Page 66 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Fifty

“All her young life she has tried to please her father, never quite realizing that, as a girl, she never could.”

― Alice Walker

Scarlett

I made sure the gun was hidden properly, tucked behind the waistband of the jeans I’d changed into.

The metal pressed coldly against my skin.

I threw on a hoodie, kept my head down, and moved through the mansion my father had rented for the week.

The butlers were still cleaning, their shoes squeaking on the marble as they scrubbed away the wreckage of last night’s chaos. Some of them glanced at me. A few didn’t bother to hide their judgment. I caught the whispers, the laughter, the way their eyes lingered too long.

I hurried down the corridor, my steps fast, then climbed the stairs two at a time.

At the top, I paused in front of a tall wooden door. The surface was smooth, polished, and etched with gold details. It had to be his office.

I exhaled hard, trying to loosen the tension wrapped around my lungs, then knocked once and opened the door.

“Look who finally had the guts to show her face.”

I closed the door behind me as my gaze traveled through the space. An over-the-top library filled with books likely no one had ever read, a grand piano, leather couches, a flat screen, and a desk overlooking the balcony with a view of Los Angeles.

My lips trembled slightly as I stepped closer.

My mom whined, drying her tears with her handkerchief, still wearing her Dolce and Gabbana white gown and pearls.

“ Dolcezza , what were you thinking? You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, young lady! You’ve humiliated us in front of the entire?—”

Kiara cut her eyes up from her phone, still scrolling.

“Scar, seriously? A bodyguard? I mean, yeah, he’s drop-dead gorgeous, but still. You’re out here fucking the help when you could’ve had any Hollywood A-lister drooling at your feet?”

My mother gasped like someone had slapped her across the face. “Kiara! Language!”

She shrugged one shoulder. “What? It’s not like you and Daddy?—”

“Enough.”

My father’s voice sliced through the room. Low. Cold. Measured. Like a loaded gun with the safety clicked off.

I looked at him.

He still hadn’t turned around.

His hands were clenched behind his back. Shoulders pulled tight. Staring through the glass doors of the balcony, where the first streaks of orange were bleeding into the sky.

I could see it from where I stood. The way the veins strained along the side of his neck, thick and twitching like something alive under his skin.

He wasn’t angry. He was past that. He was seething .

“What do you want, Scarlett?”

“ Amore mio , let’s have a?—”

“Shut up,” he roared.

His voice exploded through the room, loudly enough to rattle the windows. My heart jolted against my ribs. I had never heard him scream like that. Not once. Not even at me.

My mother’s face drained of all color. She stumbled back, one hand clutching her chest.

He didn’t look at her.

“Did you know your daughter spread her legs for a fucking killer? That bastard killed his own father. Threw him off a cliff.”

Then he turned and his eyes locked on mine.

And whatever humanity was left in him disappeared.

“You are filth . Rehab wasn’t enough. Therapy wasn’t fucking enough. We gave you chances. We gave you everything. And you still chose to drag our name through shit for a man who should be rotting in jail.”

He looked at my mother, disgust curling his lip.

“Francesca, congratulations. You didn’t raise a daughter. You raised a fucking failure.”

Kiara’s mouth dropped open.

My mom’s eyes welled again, lips trembling like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to cry or vomit.

“The only things you ever gave me were bruises and nightmares, Dad.”

His expression didn’t flinch.

He laughed, one of those cold, bitter sounds that made my stomach twist.

“Should’ve hit you harder if that’s what it would’ve taken to beat the stupidity out of you.”

“I am your daughter!” My voice cracked. I hated that it cracked.

A sob broke free, years of pain tearing out of my chest like they’d been clawing to escape since I’d learned how to speak.

It took everything in me not to drop to my knees, not to break right in front of him like I had so many times behind closed doors.

“I was a little girl once. I used to wait by the door for you to come home. I used to draw you pictures and hide them in your suitcase so you’d think of me when you left.”

Another sob.

“D-Do you remember that, Daddy?”

My breath hitched hard in my chest, every word slicing its way up my throat.

“Everything I ever d-did was for you. I smiled when it hurt. Performed when I wanted to scream. Made myself small so your ego could feel big. Bled in every way I knew, just hoping you’d look at me like I mattered. But it was n-never enough.”

My voice cracked, shoulders shaking.

“I tried so hard to be perfect. I swear I did.”

I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

He watched me silently, not a ghost of emotion on his face.

“I never needed a boss. I needed a dad. I needed a hug. I needed someone who didn’t flinch when I cried, someone who told me I was safe.

But you only came close when it was to punish me, when it was to tell me how I’d embarrassed you, how I was too loud, too wild, too emotional, too much .

When I broke, you looked the other way. You always looked the other way. ”

My fingers curled into fists, nails digging into my palms.

“I let you decide who I could date. I let you control who I could be. I twisted myself into shapes that hurt just so you might call me your daughter with something other than shame in your voice.”

A sound escaped me, something between a laugh and a sob.

“But nothing will ever be enough for you, right, Daddy?”

The air turned thick enough to choke on.

“You never wanted a daughter. You wanted a doll. And when I stopped smiling, when I started to bleed, you put me on a shelf and walked away like I wasn’t worth fixing.”

I looked at him, really looked at him.

“But I was never broken, Dad. You were. And you broke me trying to fix yourself.”

I’d wasted so many years of my life chasing his validation, begging for scraps of love he never had to give.

But how can you receive love from a man who doesn’t even know how to feel it for himself?

A man who spat on softness, who saw empathy as weakness. He hated himself so much he’d carved the same hatred into me, piece by piece.

And I had carried it like it was mine.

I had called it love because I didn’t know any better.

But it wasn’t. It never was.

“You fucking—” He stormed forward, each step louder than the last, teeth clenched, eyes murderous. His right hand balled into a fist at his side, veins bulging beneath his skin.

He was going to hit me.

I reached under the hoodie and slipped two fingers around the cold metal grip.

My breath caught in my chest as I dragged it free, the barrel aimed directly at his chest.

He froze mid-step. Breath caught. Rage still burning, but now buried beneath something else.

Shock .

He was shocked that I was defending myself for once.

I had no intention of pulling the trigger. The gun was leverage.

Nothing more.

A way to show him that I would defend myself if I had to. But I didn’t want to shoot my father.

God, I didn’t .

I loved him too much, despite everything, to see his corpse on the floor in front of me.

I just knew, deep in my bones, that the second I told him I was done, that I wanted a break from all of it, from my career, his expectations, he would lash out.

He always had.

And this time, I refused to be hit.

Kiara screamed behind me, stumbling backward into the corner where our mother stood trembling. High-pitched, broken. Pure fear ripped from her chest.

My mother’s sobs swelled, turning shrill, almost animal, as she grabbed Kiara’s hand. Her pearls clinked against her collarbone as she trembled, hands clamped over her mouth, trying to hold in the sound.

“Scarlett! Put that down!” Kiara’s voice wavered, her fingers white around her phone.

“ Dolcezza , stop it! Now!”

“I’m done, Daddy.” My voice didn’t shake this time. “I want out. I’m pausing my career. Everything. I need a real break this time. Not one where I’m exiled, drugged, and locked away. And I don’t ever want to be linked to you again. Not by blood, not by name. Nothing.”

He took a step forward, hands raised.

I shifted, both hands gripping the gun now.

“If you take another step, I’ll shoot.”

He froze for a breath.

Then he laughed.

A slow, venomous sound that filled the room like rot.

“You’re absolutely insane,” he said, eyes gleaming.

“That’s why I let Travis leak the videos.

So the world could finally see the truth.

See how far gone you are. How fucking disturbed you’ve always been.

No one will believe a word you say after this.

Not your fans. Not a soul. You handed yourself over to some bottom-feeding French thug and called it love?

You think anyone’s going to see that and feel sorry for you? ”

My heart shattered into a million tiny, slicing pieces.It hurt so much I thought I might throw up.

Not because of him. But because of what he’d admitted.

Travis Kensley. Luke’s boyfriend. He was the one behind all of it?

I swallowed, but the burn didn’t stop.

How could a father show the world a video of his daughter in such an intimate position?

“You knew about the video,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, barely human. “You knew. And you let him leak it?”

His jaw tightened, eyes shining with cruel certainty.

“For what?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His eyes already told me the truth.

You deserved it, Scarlett .

And he wanted me to believe it too. That I’d asked for this. That every bruise and every comment online was my fault for wanting to be loved. For loving the wrong person.

I took a step back, the gun still pointed at him, but my whole body trembled now. Not with fear, but with grief so ugly and loud I could feel it in my teeth.

“For what, Daddy?”

My voice cracked open at the edges, hoarse and broken, like the little girl inside me had finally realized she was never the problem.

“Scarlett, please,” Kiara cried out, her arms wrapping around our mom. “Stop. Please, stop this.”

They clung to each other in the corner of the room, crying so hard it echoed off the marble and made my ears ring.

But I couldn’t look at them.

I only saw him.

“You want to know why?” he said. “Because you were never meant to be a Harper.”

The words knocked the breath out of me.

“You don’t belong here,” he went on, calm and cruel. “You were never strong enough. Never smart enough. Never disciplined enough. A liability from the second you were born.”

He took a step forward.

I raised the barrel until it lined up with his heart.

“You’re not one of us,” he said. “You never were, Scarlett.”

My finger tightened around the trigger. The weight of the gun dragged at my arms.

My breath was loud in the silence.

For one second, it was just me and him.

Then the shot cracked through the air, shattering the silence and exploding through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors behind him. Jagged shards rained down in a violent cascade.

The bullet ripped straight into his shoulder, tearing flesh, and my father dropped with a guttural scream, clutching his arm as blood poured through his fingers.

He fell to his knees.

Then the door behind me slammed open.

Three men stormed in with weapons raised, black gear sharp against the white walls.

And through the gaping hole in the balcony doors stepped a masked figure, face half hidden, eyes a familiar shade of storm grey. His stance was calm, dangerous, and draped in a bulletproof vest marked with a security insignia I knew too well.

Théo .

My star in the darkness .

The breath I didn’t know I was holding left my lungs. I lowered my gun, hands still trembling.

“Don’t you ever open your fucking mouth about my woman again, Harper.”

Théo stepped forward, tore the balaclava off his face, and let it fall to the floor. Then he lifted a hand and signaled to the men next to me.

“Take him.”

They moved immediately, dragging my father off the floor as he groaned in pain, still clutching his bloody arm. The sounds of his protests were pathetic, distant, and already fading as they hauled him out.

When the door sealed behind them, the noise inside me began to fade.

Théo turned to me fully now, the fire in his expression softening as his eyes searched mine.

“You okay, baby?”

I nodded, though the sob that tore out of me said otherwise. My knees buckled, and I did the only rational thing left.

I ran into his arms.

For once, I wasn’t running to escape.

I was running into the only arms that had ever felt safe.

I was running home .