Lucius' Pov
I set the napkin on the table and get up to leave when suddenly I feel a sharp moment next to me.
My reflex response is to grab and twist the hand reaching for me but I immediately realize it's my little girl; Adeline.
I let her do what she wants to and she take my wrist, keeping me in place while getting up from her seat. I don't understand why she would think I'd run off if she wasn't fast enough.
I raise an eyebrow questioning why she'd do that. It's not like her. No matter how subtle she plays it, I know she tries her best to avoid us and our presence.
Though she does join us for breakfast and dinners, she hardly ever makes any conversation. I try my best to not make her feel unwelcomed —or worse unwanted— but there's just so much I can do.
My lack of experience talking to teenage girls —one that I never needed for obvious reasons— and the unpleasant attitude of my sons doesn't help at all.
I have tried to ask her to join us in the living room so she gets more familiarized with us but she always refuse with some excuse. And I don't want to pressure her into it.
I know she has been through alot recently. Losing her mother and coming to live with seven strangers, add to it leaving the country you grew up in, isn't something easy to move on from.
"Can I talk to you?" She gulps looking every bit nervous. "Alone?"
"Ofcourse, sweetheart." I reply instantly.
This is the first time she has requested to talk to me and I know it must be something important or else she'll rather prefer to retreat back to her room.
I gesture for her to follow me when Rhyett stops her. "Adeline, finish your breakfast first."
I narrow my eyes at him for his disrespect. It isn't his —or anyone else's— usual behavior to go against the Boss of American Mafia.
If I wanted her to follow me, Rhyett shouldn't have interfered. She can eat after we talk.
Rhyett turns to me and shares a look that clear means we'll discuss this later and to leave it for now. He did the same exact thing to convince me on letting Adeline shift to some bedroom downstairs.
I don't know why he's behaving so odd. Rhyett has never paid any attention to his sibling's interests and habits. Instead, he kept his focus on their materialistic needs.
I know he must have some reason behind it so I let go of it for now.
"Eat your food. You can come to my office when you're done." I tell her and turn to Rhyett again.
But before I could speak, Julian decides to meddle. "What do you want to discuss with dad?"
Adeline narrows her eyes on him and present an expression of disapproval. She doesn't like how interested Julian is in her affairs.
I've had several talks with the boys —mainly Ewan, Julian and Altas— to improve their behavior towards their sister but nothing has worked out.
Ewan doesn't like how I favoured her when she wasn't even born. Altas simply gets a kick out of annoying her. While Julian defends his words for being regular sibling's interaction.
If it wasn't for their anger towards me —ever since they found out what Mary and I did fourteen years ago— they wouldn't have dared to disobey my commands.
I know none of them mean any harm to her but they don't realize that what they consider as jokes or sarcasm, aren't appreciated by her.
She might not be used to hearing degrading remarks —the type my sons always throw at each other— about her diet or stamina or sleeping habits.
"I don't think it's any of your business when she clearly said she wants to talk to dad about it." Rhyett snaps at Julian.
My eldest has always been the one in complete control of his emotions. He never flares up. But since this morning, he seems a bit off.
Rhyett has always been the most rational and punctual. He always prefers to be the one in charge. Ever since he joined the company; six years ago he has taken very few days off.
He never takes a day off unless it's absolutely necessary, especially not when he still has work pending —like he does today. But still he suddenly wanted to stay home for some reason.
I know something is troubling him, he has been checking his phone since the morning. He hasn't even bothered to put some jeans on and came for breakfast in sweatpants.
This isn't how he usually is.
"Rhyett," He looks up at me from where he's seated next to Adeline. I still don't understand why he took Cyrus' seat. "I think we should discuss the underground construction project before I leave."
There's nothing left to talk about that deal, we already have it sorted and we both know it. It's just an excuse to talk to him. I can't just point out his weird behavior in front of everyone.
"Sure."
He gets up and shoves his phone in his pocket before silently following me to my office. But not before making sure his remaining four brothers have left the room, leaving Adeline alone to eat in peace.
I twist the key and open the door. I keep many of my legal and illegal business records here, hence it's a good idea to keep it under a lock.
The brown oak creeks as I step inside. I never got the irritating wood fixed, I don't trust worker to come in here. There's much some confidential stuff that'll easily be worth more than their lives.
But I avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
It's no fun when they can't even fight back.
My bedroom —that house memories of my ex-wife— along with my office is still the same as it was twenty five years ago when Mary and I bought it —for our second anniversary shortly after we had our first child.
Rhyett closes the door and takes barely three steps in. I lean on the desk and ask, "What's up with you today?"
"I told you already, I'm fine. I just want to stay home today, that's it." He knows I'm not talking about his leave from work.
I shake my head. "What happened? Why are you pissed at everyone?"
"They're annoying." He looks away, not enjoying the conversation.
His brothers have always been annoying according to him. But he's never snapped on them repeatedly in the same day.
"Is it something related to Valerie?" His eyes momentarily flicker like they always do whenever she's brought up.
"That's over, dad. We've both moved on."
"Then tell me this has nothing to do with your drive with Adeline last night."
His gaze return to me again and he's more calm now. "It doesn't."
That's how my son avoids telling the truth. He'd drop all the anger and irritation before relaxing and uttering the most blunt lie.
It's commendable when he does that to other people but I don't appreciate it a slightest bit when it's directed to me.
"Do you guys not realize I'm her father?" Rhyett regards me with patience as I continue. "If there's anyone who cares for her the most in this house, it's me."
"We don't doubt that."
"Then why are you refusing to tell me why my daughter was crying in the middle of the night? She was looking for me, if I was there she clearly would've told me the reason and not you."
I really regret leaving for a meeting last night but those kind of meetings usually gets scheduled for a later time. Apparently nobody wants to discuss kidnapping and murders in the middle of the day.
Letting go of Adeline has always been a source of guilt but now that I have her, I wanted to be there for her. But I wasn't.
"All that matters is that she's fine now." He shoves a hand in his pocket.
"You're not even considering telling me where you took her?" His lips thinned in refusal. "You're well aware that your brothers have been budging me since morning on why she was crying, where you took her last night and what nightmare she had that had her screaming and throwing up. They've been a real pain in the ass. Well, everyone but Adam."
He seems to be in a really good mood. He denied when Altas asked but I know it's because of his stay in Adeline's room. He always loved cuddling.
This morning when I went to check up on her —since Ewan informed me of all that happened last night— they were both untangled in each other. It was cute.
Adam and Cyrus are the ones in our family who are good at expressing their feelings. They don't have a natural cold facade like the rest of us. Their mask only clicks in place when they're in public.
When I informed my kids about their sister, all of them had different reactions. Rhyett was wary of having her back when I purposely let her go but he knew it was the right thing to do.
Cyrus was accepting as he always is. He did convey his disapproval of my actions but he's mature enough to know that it's too late to change anything.
When rest of the four boys were mad at me, Cyrus was the one who tried his best to sort out the feelings of rebellion among them. While Rhyett would stop them from letting their anger make them do something they'll regret later.
Out of all of them, Adam was the one who asked questions regarding Adeline. Rhyett simply opted for going through her files —that my men had been maintaining every month since her birth.
I cleared my throat. “You talked to her after the nightmare, correct?”
“Yes.” He’s really not helping at all.
“Is there anything I need to know, Rhyett?” I try one last time.
"I think I should leave, Adeline must be here shortly." I nod because convincing him to tell me anything he doesn't want to is a useless effort. He stops at the doorway. "Call me once you've talked to her."
I exhale as the door closes behind him. I really need a cigarette to calm myself down but I know my daughter will be here soon so I decide against it.
After a few minutes of going through some files that don't require my immediate attention, a knock sounds through the room.
"Come in." I order from my seat behind the table.
The door opens to my beautiful daughter and she steps in. Her gaze draw back to the door she left ajar and she goes back to close it.
Whatever she's here to discuss is something she doesn't want anyone to eavesdrop on.
Her hesitant steps are accompanied by a rub of her sweaty palms on her sweatshirt. She surely doesn't want to have this conversation.
I wonder what's so important that she has to tell me. Her nervousness only means that it's something that's unpleasant for her and might be for me too.
Why couldn't she just hide it then?
Isn't that what kids normally do.
"Take a seat, Adeline." My voice is just a decimal above relaxed.
She settles down across from me. I can't see her hands as they're in her lap but I can guess she's fiddling her fingers nervously.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" I ask and she looks up as if I broke her thoughts and brought her back to reality.
"Um, yes. I want to tell you something." She inhales before continuing. "So- I... Actually mom told me to tell you- I mean trust you and tell you about..."
She falls silent. I lean forward and place a glass of water in front of her. "You don't have to tell me anything that you don't feel comfortable sharing."
"No, I have to tell you. I can't- I've already delayed it for too long, I should've told you when I came here."
If it's about another creepy guy than yes, she should've told me way earlier.
Sometimes I consider telling her that we're in the Mafia so she'll feel more comfortable sharing information about the people that shouldn't be a part of her life, but that'll only end up scaring her more.
That conversation can wait till she trust us.
It was infuriating when I found out that there's someone calling my daughter to convince her that he fucking loves her.
Once I had calmed Ewan and Altas —who absolutely lost their shit at the thought of their sister being involved with a middle-aged man— I got the last received number from Adeline's phone tracked.
Before she even confirmed he's been trying to get her to fall for him —something that'll get him rewarded with death soon— I had the bastard brought to our warehouse.
We always deal with our matters outside of legalities and this fucker had a lot on his plate —multiple harassment charges, two charges of stalking and one charge of assault— that only we could do justice to him.
Ewan has always had anger issues and as expected, he was the first one to want a private torturing session with Marcus. We all had been busy with work lately so none of us had enough time to spend with him.
He's still breathing. Not for long though.
Since she hid the call of her fucking ex-neighbor, I had rest of her call records checked. But all was good. She only receives calls from her stepfather and his son.
She asks for permission before downing the whole glass. I watch her intently, giving her time to collect herself.
She looks up from her lap, directly into my eyes and I know she's going to tell me whatever it is that has been bothering her so much.
"I'm pregnant."
I take a moment to register what she just said. Her eyes stays on me cautiously, almost like she's uncertain if I'll pounce on her any moment now.
"I think I misheard you." She couldn't possibly have said what I just heard.
"I'm pregnant." She repeats the same damn words.
I watch her gulp and grab the armrest in a death grip as the truth finally dawns on me.
My fourteen year old daughter is pregnant.
I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't even know how to feel right now.
I barely know my daughter but as much as I do -from living with her and studying the years of data on her ranging from hobbies to habits-, I would've never thought that she would be sexually involved with a guy at such a young age.
For a few minutes, we sit in silence. I'm at loss of words and she's waiting for me to take over. I try to pick the most important one from the thousands of questions running in my mind and blurt it out.
"Who's the father?"
Teenagers do stupid stuff but most of the times, they aren't even aware of either the act or the consequences of it.
It scares me to think that someone took advantage of her naivety and got her pregnant. But I try to not let my mind draw out insane conclusions.
I just want to make sure that whatever happened was from her full consent. I hope the guy isn't too old from her and manipulated her into thinking she was giving herself willingly.
My chest painfully constricts as I wait for her reply. She draws in a harsh breath and finally breaks the silence.
"I don't know."
Even though I've mastered hiding my emotions and inner turmoils but at that, my eyes widen. I try to mask it but it's useless as my next words are anything but calm.
"What do you mean by you don't know?" My voice is stunned and the office seems to echo with it.
Her eyes fill with tears and she tries to blink them away to no avail. "I didn't see his face." I get knocked out of breath and stare at her.
Tears fall off her eyes to the now pink stained cheeks. She wipe them away almost furiously as if she was determined to not let me see this side of her.
Her breathing picks up and she draws down the sleeve of her hoodie further to stop her eyes from shedding pain. I can see through it.
She looks hurt.
A tight squeeze of my heart brings me back to present. "Were you....?"
I've never hesitated to say anything. But these words hurt more than I could ever endure. I don't want this to be a reality but my brain already knows it is.
"Yes. I was raped.”
I hastily get up from my seat and she gasps getting up as well. She takes a fearful step back when I near her. My heart breaks that she thinks I'd ever blame her for it.
Her hand clutches her stomach over the sweatshirt in a helpless grip. I pull her in my arms and she tense up. A stray tear threatens to spill out of my eyes after more than a decade but I hold it in.
My daughter needs me.
I can't be weak right now.
After a moment of hesitation, she finally brings her arms around me and her nails dig in my back painfully as I hear a sob escape past her lips.
I close my eyes and feel my chest hurt. I stroke her sides gently while convincing myself that everything's gonna be okay.
She's here with me.
She's safe now.
"Shh... I'm here for you." I whisper and kiss the top of her head. "You don't have to worry about anything or anyone."
She nods in my chest and pulls away, wiping the remnants of wetness off her face —as most of it has soaked my shirt.
"Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me for anything." I tell her and my gaze slip down to her stomach. "Do you... Do you want to get rid of it?"
I don't know what I'd want her to do in this situation but whatever she does I'll support her for it.
She smiles sadly which confuses me. "That's the first thing mom asked when she found out." She looks up at me again and a look of surety plays on her features. "It's my baby. I want to keep it."
I nod. "Now..." I exhale and my nerves flicker with something dark. "When and where did it happen?”