Chapter 25
Anna
“Don’t you dare,” my dad warned when I rushed toward Luke’s lifeless body. My dad had hit him so hard I was worried for his life, but from where I stood I could see his chest rising and falling with his breathing. He wasn’t dead, thank God.
“What do you think you’re doing!” I shouted, losing control. My dad had come here to torment me. I had been afraid he would hurt Luke, and it was exactly what he had done. At least he hadn’t killed him, which was what I had thought he would do; it was what I had thought he’d done.
“You brought this on yourself, Anna,” my dad said. He had come into the cabin, and his presence was unwelcome. I hated that he was in the space I had come to call home over the past while, the space where I had felt safe.
“Please, don’t do this, Dad,” I cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my voice had gone hoarse. I sniveled and pleaded but my dad’s expression was like stone, and he would have nothing of it. Where had the times gone when he buckled when I cried and felt bad about what he was doing to me? He didn’t seem to care now, at all.
I glanced at Luke who was still on the floor, body twisted, eyes closed. His eyes were starting to swell up, blood pouring from his temple.
“I ran away because you do this to me. Because you decide who I should be, and you don’t care how I feel.”
“I’m doing what’s best for you,” he said.
“No, you’re doing what’s best for you.”
He glared at me. “You’re a spoiled brat. Did you think acting out like this, running away and having a little temper tantrum, was going to change my mind?”
I cried harder. “I wish you weren’t my dad,” I said. “I wish I could get away from you. I’ve always hated what you do, hated the life you built. And you won’t even let me leave it behind. You want to trap me in it forever.”
My dad looked almost bored with the conversation. I was struggling to breathe, my throat was sore from crying so much, and my head ached.
“This is what we do, Anna,” he said. “We’re family. We do for family. We stick together.”
“If this is your definition of loyalty, no wonder your men are so fucked up.” I sneered. “This is not ‘doing for family.’ This is wrong.”’
My dad sighed.
“You don’t care about me,” I carried on. “The only thing you’ve ever cared about was your reputation, what your men think of you. You’d rather hurt people than be compassionate.”
My dad rolled his eyes. “Enough with this shit,” he said. “You know what we stand for. You grew up with us. You know I care about you. I’m trying to give you a good life.”
I shook my head. “You may think you stand for loyalty and honor and all those big words, but you don’t understand what they mean anymore.” I hiccupped, sobs racking my body. “All you do now is hurt people and call it a code. And if you really did care about me, you wouldn’t marry me off to a pig.”
My dad narrowed his eyes at me. “Sam is my right-hand man. It’s an honor.”
“An honor for him to marry the big boss’s daughter, not an honor to me. I don’t care about the son of a bitch.”
My dad lifted his hand like he was going to give me a backhand. The rage on his face was intense. Once upon a time, I would have cowered away. I had learned very early on what that hand felt like, and I had done everything in my power for him never to hit me like that again. Now, I was over trying to please him. All it had done was bring me misery.
“Go on,” I said, jutting my chin out and standing my ground. I wasn’t crying anymore. I had finally managed to swallow my tears. This was where I put my foot down, where I stopped bowing down to my father. “Hit me,” I said. “What are you waiting for? Hit your pregnant daughter. Then your reputation will be complete.”
My dad lowered his hand slowly. I couldn’t tell the expression on his face, something between anger and frustration.
“You better watch your mouth,” he threatened.
“Or what?” I asked. “You’ve already hurt me in ways you can’t even begin to understand.”
We faced off to each other, my dad close to the door and me close to where Luke was lying on the floor. This wasn’t just about family and doing my dad’s bidding. This was a battle of wills, a fight for my freedom.
Luke groaned at my feet, and I was distracted. His eyes were still closed. I kneeled by him, checking the wound on his temple. The blood had stopped flowing but he would need medical attention. Maybe not stitches but he would have a concussion.
“Look at him,” my dad sneered. “You’ll care about a man who can’t even stand against me, but you won’t come home to a life with men who stand for what they believe in.”
“All your men believe in is power and blood and doing whatever it takes to get it. I won’t live like that. I won’t be a part of it. I hate having to hide who I am.”
“You’re a Santora. You should be proud of you who are.” My dad shook his head.
“You’re coming with me,” my dad finally said. “Sam will raise the child. He’s a good man, Anna. You don’t see it because you’re so angry, but Sam will take care of you. He’ll take you back.”
“I don’t want him to take me back!” I shouted. “I don’t want anything to do with him and the life he represents. He’s not capable of caring for me any more than you are.”
My dad was angry again, his dark eyes fiery, his mouth twisted into a snarl.
“So what, you want to stay here with him?” He pointed at Luke. “Live in this godforsaken cabin with a man who doesn’t know the meaning of loyalty, who doesn’t have the balls to finish what he’s started? He’s weak, Anna. I should never have taken him in, relied on him. He was a mistake.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know him at all. You don’t know me. You don’t take the time to know anyone who works for you or lives with you.”
“You’re not staying here,” my dad said again.
“I am,” I answered. I would fight for this for the rest of my life. “I love him, Dad.”
“Anna?” Luke said, opening his eyes.
“Luke,” I said and turned my attention to him. “God, you’re all right.”
“You love me?” he asked.
I nodded. I hadn’t told him how I felt about him, but I had realized I loved him. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to have this baby with him.
Luke blinked at me. I wanted him to tell me he loved me too. I wanted him to fight for me. But he didn’t say anything. I frowned.
“Luke,” I started to say, but my dad stomped across the cabin toward me, and grabbed my wrist in an iron grip. He dragged me away and I nearly lost my feet, stumbling across the floor as my dad physically forced me to leave.
“No!” I screamed, kicking and clawing to get out of his grip. My dad marched on as if he didn’t even feel my attempts to escape his grip. “Let me go!” I screamed. I looked over my shoulder at Luke who scrambled to get to his feet, lost his balance again and tumbled to the floor. My dad dragged me through the door, and I grabbed his arm and bit him.
“Fuck!” my dad shouted and let me go. He looked like he wanted to say a lot of other things, but he bit his tongue. “Why are you always so difficult?”
“Why are you trying to force me to be someone other than I am?” I countered. “I was never good enough for you. Why is that?”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” my dad said.
“Is it because I’m not a man? Because you had a daughter instead of a son? I guess Sam is the perfect replacement then, isn’t he?”
“Anna,” my dad warned, but I was on a roll. I was angry, and everything I had bottled up for years came streaming out of my mouth, now.
“Or is it because I look too much like her? It’s hard to look at the person you blame for your wife’s death, to see her eyes in mine, isn’t it?”
My dad looked for a moment like he was going to crumble. My mom had died soon after childbirth because of complications. We had never spoken about it because my dad had hurt too much. But I knew he blamed me. I knew he hated me because he had lost her. And I was going to push that button until my dad broke and gave me what I wanted.
“Maybe it’s because I’m not willing to accept this shitty life you’re offering me when Mom did. She had been happy with it, accepting who you were, and now you’re upset that I’m not the same.”
“Anna!” my dad shouted to get me to stop, but I was going to keep at it. The dam wall had broken, and the pent-up anger came at my dad like a wave of fury.
“Well, I will never be like her. No amount of grooming and training and forcing me to marry the wrong man is going to change that, and I won’t ever stop trying to get away from you!”
My voice danced through the trees around the cabin, and when I’d said my piece, the silence was almost overpowering. The snow all around us was so white it hurt my eyes, and my dad’s face was wrought with anger.
“You have twenty-four hours,” my dad said. “You can take that time, spend it with that useless piece of shit inside. Say your goodbyes. When your time is up, I’m coming for you, and I expect you to come with me without a fight.”
His voice was low, his quiet anger so much worse than his loud anger.
“If you try to run again, I will find you, and I will kill him. If you fight me again, I will kill him. If you do anything other than exactly what I ask, if he follows you or does anything to jeopardize my plans, I will kill him. Do you understand?”
“You can’t do this to me,” I said, but my voice was thin, now. My dad had reached the end of this line. He was angrier than I had ever seen him.
“Twenty-four hours, Anna. Don’t ever say I don’t do anything for you.”
He turned around, giving me his back like I wasn’t a threat, and walked to the SUV. I watched him open the door and climb in, turning around in the small clearing among the trees before he drove away. I stood in the cold without my coat, barely registering that I was shivering. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel had turned out to be nothing more than a big, black hole.