Page 96 of Where Angels Fall

“Maddison,” he rumbles, and my name on his lips holds no care. No love.

My head shakes as much as it can, tied to the back of the chair, tears streaming down my face. “What is so wrong with me that you could never love me!” I cry out. I guess knowing you are about to die brings a certain level of courage. “I’m your daughter! I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked of me... Everything! And it still is not enough. It’s never been enough. And you... You’d rather I die than pay him...”

My throat is raw, the words bleeding out of me. “What is so wrong with me?” I scream, the words echoing in the small room. A broken sound falls out of me, before I whisper, “What is so wrong with me?”

Everyone is silent as I cry quietly, feeling a sense of dizzying euphoria over the words I let drop from my shoulders.

“You did this to yourself,” he replies. “I will not pay to remedy your own foolish mistakes.”

His words should break me. They should be the last straw. But they roll off me. He’ll never love me, and he never did. He ruined my childhood. Moulded me into the person he wanted, and yet still wasn’t happy.

But Ash... my sweet Ash. He saw through me. He saw the real me and forced it out. He never let me pretend to be someone I wasn’t.

To me... that is love.

That is what I deserve.

The irony is not lost on me that I threw that away for this asshole, and I’ll die before I ever get to rectify it.

Zeke clicks his tongue, his head cocked to the side as he studies me, a line between his brows.

“I assumed paternal instinct would override ego,” Zeke continues. “I assumed you would prioritise blood over pride.”

“You assumed wrong,” my father says coldly.

“Yes,” Zeke replies. “I did.” I clench my teeth, willing my tears to stop. “So now we pivot.”

My father’s voice tightens. “Pivot?”

“Yes. I was hoping I could kill two birds with one stone, pun intended,” he adds, as he winks at me. “I’m about to get my hands on a very interesting drive, thanks to your sweet daughter. And on that drive is evidence that you and your associates are involved in the dealings of sex trafficking... Gosh, no amount of money is going to get you out of that one, Mr Dally.”

Everything quietens. Nausea rolls through me as the realisation I’ve been trying to avoid slams into me like a semi-truck. All this time, my father has been involved in something so horrific? And I’ve been working in his above-ground business, helping him along the way.

“Imagine what the public would do to a man who claims to throw wonderful charity events, only to be using these charities to launder his dirty money. It’ll ruin you and you know it...” Zeke croons, knowing he has already won.

This makes me throw up, my head twisting to the side as far as possible as I empty the contents of my stomach onto the floor.

The one good part of my job... of my existence, was all a sham.

I used to cling to those charity events like they were proof that something in my life was redeemable. That my miserable existence brought some good to someone. But it wasn’t. It was actually doing more harm than I could ever fathom.

They meant nothing.

They were washing blood.

My stomach convulses again, even though there’s nothing left to bring up. Acid burns the back of my throat. The smell of bile mixes with rust and damp concrete, and I think I might actually suffocate on it.

“You’re lying,” my father says through the phone, but the confidence is gone. There’s a crack in it now. Hairline, but there. Something I’ve never heard before.

“Am I?” Zeke asks mildly. “The drive contains transaction logs, Howard. Offshore transfers tied to your charitable foundation. Names of buyers routed through shell corporations. Dates. Amounts. The names of the women you moved last quarter.”

My vision tunnels.

Women.

All the times I walked through that office. Smiled at investors. Threw events. Laughed at their wandering hands.

All of it funded by something so vile I can barely breathe.