Billionaire's Perfect Revenge [18+]

FORTY

There was no need for me to bother myself. I knew the man who stood behind me better than I knew myself.

"Dad!" I said with a tone so bitter, I hoped he would get the hint and get the fuck off.

Instead, the man chuckled deeply, and I felt my insides cringe and stabbed with thousands of swords altogether.

"I knew you were a pushover but didn't take you for a coward," he all but jeered.

I forced myself to turn around as I searched for his disgusting eyes and held back the need to scoff. "I'm all grown up, dad. I don't have the naïve impulse to prove my worth to anyone anymore."

"Then why don't you grow some spine and tell her all about it," pointing the drink in his hand at where Zara and mom seemed to mingle with some of my aunts he said. "Tell her who Emily was to you..." shifting his gaze back to me, he leaned just a little to whisper into my ear. "...and what the hell happened to her that unfortunate day."

I knew what he was doing, trying to provoke me so I would lose my shit and snap. He was deliberately looking for trouble so he could have something to hold it over my head and later blackmail me to get whatever the fuck he was here for.

I guess we're not that different after all.

The sick grin on his face crammed me with absolute disgust, but I knew better than to give him the satisfaction of drawing that kind of reaction out of me. I wasn't a child anymore. I didn't need his approval.

"We both know you're not here to be part of this celebration," I said bluntly, pushing my hands into the pockets of my pants. The only way to deal with this man was to not beat around the bush and come straight to the fucking point. "Why exactly are you here, dad? You're not even invited."

Even with my eyes closed, I could tell who was behind this "surprise" visit. My idiot brother, Nathan. Of course, he would beg this man to show up for the sake of keeping appearances if nothing else. So many years had passed and my little brother still hoped all of us to be together one day. If this wasn't a glaring example of how different we both were, I didn't know what it was. Nathan was kind-hearted and hopeful while I was anything but that. Zara was right. Thousands of lives might have been sacrificed to raise a devil like me. Then again, it did take a devil to take down another, wasn't that right?

My not-so-polite words seemed to have done the trick. A pissed-off expression quickly slid over dad's old face. "I don't need to be invited to my own damn home, Maddox. Mind your fucking language!"

"Oh, come on!" I rolled my eyes. "Did you seriously learn nothing from all those past humiliations?"

The corner of his lips lifted in a snarl, his eyes growing wider and angrier. "The wealth that you're so smug about, dear child, you know it's rightfully mine. So, don't you dare—"