My Fiancé Abandoned Me For Don’s Adopted Daughter But I’m Don’s Real Daughter Chapter 05
I knew it. Father recognized me.
He said I was heaven’s redemption, sent to save him. He held me in my swaddling cloth, and all that murderous fury dissolved into the tenderness of a first-time father.
He raised me himself. Every wet nurse was handpicked by him personally. Even my baby blanket was cut from the silk lining of his most expensive coat.
Without a mother, I startled awake every night as a baby. My father held me in his arms each time, softly singing this lullaby.
That was a father’s love. The kind no distance or time could ever erase.
My father stumbled toward me. It was only a short distance. He fell three times.
“STOP!”
I looked at the silver streaking through his hair and my nose burned. Tears poured down my face.
I remember when I was thirteen and got my first period. The cramps doubled me over in bed, crying. My father saw and his eyes went red. He searched the entire city for the best doctor and fumbled his way through making me a cup of hot cocoa, hands shaking the whole time.
The man who killed without flinching stood outside my bedroom door holding a mug, and his hands were trembling.
When I was eighteen, a rival family proposed a marriage alliance, offering me in exchange for peace between the two clans. Several of my father’s people supported the idea. A daughter for stability, they said. Good trade.
My father purged every single person who agreed.
Then he poured every resource the family had into an all-out war and wiped that rival family off the map.
Their boss, my father tortured personally for seven days and seven nights.
“So you’re the one who dared to covet my daughter? I’ll make you regret ever being born.”
In my father’s heart, no man on earth was worthy of me.
My father was born with blood on his hands. He was, without question, a monster. He had wronged countless people in this world. But never me. Not once.
That was why I was willing to fake my death, to suffer at the bottom of the world, to atone for him.
“STOP! How dare you… How dare you do this to my daughter!”
My father roared, and every person in the room dropped to their knees.
“He must still care about Pearl. After all, she’s been his daughter for three years. There has to be some affection.”
“Keep it down. If you set Pearl off, we’ll end up like that wretch on the ground.”
Pearl saw my father’s rage and assumed it was on her behalf. The dejection on her face was instantly replaced by smugness.
“Poppa, this bitch dared to cross your daughter! Don’t get mad. I already took care of it myself!”
“I made her the lowest servant in the house! I sent her to wait on the filthiest, most disgusting men in Vincent’s crew! Every single one of them left their mark on her!”
“Oh, and I also made her replace my dog Kaiser at the wedding. We broke her legs so she crawled down the aisle on all fours with the ring box in her mouth! On her hands and knees, like a dog, delivering the rings to me and Vincent! Poppa, you should have seen it. It was hilarious!”
“And her family? I won’t let them off either. I’ll have them all rounded up and buried them alive! That’ll make your daughter feel better!”
“Poppa, don’t worry about a thing. I’ll personally send this piece of trash to hell right now!”
Pearl raised her stiletto heel again, aiming for my throat.
This time I had no strength left to resist. I lay flat on the cold floor.
My father lunged forward and punched Pearl with everything he had.
The force sent her flying. She coughed up blood on impact, crashed into the wedding flower arch, and went down in a shower of blossoms and broken glass.
“Poppa! Why did you hit me? What did I do wrong?”
My father didn’t acknowledge her. His hands were shaking as he lifted me off the ground and into his arms.
His large hands cradled my head, gently, so gently, the same way he once held me when I was a newborn.
“My girl… my angel… my child…”
“Poppa’s sorry. How could Poppa not recognize you right away…”