I shook my head and took a step back. “No.”
“No!” His eyes turned wild. “Do you hear yourself? Do you understand the kind of man he is!”
“The same kind you went to for money and took me when you couldn’t pay him back!” I matched his tone. I was sick of my dad acting like he was innocent in all of this. He had his faults too.
“Exactly, took you! He kidnapped you and forced you to be his slave.”
“I wasn’t his slave,” I spat with my mouth turned upside down. “I…I care about him.”
Care seemed tame to convey how I really felt about Kairus but that wasn’t something I wanted to confess to my dad.
“Care for him! Azeira, you can’t be serious. He’s a monster and if he didn’t have the police department in his pocket I would have made sure he was rotting in jail for what he did to us.”
I cut my eyes at him. “What he did was give you money to save Mom’s life. It’s not his fault you bit off more than you could chew.”
Dad looked as if I had struck him. In some ways I guess I had with my words. I had never spoken to him like this before and I wasn’t typically disrespectful, but I was tired of his self-righteous attitude about something he knew nothing about.
“Kairus was good to me, for the most part,” I admitted. “You might hate him and see him as the bad guy but I don’t.”
Dad looked like a fish out of water as he gaped at me. I knew he didn’t understand but I was learning it didn’t matter how others felt about us.
“I can’t believe this,” he muttered, more to himself.
I brushed my hand over my tattooed finger. “The money, how did you get it?” I asked, changing the subject.
“What?” His head shot up.
“How did you raise the money so fast?”
“That doesn’t matter. I got it and that’s all that matters.”
“Doing what? There’s no way you raised that much money in only four months, Dad!”
His eyes narrowed. “You need to remember you’re the child and I’m the parent. How I provide for my family is my business.”
I gritted my teeth and shifted my eyes to the side. “Fine,” I said finally. “I’ll be back tomorrow to see Mom.”
“I think that would be best.” Pain shot through my chest.
Distance was best for me and Dad right now. It hurt knowing our relationship would probably never be the same.
When I was outside I started for my car with a heavy heart. Just as I was about to open my driver’s side door, I froze. The hair on the nape of my neck rose. Spinning around, I darted my eyes around. Someone was watching me.Hewas watching me. I felt him. His presence was always so suffocating. Frustration filled me not seeing anything out of the ordinary.
Maybe I’m wrong.I bit into my bottom lip. Maybe doing all this talking about Kairus had me imagining things.
Sighing, I muttered to myself while reaching for my door again. Me and Kairus were done. He let me go so there was no point of him continuing to watch me.
“I understand, thank you anyway.” I smiled at Chrissy with understanding.
“I’m sorry, I really enjoyed you working for me too, Azeira.”
I shook my head. “It’s fine.”
I stood and turned to leave the office. I came to Sunny Side to see about getting my job back. I knew it was a long shot since I no call no showed then disappeared. I had a nice amount ofmoney saved from working at Elite so a job wasn’t an immediate need, but I didn’t like the thought of just sitting around all day.
I left the office and walked through the restaurant, making sure to stop at the hostess desk to grab my to-go order.
“Thanks.” I picked the bag up and went to leave. “Oh.” I collided with a hard body just as I turned around.
