Page 59 of London Has Fallen
“No.” Dad’s shoulders sag with relief. “I fell in love with my headmaster and slept with him.” Dad’s face turns a shade of red but I push on. “Hate me all you want but I couldn’t stop feeling something for him. I let him in and all that got me was fucking pain that I can’t escape because I killed him.” My hysteria begins to rise. “I stabbed him and then he told me he loved me, he fucking saved me from being raped by all of them,” I scream as horror clouds my father’s features. “He saved me and I killed him.” Tears break free and roll down my cheeks, the sight of my tears has an unreadable look on my dad’s face. “It hurts, it fucking hurts, Daddy.” Within a fraction of a second I’m torn from Cronos’s hold and crushed against my dad’s chest as he holds me while I cry.
“I’ll slaughter every single one of those fuckers,” Dad vows. I cling to him as my chest feels like it's ripping open. I can feel his hands on me stroking my hair—or what’s left of it.
“We go to war,” I hear Uncle Chaos say behind me.
“Sin, call my dad and tell him I want him on the first flight here. We go to fucking war and take out every single Greek cunt, none of them are to remain breathing.” Dad is in don mode and that brings me some comfort knowing that I will get the chance to avenge Artemis.
London
Three weeks later…
I sit out on the back patio of my house. Since arriving back in Miami three weeks ago things have been different, I’m different. I can’t explain it but something inside me has changed. I used to be plagued with nightmares about Uncle Havoc’s death every night but now, I am plagued with the constant nightmare of that night. Every time I close my eyes, I see him on his knees and feel the blade tear through his flesh.
“You got a second?” I peer over my shoulder to see Ares standing at the back door with his hands stuffed in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels looking uncomfortable as fuck.
“Yeah,” I breath out before facing forward again and soaking in the view I never appreciated before. Ares drops down beside me. Having the triplets and Cronos in my childhood home feels weird but my dad agreed that they could stay with us until the war is over. Dad has been scouting for Costa everywhere—the other heads of the families refused to be involved in the war between the Greeks and my family. After I told them what happened that night they all agreed that trial or not, Costa went too fucking far with what he did to me. Ares, Cronos, Apollo and Adonis backed my story. The four leaders agreed to remain neutral and would not aid either my family or Costa.
“My brothers and I aren’t going back to Blackwood.” I snort and pin him with a deadpan look.
“It was our last year, somehow I don’t think I will be going back either.”
He shakes his head. “No, you don’t get it.”
“Get what Ares?”
“We can’t go back because your father went to the board and told them Artemis seduced a student and broke the school's code. We are being sent to a different school here in the US.”
“He what?” I snap, Ares reels back.
“He told them Artemis prayed on you, my brother’s name is being dragged through the fucking mud right now.” I don’t stick around, I shove to my feet and storm inside heading straight for my father’s office. I push the door open and ignore the shocked looks of my aunts and uncles and even my grandparents and I stalk toward my father’s desk and slam my palms down on it. He leans forward in his chair and scowls at me.
“We’re in the middle of a meeting,” he reprimands me.
“I don’t give a fuck. You call that fucking board and tell them Artemis didn’t seduce me.” Dad’s lip twitches and his eyes darken as he pushes to his feet and lays his hands flat on his desk, then leans forward so we are eye level.
“That sleezy fuck manipulated you?—”
I scoff out a laugh and pin him with a look that says he’s dumb as fuck. “I was the one who begged him to fuck me in the locker room showers, not the other way around.” Dad stumbles backward until he smacks into the wall behind his desk. I can hear the others around us speaking in hushed voices but my focus is on my dad. When Mom comes to stand next to him I snort. “Taking his side are you?”
“No. I’m taking the side of my daughter who is clearly heartbroken over the boy she lost. I’m on the side of her father who is doing everything within his power to hunt down the man who hurt his little girl. I am on the fucking side of the two people I love most in this world because it is killing me every day to see the two of you avoiding each other.”
“Erika—”
Mom snaps her angry glare to Dad, forcing him to shut his mouth or face her wrath. “You need to learn she isn’t a little girl anymore. She fell in love, Royal. What that boy did will always be viewed as unforgivable in your eyes but not in mine.”
“He fucking raped my daughter!” Dad roars, my eyes widen. I’ve never seen my dad so unhinged before. He stands there heaving with his hands clenched into fists at his side as he glares down at my mom. I expect my mom to shrink away from him but she reaches out and places a hand on his chest and smiles sadly up at her husband. “He hurt my little girl, Erika. I will never forgive that.” My mouth dries, all this time I thought he was angry at me because I had sex and disobeyed him but it turns out he’s been angry because he thinks the man I fell for hurt me.
“He chose to weather her hatred for what he did to her because he loved her enough to not allow another to touch the woman he loved. He saved her from…” Mom takes a shuddering breath. “We couldn’t be there to protect her, Royal. That boy saved our daughter from having multiple men violate her. He saved her.”
“He fucking used her to get to me, that’s why they never fucking let her out of the trials. Costa wanted her dead because he knew I would start a fucking war for her!” he shouts as he blindly points toward me. When he jerks his gaze to me I stiffen and stand up straight. “Do you see now, I would start a fucking war for you and force our entire family to fight alongside me because that is what you mean to me. You are mine to protect and love, not that fucking cocksuckers.”
When a hand lands on my shoulder, I look up to see my grandpa standing there with a stern look on his face, my grandma comes to stand on my other side. Dad looks between his parents and shakes his head sighing in defeat.
“Royal—”
“Don’t, Dad,” he says as he drops his gaze to the floor. “She may be your granddaughter but she is my daughter and no matter what you or her mother say, I will never forgive that cunt for what he did to her.” He slowly lifts his gaze to me and the sight of unshed tears in his blue eyes has my breath lodging in my throat. “If I didn’t have a tracker implanted on you, I would never have gotten to you in time. I should have been there to protect you. I fucking failed,” he grits out before storming out of the room, leaving me standing here reeling.
“Go to him, honey, he needs you,” my mom urges. I shake my head to snap me out of it as I go after my dad. I don’t have to look far. I walk out the back door and smile at the sight of him sitting in the spot I just occupied minutes ago. Dropping down beside him, I gaze out over the view of the landscape.