MASSILO P.O.V
FLASHBACK
I was sprawled on the living room floor,sketching in my worn notebook beside Michelle.The afternoon light filtered in softly,wrapping us in a golden glow,laughter bubbling between us as we shared dreams and secrets.I barely noticed the world outside,lost in the strokes of my pencil until a sudden scream shattered our tranquility.
It was my mother's best friend,who is currently the wife of my dad,Mrs Mason.
Her voice was sharp and laced with panic.My heart plummeted,confusion replaced joy.The sound echoed in my ears,foreboding and instinct kicked in.I bolted upright,each beat of my heart quickening as I raced to the stairs.
Peering through the bannister,dread coiled around my stomach.Below,chaos unfurled before my eyes.
Dad stood in the living room,his face was twisted in anger,bristling like a storm about to erupt.Mrs Mason leaned into him,her finger jabbing forcefully at his chest,words spilling from her mouth like venom.
"She's just useless! Why don't you divorce her and stay with me?" Mrs Mason spat with her voice dripping with disdain.
My dad,grasping at control,shoved her away. "You gotta go! We'll do this another time!" His voice was low but tense,like a pulled bowstring ready to snap as if he doesn't want to pull the truth deeper which was already turning into a physical confrontation.
Tears streamed down my mother's face as she stood in the doorway,fragile and shattered,her usually warm presence dimmed by despair.
"I have cancer" She cried,her voice breaking under the strain of her heartache. "I need you.I can't fight this alone.Please,don't do this"
But Mrs Mason snorted,her disdain evident. "Why don't you just die?" She shot back,the words slicing through the air like a knife.
An eruption of anger boiled within Dad. "You're a pain in the ass! Do you have any idea how much I've spent on you? How much I've sacrificed?" He thundered,his face contorted in rage.In that moment,I felt the world tilt,a nightmare unravelling before my eyes.
"Scum like you wouldn't know sacrifice if it hit you!" My mother's voice rose,breaking through the din,her spirit flaring defiantly even as her body trembled. "You brought this on! You're the one cheating on me,sleeping with Miss Agnes and this asshole who claimed to be my so-called bestie"
The air thickened with tension,heavy enough to choke a child's dreams.Dad's hand shot out like a viper.I gasped when i heard the slap on mom's cheek,my heart tore as I witnessed the violence unfold.The very symbols of safety I had known shattered in an instant.
"Shut up!" He roared,livid.The animosity radiating off him was palpable,transforming our haven into a battleground.
I stood frozen,paralyzed by fear and horror,the reality of my world morphing into something grotesque.My mother fell to her knees,tears streaming down her face as she pleaded for mercy,her voice was like a whisper of what once was. "Please…please don't do this" She begged,broken and trembling,yet refusing to yield entirely.
But behind her,Mrs Mason smirked,adding fuel to the fire,spewing venomous words laced with mockery and disdain. "Look at you,begging like a dog.You know you're worthless to him now"
I felt my heart fracture.Dad's face twisted,consumed by rage and regret as he turned on her,his fury eclipsing any sense of compassion. "You think I haven't done enough? I gave everything to save you!" He yelled,fists clenching as he advanced toward her.
In that moment,I was an unwilling witness to the degradation of love into something monstrous.The man I had revered was now a figure of terror and my mother who was once my greatest warrior,was reduced to a shadow of her former self.As he lashed out at her,delivering a sickening slap on her face,the world around me spun away,leaving only the horrific tableau of desperation and despair.
Amidst their chaos,I was yanked backward by a maid,her grip was firm and urgent as she pulled me away from the horror that unfolded below.
"You shouldn't be here!" She hissed,fear tinging her voice,but I couldn't tear my eyes from the scene,listening helplessly as the echoes of my mother's cries faded into haunting silence.
As the door closed behind me,I barely heard the muffled sounds of the struggle.All that remained was the deep,unyielding imprint of heartache branded into my soul,the moment when love had twisted into agony and innocence was forever lost.And even as I fled from that staircase,I knew I would carry the weight of that night,along with the secret that had turned my father from protector to predator,forever encased within the walls of my memory.
END OF FLASHBACK
Agnes had always worn a smile that never reached her eyes.There had been an article once.A small,vindictive piece calling her "father's maid" before she walked away and became my secretary.Michelle had pushed me to keep her close,said it would look convincive to the public.I never imagined loyalty would feel like a noose.Agnes never stood for me; she had always stood for him.I took her in because I trusted Michelle.That trust became my undoing.Agnes was never my ally.She was his.
"Take your sister and disappear" Dad said with an almost tender smile,the kind that made my skin crawl. "Live like you're dead.That's the favour I can give you.I won't kill you because you are my son.Leave Ontario.Start a life like you never existed"
The sentence landed like a verdict.I could taste metal.My hands shook but my voice did not. "I won't leave until you let Briann go.I gave you the company.I can't surrender her too.You are the worst man I know.Because of you I learned to stand alone"
He picked up the phone with a casualness that made my blood boil.He dialed,spoke with an urgency that sounded almost practiced: "Let her go"
Anger flared in Agnes's face like a struck match. "What are you doing? I thought you were supposed to kill her" Her words were a blade,aimed right at him.
"I have nothing to do with her anymore" Dad said as if reciting a line from a play. "She's useless.Killing her is beneath me"
Before I could unravel the lie in his tone,the house erupted with a sound that froze the breath in my chest.A cry from the hall,edged with pain and time.A man in a wheelchair appeared in the doorway,frail but fierce.He was older than anyone I'd met in our world of polished veneers,his hair gone thin,his skin was papered with years and behind him was a tall blonde woman hovered like a shadow.
"Mr Adrienno?" Dad's laugh was too bright,too sudden.He moved forward on false footing.I could hear the tremor under his charm.
"Long time" Mr Adrienno said,each word was like a cough.His voice was thin,battered by something deeper than anger. "I came for my daughters.Our deal is off.You failed your promise"
Dad's face hardened into the mask he wore for the world. "You gave me your daughters instead of money" He spat. "I tried to make them happy.But they failed to keep their place.They had to be...." He swallowed and forced the rest down like bile. "They are gone"
"No" Mr Adrienno said and his hands trembled on the wheels as if remembering every mile that had brought him here. "Your daughters weren't trained right.I had to eliminate them" The sentence fell with a dull thud that made all the air in the room thin.
That was when something in Dad cracked.For a second,a single, incandescent moment,his bravado crumbled.He looked at me.He looked at the old man.Then,in a movement so small it might have been imagined,his eyes filled.Shame and grief bled out of him,not the melodramatic weeping of a man who'd lost something convenient, but the raw,private grief of someone who had miscounted his sins and found them heavier than his heart.
Mr Adrienno's face shifted too.The anger that had driven him here was joined by a sorrow so vast it seemed to hollow him: wetness gathered at the rims of his eyes,his breath hitched.He was grieving,not for the grievance he'd come to settle,but for what could not be unmade.He wept for his daughters in a voice that was almost a confession.
Dad wiped the tears off his face with a politeness that reeked. "Don't fall apart" He said,venom wrapped in velvet. "They're long gone.Save your energy for your health or you'll die too,and all your work will be for nothing"
Then,absurdly,he put on his coat. "Why don't we grab a drink? Bills on me"
They left together.Predator and prey in some grotesque pantomime of civility.And I stood in the doorway as the sound of their voices faded into the street.The scene made a hollow ache in my chest.Why would Mr Adrienno dine with the man who had destroyed his family? Was there some plan I couldn't see? Or had worse truths already been arranged,sealed in whispers and signatures?
The answers slipped away like water.
I wanted to tell him everything,to expose the lies and the people who had used my trust as a weapon,but the moment felt wrong.The time felt wrong.For now,all I had was a cold certainty: the world around me was no longer one I could trust and Briann's safety depended on choices I had yet to learn how to make.