Chapter 54
Julie’s Point of View
At that mont, I felt as if the hands of the clock had frozen, and ti 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 beco 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 scread 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 ti I tried to muster my strength to lt 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 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 ca 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 chanical 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 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 ford, blocking the air from my lungs. My voice ca 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 mont, Robert’s raspy voice pierced the stifling silence.
He leaned his massive fra back, his eyes moving between us with clear amusent.
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 out of this hell?
My father’s eyes widened, his features shaking with a bewildernt 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 ho 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 away from here."
My breath ca 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 , or for an answer that wouldn’t shatter what remained of my soul.
My father’s eyes turned away from , 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 mont, 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.
"Co 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 hamr, 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 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 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:
"Co 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 plumted 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 mont, I felt the sound of sothing breaking inside ; 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 scread words that ca out of my throat torn:
"Papa... the walls here reek of sin! Girls are led every night like sacrifices to n’s beds... please, don’t leave 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 scread in his face with all the oppression I possessed.
My scream hit the deaf walls and returned to 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, fragnted, 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..."
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