Dedicated to:AsassinPrincess
Thank you for being an enthusiastic reader!
So this is the second last chapter of the book.
Only the last chapter and the epilogue are left! I'm in tears. I want to finish it, but I will miss writing Carlton's POV so much (T.T)
Please do vote! It helps so darn much ^^
Love, K!
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"Progress is dancing to the same song that I used to cry to."
~ weheartit.com
Carlton's POV
I grasped that the men helping us were my Father's, but I didn't expect to see him here in this city in the slightest. My mouth hung open and I felt my friends freeze at the sight of him as well.
Father leaned on his matt-black Bugatti, taking a long puff from his expensive cigar, a beam forming on his lips as he held the cigar between his teeth.
My immediate instinct was to whip my head toward Caden, coaxing him for answers.
He muttered under his breath, "I asked him to help me with your rescue." His face was distressed, utterly disappointed in himself. "I had no other choice. I couldn't have done it alone...I'm sorry."
Seeing the distraught on his face, my anger materialized into fear as I looked back at my father. So this is why the police was on our side this time. The police's favour was with none other than our very own father; not the Bancrofts, or the Price family.
Father stood straight, reaching for his hat and lifting it up slightly, bowing in Caden and Alexandra's direction as a form of greeting. Then he proceeded to open the back door of his Bugatti. My heart stopped when he looked right at me, his eyes travelling from my face to the open door of his car.
He wanted to me to go with him.
"It's your call," Caden said from beside me, "If you wanna go...or not." But Caden's anguish screamed otherwise. Father never did favours without expecting something back, even if it was for his own son. Truth be told, he probably helped us only because he knew that Caden would have to give me away. Our hands and feet were tied with our father's "courtesy".
Therefore, I decided to do what was right...for me and for Caden.
My fingers grazed Breanna's. She looked at me with terror on her countenance, shaking her head. I pulled her into a hug, placing a kiss on her hair. Her strawberry scented locks now reeked of gunpowder and ashes.
"I'll come back for you," I whispered so slowly into her ear, that I doubted if she heard me at all.
She shook her head again. "No..." That was all she could say.
I pulled back, embracing Dylan and nodding a thank you and a goodbye at everyone else, all the while, gripping Breanna's hand in mine. Caden wasn't even able to meet my eyes, either because of regret or sadness.
When it was time to leave, Breanna yanked my arm toward her, sternness anointed on her features, begging me to stay. I unwinded her fingers off my arm gently. "I have to go." I lifted my hand up, pressing my thumb lovingly on her bottom lip, dusting off an ash particle. "I'll come back for you."
Her grip finally loosened on me and I backed away from her, looking back at my father who was overjoyed with my decision. But really, it was no decision at all. He had made me obligated to do this.
Also because I needed to know why he wanted me back home so urgently these past few weeks.
I walked away from my friends, and I didn't look back. I had no idea what I was walking into, or when I would get to see them again. My childhood horrors seeped back into my mind as I limped into the Bugatti.
My wounds were still fresh, and burned with every movement. Father sat beside me, not shifting his gaze at me even for a second, the smoke of his cigar barricading his face from view. "We'll get you fixed up first."
And then what?
You never knew it with my father. What could happen next ranged from going for a vacation or for a gang war. He had a plethora of undeterminable circumstances.
We stopped by a hospital, where he had a doctor "fix me" as he liked to term it, all the while I had a deep sadness boiling up inside of me from the fear of never seeing my friends ever again.
How long had it been since I ran away from home? One whole year of doing absolutely nothing with my free time?
It was so bizarre to be under his custody again, to listen to everything he ordered, like a puppet. In all honesty, from the exact moment I left home a year ago, I knew that I'd be coming back. But I never guessed it would be under such pressing situations.
We won over the Bancrofts, but at what cost?
Did it even matter now? Now that we took our Father's help, in exchange for the freedom I had craved for all my life?
I shall admit, I didn't see it coming when the Bugatti rolled up into the airport. I was petrified, gawking at Father's private jet and then at him, with misery.
His responded without looking at me. "Why do you look so surprised? Don't you think you've caused enough nuisance here in New York?"
Here we go again with "nuisance". It was nuisance all over again, just like I had caused him in my teenage years. Everything I ever did was "nuisance" to him, like I was a burden to raise.
I couldn't speak, but I blurted it out anyway. "We're going back to California?" We're going back to that hellish property again? The place where I grew up with nightmares stained with blood? In the gardens where my babysitter killed herself? In the halls that taught me to kill and slaughter without mercy?
"Yes," he said matter-of-factly.
"Why?"
His eyes travelled to mine as the chauffeur opened our car doors, but he didn't answer.
I stood at the car door and watched his back as he scrambled into his private jet, my fingers tightening into a fist. His chauffeur looked at me with pity in his eyes.
Immediately I realised — I didn't want people to feel sorry for me. I deserved this.
I smiled kindly at the chauffeur and straightened my back. Looking behind at the jagged skyline of New York, shimmering under the stars and stretching into the heavens, I said my final goodbye and followed after my father.
*****
I was back again in those wretched gardens, the trees invitingly bowing down at me, its branches eerily shaped like fingers trying to reach for me and grab me. As a kid, this used to freak me out. It still did.
I rushed faster as Father strolled ahead, holding a shotgun in his hand. Several guards were surrounding us as he lead us into an area behind the mansion gardens.
The scorching Californian winds blew, making the hot climate worse under the afternoon sun that was blazing too bright for comfort. The gargantuan mansion loomed over us, almost hauntingly. Its walls slowly dilapidating, the balconies requiring renovation.
I could see myself as a child in all those places — playing in the mud and getting yelled at by my maids, climbing onto those trees and hiding from the guards to waste their time, threatening to jump off if they didn't feed me candy.
But those were the good memories. The bad one's couldn't even be talked about.
There was a shed behind the gardens where all the gardening supplies were stacked. Father kicked it open with fury. When I saw the man tied in the centre of the shed, my feet stopped moving. Father tossed his shotgun at me and I caught it with one hand. He smirked, gripping the prisoner's hair and making him look up at me.
Albrecht Bancroft, Augustus and Alexandra's father's bloodied face stared back at me, making me grip the shotgun in my hand with anticipation.
"While you were busy going after Augustus," Father twisted Albrecht's hair mercilessly, "This son of a bitch was behind all his operations."
I was freaking out. Did Father know what he was doing?! That man screaming with pain, was one of the most influential businessmen of the decade! Well, so was my Father-
"You thought you could torment my sons and get away with it?" He scowled at Albrecht.
He said "sons". My hands became sweaty.
"Let me send you back to your dead family, fucking Bancroft scums!" His face twisted with thrill as he gaped hungrily at his prey with a thirst for revenge. He jerked Albrecht's head away with force, pointing at me. "Go ahead son, put a bullet in his head."
I looked down at the deteriorated weapon in my hands and felt the sheer power of it consume my senses. I knew someone was backing up Augustus. Why didn't I figure out that it was his own father? Was it because I looked up to Albrecht as a role model and couldn't imagine him hurting anyone?
If Albrecht was always behind it, it would mean that he was the one who killed Aunt Vivian. He was the one who let Augustus harass Breanna, and attempt to assassinate each and every one of my friends. He was also the one who tried to settle everything through a "fair fight" between me and Augustus, to look like the good guy and make the Hargraves the bad guys.
I had wondered why Augustus was giving himself away for a fight so easily. Now I realised — it was because his father, Albrecht, had ordered him to do so. Maybe Augustus was trying to impress his father by listening to everything he commanded, just like I wanted to impress mine.
My eyes widened when the last piece of the puzzle slid into place — Albrecht framed his own son and used him to carry out all his dirty schemes, so all the blame would fall on Augustus and not him. Father's eyes searched mine and I realised I was taking too long to think. I lifted to the shotgun upto to Albrecht's face, my hands shivering from all the things I was figuring out.
Albrecht didn't adopt Augustus because he wanted to give him all the fortune, but because he wanted to use someone who was not his own son to do his dirty work for him. And then he tried to kill Alexandra, maybe because she was too smart and was too close to figuring everything out and exposing him?
He was an asshole of a father.
"Son?"
I snapped out of it, aligning my shotgun at his face. I could end his brutality with one click.
My breath was stuck in my throat, millions of thoughts rushing through my mind in a vortex of ambiguity. I inhaled and aligned the shotgun again, pressing on the trigger slightly. Just one little push, and I would end all this madness.
A drop of sweat trickled down from my wet hair, travelling down the side of my face, slithering down my neck and soaking away in my T-shirt.
I gulped, pain exploding painfully in my scorched throat.
And I put the shotgun down. "I can't."
"What?" My father raised an eyebrow.
"I can't do this!" I huffed, glaring at him through my tired eyes. "Violence is not the answer."
My father's face lifted in awe, his scowl fading away slowly.
It was true. All those people I had killed just to get here, never made me happy. The satisfaction was temporary, and then I was filled only with anguish. In the end, I tried my best not to stack up bodies behind me, and I had promised myself — Augustus was the last one. But in the end, I left him alive too.
I walked up close to my father, handing him the weapon, my eyes pleading with determination. "Please, Father. I know what this man did was fucking horrible. And he deserves to die for it. But not now, not like this."
For the first time in my life my Father listened to me silently, pursing his lips sternly without protesting or slapping me right across my face.
"This is not something that people like us are meant to do," I pleaded, gripping the shotgun in his hand, "We should leave this to the authorities to take care of."
I was shaking with fear. What if my Father just shoots me in the head right now for what I just said? But I said what needed to be said for a long time, and I didn't want to take anything back.
Surprisingly, my father put down the shotgun, his stare digging into mine with intent. I couldn't figure out the expression on his face, so I flinched with fright when he suddenly leaned towards me. I could feel my heart stop for a fraction of a second when he pulled me into a tight embrace, placing one of his hands on my head, caressing it with love I did not know he was capable of showing.
My arms automatically wrapped around him, tears bursting forth as feelings of bewilderment exploded in my heart.
"I'm so proud of you," I heard him say.
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