurred out. What I am trying to say is that, I lied to you, but I'm done lying. This is my mansion because I work for a huge underground drug cartel," he finished explaining. The truth seethed out of every word and I didn't know how exactly to feel.

Here my father was telling me the truth about everything, but there was also the fact that he did terrible things. My mind was too conflicted as I continued to look into his eyes. There needed to be something to make all of this easier to do.

"One of your men shot the cashier at the store I was at. Why did he do that when the man did absolutely nothing?" I questioned. My father turned away, looking at something on the other side of him. It was something that he did a lot when he would lie.