Reincarnated as a Fisherman and a Dad Chapter 215
"Ma, where's my food?"
That was Kubeta's first sentence upon entering the house, which instantly infuriated Emmanuel. The man in his late forties stood up in sudden anger, veins bulging on his forehead. He had been living on the absolute edge for a whole month now, especially with his mother rotting in jail for a crime she didn't deserve...
"You fucking bastard!" Emmanuel lunged forward and punched Kubeta straight in the face, catching him completely off guard and sending him sprawling to the floor.
"All you ever do is get drunk and blow money on your worthless vices! Your mother and grandmother spoiled you rotten! You don't even have a job, and you've grown up completely useless! And now you have the absolute audacity to demand food the second you walk through the door? Go find food for yourself! There's goddamned rice and hotdogs in the kitchen, cook them yourself!"
"W-What are you doing to my son!? Why would you hit him?!" Delilah shrieked hysterically, rushing over to Kubeta to check if his face was bleeding.
Ivana had also witnessed Emmanuel strike Kubeta. Knowing that her father had finally reached his absolute limit, especially right after receiving terrible news from the province, she wisely and quietly retreated to her bedroom to avoid the brewing storm.
Kubeta was completely dazed, his face stinging painfully and blood trickling from his nose. He stared up at his father in sheer disbelief, unable to process that Emmanuel had actually hit him.
"W-Why did you do that, Pa?" His drunken haze vanished instantly in the wake of the punch. If not for his underlying fear and respect for his father, Kubeta might have tried to retaliate... but he didn't dare raise a hand against Emmanuel. Emmanuel was the sole financial pillar of the household, and every single cent Kubeta spent on his useless habits came straight from his father's pockets.
"Because you're still acting like a spoiled toddler! For god's sake, you're already twenty-seven years old, yet you've accomplished absolutely nothing in life. All you do is waste days on garbage!"
"Pa, I..."
"Your grandmother is locked away in a prison cell and can't even get out..." Emmanuel sighed heavily, dropping back down onto the chair. "And today, we just got word that your uncle, your aunt, and your cousin have all been thrown in prison for illegal drug possession and distribution."
"What?!"
Kubeta was thunderstruck... He already knew his cousin was a secret drug user, in fact, that cousin was the one who had first introduced Kubeta to cocaine, but he never in his wildest dreams imagined the whole family would get busted.
On top of that, his cousin was a massive coward, so the idea of him actively distributing drugs, which carried a much harsher sentence, seemed completely unbelievable.
"Our family must be cursed by the deities..." Emmanuel trailed off, unable to finish his sentence. He knew very well the sins they had committed in the past.
"T-Then let's go help our family! You said before that we should contact Karlos and ask him for money. Maybe he's doing really well down in the Timog-Kanluran province!"
"..." Emmanuel stayed silent. His brother had actually called to tell him that Karlos had established a proper household in the Timog-Kanluran province and was living quite comfortably. His brother had even begged Emmanuel to find a way to save him and his family.
Emmanuel closed his eyes tightly... Truth be told, he had never truly supported Delilah and old hag Bruha's scheme back then, but greed had made him turn a blind eye.
Perhaps the deities really were punishing them for what they had done.
"No. No one is contacting Karlos. From now on, he is dead to us. Don't you ever dare speak his name in this house again," Emmanuel decided firmly, wanting nothing more than to stay as far away from Karlos as possible.
"But what about Grandma, Uncle, and his family?" Kubeta pressed, but Emmanuel kept his mouth shut.
"Emmanuel, don't tell me you're actually going to..." Delilah suddenly caught on, her face draining of color.
"Wife, we don't have a choice."
"No! Never! We can't! We must not disturb his life! Doing that would be devastating for Tonto!" Delilah shrieked hysterically.
"..." Emmanuel sighed again, a profound weariness weighing him down.
"Absolutely not! Absolutely not! He's completely different from us. He doesn't need to know the truth!" Delilah raged so hard that all the fat on her face shook violently.
"Ma, what are you even talking about?" Kubeta asked, utterly bewildered, but Delilah completely lost her mind and lunged straight at Emmanuel.
"Emmanuel, you bastard! If not for your Alejandro bloodline, which guaranteed I'd give birth to healthy boys, I never would have married you in the first place!"
"I know. You had the exact same motivation as my mother when she married my father," Emmanuel replied with a bitter, hollow laugh.
The Alejandro family was well-known for specific traits: jet-black hair and an overwhelming biological tendency to sire boys. Female children were an extreme rarity in their bloodline.
Because of this quirk, certain women desperate for male heirs would intentionally seek out and marry into their family.
Emmanuel, however, had grown utterly exhausted of being surrounded by aggressive men all his life, which was why he had secretly felt fortunate when Delilah gave birth to Ivana.
It was largely for that reason that he had tolerated Delilah's destructive gambling habits for all these years.
"Delilah, you have to understand. Tonto needs to know the truth sooner or later. We can't keep burying it forever," Emmanuel argued quietly.
"You..."
Delilah completely broken, bursting into a ragged sob as she threw her hands around Emmanuel's neck, trying to choke him in her despair.
Emmanuel was too exhausted to fight back. For a brief second, he even thought dying might be a blessing, at least he wouldn't have to carry this crushing guilt anymore.
He asked himself when exactly things had started going wrong. Was it the day they swapped the two babies? Or was it years ago when he had stopped his mother, Bruha, from killing Karlos when the boy was still a toddler? Emmanuel had no answers left.
"Ma, what are you doing!? You're going to kill Papa!"
"He deserves it! He's a spineless coward!"
'Indeed... I suppose I am spineless,' Emmanuel thought bitterly.
Kubeta finally stepped in, pushing Delilah away to rescue his father. Emmanuel coughed violently, sucking in greedy breaths of air.
"...Kubeta, take care of your mother. I have things I need to take care of."
"No, Emmanuel, I'm begging you. Please, you don't have to be so cruel to our son," Delilah wept openly as Kubeta helped her stay upright.
"And do what instead? Do you honestly think my mother, my brother, and his family can get out of prison on their own? We need someone with real influence and deep pockets to get them out. Only Tonto is in a position to help us now."
"But—"
"We have no other choice."
Defeated, Delilah slumped against her son, sobbing until she completely lost the will to fight back. She finally resigned herself to reality... though deep down, a part of her also secretly yearned to hold Tonto once the truth came out. She had missed her real son terribly.
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