"Well, she shouldn't act like such a spoiled brat in my house," he growls, his eyes narrowing at the uneaten cereal growing soggier by the minute. "The way I see it, if someone does you the kindness of giving you a nice meal, you eat it. I asked around and all the local kids are obsessed with it. It's all over their Snap Tock or whatever it is they're using these days."
I try to placate him. "Look, I'm sure she'll regret not eating it. But you must understand… everything here is new for her. The packaging, the labels. Things look different, they sound different, they taste different. What seems like a small thing to you is massive for her right now. Surely you can see that. Please give her some grace."
He sniffs and looks down his nose at me from across the table. "My house, my rules. And politeness and gratitude are baseline requirements."
My heart races a little faster. "But she's my daughter, Gerald. She barely knows you. Please leave the discipline to me. And she was polite… you just didn't like that she didn't want what you were offering."
He glares at me, his expression so cruel it sends a shiver through me. It's as if his whole face changed, the kind, attentive man now long gone.
“You belong to me. When will you finally understand that I own both you and your insolent little… Yara?” His words are a chilling declaration of ownership, even as he just about spits out my daughter's name in apparent disgust. "I had a feeling she was going to be an issue, but I need her to be here with you."
The air in the mansion is thick with tension as I take in the reality of our situation.
The grandeur and generosity I once admired now feels like a trap, closing in around me and Yara.
It's all an illusion, a façade that obscures something much darker.
My veins turn to ice at the mention of her in this way. “Don’t say her name like that. And she most certainly does not belong to you. Neither do I.”
“Yet you’ve accepted my kindnesses so far,” he sneers.
“As if I had a choice.”
My eyes narrow, suddenly clicking that he's not the man he's been making out to be. Visions of Luchenko's cruelty flash into my mind.
“Sometimes we do what we need to survive, Gerald. You, of all people, should know that.”
He circles around me, his polished Oxfords clicking on the shiny marble floor.
“But there has to be part of you that wanted it. Otherwise, you could have refused. Everybody has a choice, Alina."
His eyes glimmer cruelly.
"You made yours, and now it’s like you’re changing the narrative to make things fit the way you want them to.”
I want to cry that sometimes, when you’re a mother, you have to switch your mind off to your own wants and needs. To put this creature you brought into the world above anything at all, including yourself.
That it was never about me and never will be for the rest of my time on this earth.
But I know that will just further highlight my weak spot. My reason to be.
Yara.
Not that he isn’t cruelly fixated on her anyway.
"What changed, Gerald? You've been so kind, so caring."
He sneers at me. "Nothing's changed as far as I'm concerned. I'm just peeling back the curtain so you can see how things are going to be from now on."
Everything hits me all at once.
The secretive calls.
The dangerous-looking men always lurking in the background.
Never feeling like I can be alone with my thoughts.
The extra attention on Yara.