Omega's Truth - Nora Phoenix Page 0,15
“Your body will get rid of the excess amounts through your urine.”
“Which means it’s a waste to take them.”
“What would be a waste is you not taking them after I went through the trouble and spent money on ordering those.”
His father’s tone had sharpened. Spent money? Spent Lidon’s money, he meant. They had no money, not when the government thought his father was dead. All Sando received was a tiny orphan’s allowance. Everything they had was paid for by Lidon, by the pack.
Sando crossed his arms. “I said no, Papa. I’m not taking them anymore.”
He still hoped he was wrong, but the fury in his father’s eyes took away the last bit of doubt he had. “You will do as I tell you, Allessandro!”
Tears welled in Sando’s eyes. “What did you do, Papa? What did you do to me?”
Fury gave way to fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My heat…my development. The vitamins, you added something to them, didn’t you?”
“How can you accuse me of such a horrible thing?”
His father’s words rang hollow, empty, the defense of a man who knew he’d been caught. Sando’s stomach soured. “Papa, please…the truth. No more lies. What did you do?”
He held his breath. Please, let him be wrong about this. Let him be mistaken. Let his father have a simple explanation for all of it. The moment his father’s body sagged in defeat, he released his breath, shaky and wavering.
“All I wanted was to protect you,” his father mumbled. “Prevent the past from repeating itself. And it worked until you came here, until these people filled your head with crazy ideas…”
“The past?”
“That good-for-nothing child… Foolish girl. I gave her everything, and she threw it all away for a man.”
Who was he talking about? What girl? “Who do you mean, Papa? What are you talking about?”
His father gestured wildly with his hands. “Your mother, of course. She could’ve had it all, and she threw it all away, choosing sex over a career, over her future.”
His mother? Sando’s heart skipped a beat. His father had never even acknowledged her before, had never even mentioned he had a mother. Not until the test results had he known he had a mother rather than a daddy. “What happened, Papa?”
His father’s eyes turned glassy as if he saw something far beyond what was in the room. “All I wanted was for you to have the career she chose to destroy, to have the future she dismissed.”
Sando waited breathlessly, scared to say anything to disrupt whatever was motivating his father to speak now when he’d never so much as breathed a word about his parentage.
His father sat frozen for a long time, then shivered. His eyes refocused, showing surprise. “Where’s my coffee, Sando?”
Oh god. “Papa, we were talking about my mother, remember?”
His father’s expression turned dark. “You have no mother. You have me, and you’ll do as I tell you. Now make me coffee, and let’s get to work.”
“No.” The word flew out of Sando’s mouth before he even realized it, but it filled his head, his heart, his soul. And so he said it again. “No.”
“What do you mean, no? We need to get to work, Sando. We don’t have time for your silly antics.”
Was his father seriously this confused, or was this some sort of ploy to make Sando believe he didn’t have all his faculties anymore? Sando wasn’t sure, but strangely enough, he’d stopped caring.
Silly antics? The man had the nerve to call his genuine desire to learn more about his mother silly antics? Or had he been referring to Sando’s critical questions about the multivitamins, about the hormones he had somehow been slipping him? Either way, there was nothing silly about it, and labeling it antics did in no way justice to the severity of the situation.
“No,” he said again, and how emboldening that one word was. “I’ve complied with your crazy behavior long enough, Papa. You don’t respect me, you don’t listen to me, and you don’t ever take me or my wishes and feelings seriously. I’m done.”
His father got up from his chair so fast it tumbled backward. “Done? You don’t walk away from me, Allessandro. I’m your father. You owe me respect and obedience. I made you. You’re nothing without me.”
Sando took a step back. “You made me? No, you didn’t. You shaped me, and for a long time, you were a good father. You taught me so much and gave me all the opportunities, but when it was time for