DANTE
I found Francis in the living room after dinner, staring at the fireplace. It was spring, but nights in Helleje were cold enough to warrant extra heat.
“It doesn’t feel good, does it?”
He startled at the sound of my voice. A scowl pinched between his brows when looked up and saw me enter. “What are you talking about?”
“Vivian.” I stopped in front of him, half-empty scotch in hand, blocking his view of the fire. “Losing her.”
My shadow spilled onto the couch, looming large and dark enough to swallow him whole.
Francis glared up at me.
He looked smaller without the bluster backing him up. Older too, with craggy lines crisscrossing his face and bags beneath his eyes.
A month ago, I’d hated him with a burning passion, so much so the mere thought of him hazed my vision with red. Now, looking at him, I just felt scorn and yes, a bit of remaining hatred too. But for the most part, my anger had cooled from molten lava into hard, unfeeling rock.
I was ready to put Francis Lau behind me and move the hell on…after we had a little chat.
“She’ll come to her senses.” He sank deeper into the couch. “She’ll never turn her back on family.”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “You’re not her family anymore.”
It’d taken every ounce of willpower to hold my tongue at dinner. This was Vivian’s trip and her time to confront her family; she didn’t need my help. But now that dinner was over and it was just me and her father, I didn’t have to hold back.
“You use your family as an excuse,” I said. “You say you want what’s best for them, but you did what you did for yourself. You wanted the status and influence. You pawned your daughters off to men they barely knew for your own ego. If you truly cared about your family, you would’ve put their happiness over your selfish desires. You didn’t.”
Things had worked out well with the Lau daughters’ arranged matches—though a question mark still hung over my relationship with Vivian—but Francis had no way of knowing how they’d turn out when he made the deals.
Crimson darkened his skin. “You know nothing about us or what I had to do to get to where I am.”
“No, I don’t, because I don’t care,” I said coldly. “I don’t give a shit about you, Francis, but I do love Vivian, so I’ll keep this short and simple for her sake.”
He opened his mouth, but I continued before he could speak.
“You say she walked away from her family when she’s the only reason you’re sitting here right now. If you weren’t her father and she didn’t still care about you despite the shit you put her through, you’d be buried beneath the fucking rubble of your company. But I’m not as nice as Vivian.”
The soft menace of my words curled through the air and settled on the surface of my scotch.
“If she wants to reconcile with you in the future, that’s up to her. But if you talk to her again the way you did at the dinner table tonight—if you hurt her in any way, if you make her shed a single tear or cause her a single fucking second of sadness, I will take everything from you. Your business, your house, your reputation. I will blacklist you so thoroughly you won’t even be able to get past the bouncer at your shitty local bar.”
My gaze burned into Francis’s as his face lost color. “Do you understand?”
My anger may have cooled, but it was still there, one wrong word away from erupting again. I was ready to put Francis in the rearview mirror where he belonged, but if he upset Vivian…
Heat scorched my gut, warmer than the fire at my back.
Francis gripped his knee. He vibrated with resentment, but without Vivian as a buffer or leverage over me, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
“Yes,” he finally ground out.
“Good.” My smile was devoid of warmth. “Remember, this time, I showed you mercy for her. Next time, I won’t be so forgiving.”
I finished my drink in one easy pull and tucked the empty glass in his hand like he was one of the servers he sneered at before walking away.
Six months ago, I would’ve burned the fucking room down with Francis in it. But tonight, I wasn’t interested in a showdown or argument.
My hatred of him had almost cost me the person I loved, and I refused to waste a single second more on him. Not when there was someone else I’d much rather spend my time with.