Page 101 of Cinderella and the Daddy

Didn’t mean I had to like it.

His gaze drops to where my hand rests protectively over my still-small bump. Despite everything, his face lights up with something approaching his old smile. "Congratulations. Both of you. A baby—that's wonderful news."

"Thank you," I manage.

We stare at each other across the table.

"Why?" The question bursts out of me before I can stop it. "Why the lies? Why did you disappear and leave me to figure out the mess you made?"

Charles glances at Luka, eyebrows raised slightly. "Didn't you tell her?"

Luka shrugs, leaning back in his chair with deceptive casualness. "This is between you two. Your story to tell."

My father's shoulders sag even further. "I'm sorry, Cindy. I'm so damn sorry. I didn't realize how bad things had gotten with the shop until it was too late."

"What do you mean?"

He runs a hand through his thinning hair, looking every one of his fifty-eight years. "Drew and Anna had been skimming money for months. Protection payments to the Kozlov organization, buying their way into good graces. I thought business was just slow, but they were bleeding us dry. I couldn’t make the payments to Luka. They knew it. I—I think that was their plan all along.”

Anna and Drew, stealing from their own father while smiling to our faces, planning their futures while destroying his.

"When I couldn't make the payment to Luka," Charles continues, "Drew told me not to worry about it. Said the Kozlovs would take care of everything, that they had it handled." He looks directly at Luka now, something like defiance flickering in his tired eyes. "It came down to my life and future, or his. I chose my family."

"You didn't choose me!" The words explode out of me, loud enough to echo off the warehouse walls. "You let him take me! You left me for dead!"

Charles flinches as if I've slapped him. "I made mistakes, Cindy. God knows I made terrible mistakes. I knew Luka. I knew he wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t know him. You made no attempt to get me back. And then you just left me! Kozlov wants to kill me. He almost succeeded. Twice!”

“I thought—I hoped—that if I disappeared, if they thought I was gone, they'd leave you alone."

"Your daughter paid the price for your choices,” Luka says. “They were never going to leave me alone. He’s my enemy.”

"I know that now." Charles looks between us, his face crumpling with grief. "I know I failed you, Cindy. I failed Anna and Drew, too, in the end."

The silence stretches until Luka breaks it. "You want to make it right? Tell me where Yuri is."

"Gone," Charles says immediately. "Bailed right after the warehouse fire. He's probably halfway back to Moscow by now or holed up somewhere planning his next move."

"Then you're not much use to me." Luka's tone doesn't change, but something dangerous creeps into his posture. "Which brings us to the matter of your debt."

I see the fear flash across my father's face, quickly suppressed but unmistakable. "Luka, please?—"

"Here's my offer," Luka continues as if I haven't spoken. "You help me draw Yuri out. Convince him you're ready to make a deal, that you have information he wants. You do that, and I'll zero out your debt and arrange safe passage back to Russia."

"And if I refuse?"

Luka's smile is cold. "Then we finish what we started before you disappeared."

"Luka, no," I start to protest, but he holds up a hand.

"He's not that man anymore," I argue, looking between them. "Look at him. He's learned from his mistakes."

"Has he?" Luka's gaze never leaves my father's face. "Because from where I'm sitting, he still chose to save his own skin when things got tough. Still left his daughter to clean up his mess."

The words sting because they're true. I want to defend him. I want to believe that the broken man across from me deserves mercy and redemption. But this is Luka's world, and Charles made choices that put me in danger. In this life, those choices have consequences.

Charles seems to understand this, too. After a long moment, he nods slowly. "What do you need me to do?"