My father sold me to the Mafia King-Chapter 53 - 54/Who will you choose?

Chapter 54

Julie’s Point of View

At that moment, I felt as if the hands of the clock had frozen, and time itself had ceased to flow.

My gaze was fixed on him; he stood in his brown suit, which I could distinguish from a thousand others, standing in the middle of the room that had become my private prison after he had pocketed the price of my freedom.

Words vanished from my mind entirely, as if I had never uttered a syllable in my life.

A heavy silence prevailed a silence that screamed with the muffled cries inside our chests.

Robert broke this stillness with a tone poisoned by malice, watching my confusion:

"No hug? No kisses? Not even a bit of longing?"

I shot him a sharp look; he was a master at playing the chords of my pain, mocking my brokenness.

But my vocal cords were completely paralyzed.

Every time I tried to muster my strength to melt the ice in my throat, I failed.

Finally, my father spoke.

His deep voice echoed through the room, making my breath hitch as he addressed Robert:

"Why did you bring me here, Mr. Robert?"

Before Robert could utter a single word, my trembling feet moved across the cold marble with shaky steps toward my father.

I approached him, clutching at the air as if searching for support, and then my words came out stuttering and shattered:

"Why... why did you do this?"

I fixed my eyes on his, searching for a shred of regret, a glint of sadness, or even a flicker of an eyelid that betrayed brokenness.

But his face remained like a stone slab reflecting only emptiness.

Not a single feature moved; instead, he said in a mechanical tone, devoid of any human pulse:

"I was forced."

I extended my hand involuntarily, as if trying to touch any thread of sympathy in his features anything small to prove to me that he was still the father I knew.

But I found nothing but a wall of impenetrable coldness.

Breath rattled in my chest, and a lump formed, blocking the air from my lungs. My voice came out choked, as if I were drawing my last breath:

"Forced to sell your daughter?"

I paused for a second, then continued with a bitter, harsh tone:

"Are you truly my father?"

He raised his hand in a deliberate motion, ran his fingers through his hair, then tilted his head slightly forward to fix his empty gaze on mine.

"You are my daughter, Julie," he said in a resonant voice.

His tone didn’t waver, and his eyes didn’t blink, as if he were stating a scientific fact devoid of emotion.

At that moment, Robert’s raspy voice pierced the stifling silence.

He leaned his massive frame back, his eyes moving between us with clear amusement.

Fixing his gaze on my father, he said with a hidden challenge:

"If you want... you can take her now, Mr. Stewart."

I froze in place, feeling the chill of the marble seep into my very bones. Would he do it? Would my father step forward, take my hand, and lead me out of this hell?

My father’s eyes widened, his features shaking with a bewilderment he couldn’t hide, as if Robert’s offer was a shock he hadn’t calculated.

Before he could open his mouth to speak, and before I gave him the chance to test the hardness of his heart or end his hesitation, I surrendered to all the weakness I had suppressed for years.

A childish tone escaped the depths of my throat an old voice I had buried long ago.

"Papa... please, take me home with you," I pleaded.

I completely ignored the pride I had always boasted of; I forgot the presence of the monster watching us from behind.

It no longer mattered if I looked fragile or broken.

My trembling hands reached out to grip his arms, squeezing them tightly as if clinging to a lifeboat in a hurricane.

I whispered again in a low, broken voice:

"I forgive you... I forgive you for everything... just take me away from here."

My breath came in gasps as I waited for his reaction, my hands feeling the stiffness of his brown suit’s fabric.

I looked into his green eyes, which were darting around the room in panic, as if searching for an exit away from me, or for an answer that wouldn’t shatter what remained of my soul.

My father’s eyes turned away from me, crashing into Robert’s gaze in a feverish inquiry, as if I wasn’t even standing there.

"Can I really take her?"

I turned my whole body toward Robert, trying to see the words as they left his mouth; my ears were no longer enough to believe what was happening.

Robert replied with total coldness, clasping his fingers in front of his chest with a confident tone:

"Yes... take her, and keep the money too."

In that moment, I felt a strange lightness, as if I were in a purple dream that reality refused to acknowledge.

There was a faint voice in the depths of my head whispering the sentence I had filled my paper with:

"Life gives you nothing for free."

But I crushed that voice under my feet; the roar of freedom in my ears drowned out all logic.

I gripped my father’s arm tightly and began pulling him toward the door with hysterical eagerness.

"Come on, Papa... let’s get out of here quickly!"

I said, stumbling over my steps.

But Robert’s voice thundered through the room like a heavy hammer, pinning my feet to the spot:

"I haven’t finished my sentence yet."

I froze, the chill of the marble creeping back up my spine.

I turned to him slowly, my heart beating the drums of caution.

Yes, I knew that behind this generosity lay a trap waiting for us. I stared at him, waiting for the "whistle" that would either let us pass or crush us completely.

Robert leaned his body slightly, his voice sounding like the hiss of a snake as he fixed his eyes on my father’s.

"Mr. Stewart... you can take your daughter now and leave..."

He paused for a second that felt longer than my entire life, then moved his gaze to me with terrifying slowness and finished:

"Or... you can take five million dollars."

Suddenly, the air in the room felt like lead, weighing tons upon my lungs.

My chest tightened until I almost suffocated.

Robert averted his gaze with a lethal indifference and threw his final question like a poisoned dagger:

"What will you choose, Mr. Stewart?"

I turned to my father.

He was stunned, absent from existence before that astronomical sum.

I shook him hard, screaming with my whole being to remind him that I was here, that I am a human being who feels and hurts.

But the glitter of the money had completely blinded his vision.

I directed my gaze at Robert, trying to gather the remnants of my lost faith.

"You cannot tempt my father with your money!"

I said with a trembling rage.

"He was forced at first because of his debts, but now ..."

His cold features cut me off; his confidence was terrifying the confidence of a man who knows every person has a weakness, and my father’s weakness was a handful of paper.

I went back to my father, pulling his arm with a plea that broke my own heart:

"Come on, Papa... let’s go, please."

But his arm remained rigid, as if he could no longer hear anything but the sound of counting money in his imagination.

"Five million dollars..." he said in a low voice, unbelieving, as if whispering a magic spell.

I let go of his arm suddenly, as if I had touched a glowing coal. My hand dropped to my side, and my heart plummeted with it.

He didn’t say "my daughter," he didn’t say "impossible" he uttered the number as if tasting it on his tongue.

In that moment, I felt the sound of something breaking inside me; it was the sound of my trust in safety, the voice of fatherhood that I thought could not be sold.

I turned to Robert.

I saw a half-smile on his lips not a smile of victory, but one of contempt... contempt for this human weakness he had just bought.

I tightened my chest muscles and held my breath for seconds.

I felt my heart beating like war drums I was preparing to fight against Robert, but suddenly I found myself pointing the barrel of my only weapon—my pleas—at my father’s chest.

I gripped his stiff hand, shaking it madly as if trying to tear his soul from its numbness.

I screamed words that came out of my throat torn:

"Papa... the walls here reek of sin! Girls are led every night like sacrifices to men’s beds... please, don’t leave me here to be devoured by this place! I’m suffocating!"

I was throwing my body and soul at his feet, trying with every tremor in my voice to shatter the veil that the money had cast over his eyes.

But my father’s face remained a waxen mask, unmoving.

The hiss of Robert’s voice pierced the silence, asking with a coldness that soaked every syllable:

"What will you choose, Mr. Stewart?"

Fire ignited in my chest. I turned toward him, my body shaking like a spark.

"Stop this! Stop manipulating us!"

I screamed in his face with all the oppression I possessed.

My scream hit the deaf walls and returned to me in vain.

His eyes didn’t shift from my father, as if he were watching the hands of a clock about to stop.

With terrifying slowness, my father’s lips moved.

His voice was low, fragmented, as if the words were coming from a deep, dark well.

My breath froze in my throat, and my soul remained suspended by the words he finally uttered:

"I... will choose..."