He sighed and shook his head “Emilia, I?—”
“It’s Katherine!” I shouted, sick of hearing that name come from his lips. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t the same girl he abandoned.
His eyes widened at my outburst but soon softened. “Your mother …”
“Yes, my mother, who you abandoned.”
“I never meant to leave the way I did. It was complicated.”
“No, see, it wasn’t because you should have stayed and helped her. You should have been there when she passed, but you weren’t.”
“Her sickness, her death, it was very hard for me and?—"
“You don’t think it was hard for me, too? To not only lose my mom like that but also my father. I needed you then more than ever.”
“I regret what I did, Emilia. I do, but you don’t understand. Once you’re a part of an organization like this,” he gestured to his men and Mack, “you can’t just walk away. I tried for your mother, but it wasn’t enough. And I had to decide to either stay with you both as she got worse or leave so that I might provide for her. So that she might survive.”
“But she didn’t survive, did she?”
“No, she didn’t.” His head dropped in shame. “And I regret not being there for you both, but you have to know I might have left,” he raised his head as a lone tear fell down his cheek into his salt-and-pepper beard, “but I never abandoned you. I never left you unprotected. And now that I’m in thisposition, I have more power and resources at my disposal. I’m not the same man I once was.”
Not the same man?What did he mean by that? What did this all have to do with the dagger? How was he involved at all?
“I don’t understand,” I said, trying to piece what he’d said together. “And what about Adrian? Where does the dagger factor into all of this?”
My father sighed. “When my men informed me of your relationship with Adrian, I wasn’t happy. He was a punk, trying to rise in the ranks of the underworld. I knew he wasn’t good enough for you, but I figured if you were happy, then that was all that mattered.”
But I wasn’t happy.
My father continued, “I realized after everything, I had no right to get involved in the life you had made for yourself without me. Although I didn’t want to interfere with your life any more than was necessary, I never stopped checking in on you. Until the night you disappeared.”
He said that last part as if it pained him. My heart lurched in my chest at the possibility that my father might have actually cared, but I wouldn’t give myself the hope of it being true.
“As for the dagger,” he continued, “it was always in my possession, passed down from my predecessor, and his before him. As power-hungry as Adrian is, he had that weasel, Henry, steal it from me, and well, you know what happened after that.”
I did, and those three gunshots Adrian fired, killing Henry, would forever haunt me. But there was still one thing I didn’t understand.
“But what is so special about this dagger? Why is everyone so willing to kill for it?”
“It’s not just a dagger.” He shook his head a little andsnickered. “It’s been passed down through generations of our organization. Each who possessed it controlled the city. They controlled all the underground deals, drugs, property treaties, and more.
The man with the dagger holds all the power in our world. Our way of life may be filled with blood, betrayals, and death, but the dagger and its meaning are law. Those eager enough to go against that law are either killed or rise to power with the dagger in hand. That is why it is so important Adrian does not get it. An underground world ruled by the likes of him will erupt into flames, leaving only chaos and ash in his wake.”
My father’s words slammed into me like bricks, each one heavier than the last.
If the dagger held that much significance for criminals and drug lords as he described, then the thought of someone like Adrian possessing it and wielding that kind of power was terrifying.
Adrian had always been greedy, but this was more. This was obsession. This was madness. This was worse than I had imagined. Because if Adrian got the dagger, who would be able to stop him?
Then my father asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“Do you have the dagger?”
I debated lying to him, just in spite of everything, but this might be my chance to get rid of the damned thing, along with Adrian.
There was just one problem with that: Adrian still had Pearl.
“I know where it is,” I replied, but the relief on his face was short-lived when I added, “but I can’t give it to you yet.”
