Shattered (The Protectors 11)

I might not have been as strong as he would have liked me to have been before doing this, but I needed it to be now. I’d told Eli not to let my father have so much power over him, but I’d been a hypocrite. The proof had been in my behavior before and after the hearing.

I’d had a lot of time to think as we’d made the trip to Magnus and Dante’s house, and interacting with Aleks and Willa had cemented the deal for me. I didn’t need to know Aleks’s entire story to know how he must have suffered. And yet he battled on every day to build a life for himself. He’d spent more years being brutalized than not, and he was still here. And Willa… Willa just changed the game entirely. I’d spent the last four days not being there for her because of my father and his manipulations.

That just wasn’t acceptable to me on any level. It was like some of his ugliness was reaching through me and down to her.

No, it had to be today, now.

I forced myself to sit still and not reach for my right arm like I wanted as I waited. When the door on the opposite side of the room opened, I felt my mouth go dry and a bitter chill ran through my body, then I suddenly went hot all over. The need to run was great, but instead, I looked over at the guard. I wasn’t sure, but I thought he sent me a little nod, like he wanted to make sure I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

But I was probably overthinking.

I forced my eyes back to my father. Amazingly, he looked very different from when I’d seen him at the hearing. I knew it wasn’t possible for him to have suddenly aged dramatically overnight, so I had to assume I’d been seeing him through a child’s eyes at the hearing.

Now all I saw was an old, frail man. He’d clearly lost a considerable amount of weight and his skin was pale. He wasn’t wearing any cuffs on his wrists or feet, but he still moved slow for someone his age. It was hard to see any of the man who’d so often held me down as he’d brutalized me.

But the cruelty was still there in his eyes, which latched on to me the moment he entered the room and held on for the slow walk to me.

For once, though, I didn’t feel the urge to look away.

He settled in the chair across from me and I was supremely glad the table was wide enough that he couldn’t inadvertently touch my legs beneath it. He’d have to actually extend his leg to make contact with me and with the guards watching, I doubted he’d be that brazen.

My father’s face softened as he took me in, but it wasn’t real. His eyes were dark and cold.

“My sweet—”

“Shut up,” I bit out.

I was satisfied to see his eyes go wide for a moment. When he made a move to touch my hand where it was resting on the table, I said, “You sure you want to do that?”

At the same time, the guard called out, “No contact!”

My father’s brittle eyes held mine for a moment before he looked at the guard who’d escorted me into the room. “Sorry, Officer Phelps. I’ve just really missed my boy, here.”

Despite the silky smoothness of my father’s words, Officer Phelps didn’t relax his stance even a little. When the big man’s eyes met mine, I saw that thing again.

That silent message that gave me this weird boost.

Like the man knew what I was trying to do.

I turned my attention back to my father.

“Caleb,” he began, but I cut him off.

“They gave me fifteen minutes with you, but I only need two… if even that.”

My father’s mouth tightened a bit, but he remained silent.

“I keep asking myself how my father could do the things he did to me and still claim to love me.”

“Caleb, son, I didn’t do anything—”

“But earlier today when I was holding the little girl who will someday call me her father, I realized that you stopped being that to me the moment you laid eyes on me and no longer saw your son. Because fathers don’t do that shit to their kids. Period. Monsters do, not fathers. So I don’t know the exact moment you stopped being my father and became that monster, but I know the exact moment I stopped being your son. It was thirty seconds ago when you walked through that door and I felt absolutely nothing for you. Not fear, not love, not regret, not even hatred. I came here for some kind of closure, but looking at you now, I understand that to need closure gives you too much credit. It means you still have some kind of hold on me.”