After he left I could not hold my curiosity any longer. I waited only a heartbeat in my room, then rushed to the sitting room. The chair where my father had been kneeling was empty and the house felt too still.
My father's familiar silhouette was gone. A cold wave of panic crashed over me as I took in the vacant space. Where was he? Fear instantly began spinning dark, chaotic narratives in my mind.
What if that man had killed him? What if he'd already disposed of the body, just minutes before I arrived? The terrifying possibilities multiplied, each one more horrifying than the last. Hot, stinging tears began to stream down my face, blurring the dim outlines of the furniture. I had to know. I had to tell someone.
I ran toward my mother's room.
I knew what would happen. Rose, my mother, was relentless. She had a long-standing habit of blaming me for every misfortune, every shadow that fell across our lives.
But this was different. This was too important to hide, even if it meant facing her inevitable condemnation. I raced to their door, my hand raised to knock, but I stopped dead when I heard my father's voice.
Leo's voice.
"But I can't bear to do that to her," he said, his tone a heavy, desperate rumble. "We already owe her enough. She's not even supposed to be suffering with us here."
I froze, relief washing over me so completely that I felt momentarily dizzy. He was alive. The man hadn't harmed him. The immediate threat was gone. Though confused by his cryptic words—owe her enough? suffering?—I was simply grateful he was safe.
I was just about to knock when my mother's voice cut through the air, sharp and unyielding.
"Shut up," she snapped. "We already said we won't talk about this anymore, so stop talking about it. Besides, that Mr. Dalton said he wants to marry her legally. So what are you talking about? The man is rich and powerful. What does she have to complain about? She's going to become the wife of the most powerful man in the Velmorra Empire. It's not like she's going to suffer or anything."
The individual words were perfectly clear, but the meaning, when they were strung together, felt impossible to grasp. Marry her? A wealthy stranger? My brain resisted the formation of the full thought.
Perhaps I did understand, and the shock was simply my refusal to believe such a cruel reality.
My father sounded worn down, defeated. "Do you really believe what you're saying? Do you honestly believe that marrying Lila to Mr. Dalton is the best thing for her? You know how dangerous that man is. Lila is just a girl. She's nineteen, barely an adult. She still has a whole life ahead of her, and Mr. Dalton is twenty-eight, a mature man. There's no way Lila will be able to handle a man like that, let alone one as dangerous as this."
The name, Lila, confirmed it. There was no longer any room for doubt or denial. They weren't discussing an acquaintance or a hypothetical situation; they were discussing me. They were planning to trade me, to marry me off like some expendable asset to a man I'd never met.
My mother's response was chillingly practical, utterly devoid of maternal warmth.
"If she can't handle him, all she has to do is learn how to handle him," Rose stated.
"That man said it's either you produce the blueprint to that technology—which we both know is impossible—or marry your daughter to him. The clear choice is to marry your daughter to him, so what exactly are you hesitating for?"
My heart didn't just break; it felt like it shattered into a thousand useless pieces. I couldn't comprehend how calmly she had just relegated me to the status of a mere object of trade.
I had always been painfully aware of my mother's dislike, her tendency to make my life miserable. But I never imagined she was capable of such profound indifference, of treating me like common goods without a single flicker of conscience.
The horrifying question—Is she really my mother?—forced itself forward. How could a mother casually condemn her own daughter like this? Any residual expectation or hope I had ever held for her to change, to show me kindness, to treat me like a human being, evaporated. I knew the truth now: she despised me. She would discard me, trade me, or sell me for anything that served her own self-interest.
"I just can't bear the thought of it, okay," my father finally admitted. "I know that marrying Lila to Mr. Dalton is the only choice I have, but it still doesn't sit well with me."
My mother snickered—a cold, ugly sound. "Well, if you don't make your decision quickly, we'll be having your funeral ceremony next week," she warned, her voice tightening with menace. "You told me yourself that Mr. Dalton is coming for her next week. We both know that if he arrives and doesn't get either of the two things he wants, he is definitely going to kill you. And if he gets angry enough, he might even choose to kill all of us, including Lila. Your hesitation will bring death to our door."
I couldn't endure another second of listening to their terrifying calculations. The habit of respectful deference I had maintained for nineteen years simply broke. I didn't bother to knock. Driven by a volatile mix of panic and rage, I threw myself against the door and barged into the room.
"Dad!" I cried, rushing toward him. "Let's report him to the authorities, okay? This is a legal society. He can't just kill people whenever he likes."
My mother, Rose, immediately recoiled at my unannounced entry, her face scrunching up in that familiar expression of icy displeasure. The life-and-death threat to our family was secondary to my manners.
"Lila," she berated me coldly. "Not only did you listen in on our conversation, you even barge into our room without knocking. Is that how I raised you?"
I had always been scrupulously respectful, but knowing now that she didn't care about my life, I found that my own respect for her had vanished. Fueled by blinding anger, I snickered—a defiant, bitter sound.
"I'm already on the verge of being sold out," I retorted, meeting her glare. "And you still want me to knock?"
My mother's face changed. The surprise was clear; my rebellion had genuinely caught her off guard. After a stunned pause, her expression hardened into a furious glare.
"Who are you showing that attitude for?" she spat. "If I weren't in a good mood and didn't want to damage you before Mr. Dalton comes, I would hit that coquettish face of yours until it was swollen. And what do you mean, you're being sold? You're clearly getting married to an influential and wealthy person. You have the nerve to call that being sold?"
I ignored her completely, my focus locked on my father. He was my last, desperate appeal.
"Father, let's report him to the authorities, okay?"
He avoided my eyes. The casual, momentary glance away felt like a physical blow. My stomach sank to the floor. His inability to meet my gaze was a silent confession: he had done something terrible, something the authorities couldn't know about.
His next words confirmed my worst suspicions, slamming the door on any chance of official rescue.
"Lila, I'm sorry, but the authorities can't know of this," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "To better our life, to make a fortune, I used the Godfather's—I mean Mr. Dalton's—network channel and dabbled in illegal arms. The cause of my debt is that I lost the shipment. A shipment of a million dollars.".