Chapter 445/I Want My Daughter, Thomas
Chapter 445
Robert’s POV
I swallowed my bitter lump of rage, my icy gaze remaining pinned onto my father’s face. I took a step back, leaning heavily against the desk beside me, and demanded in a cutting tone:
"How did you find Julie?"
My father faltered with noticeable confusion, his eyes shaking as he adjusted his posture in his wheelchair:
"I was looking for her too..."
I narrowed my eyes with criminal suspicion, breathing out:
"Why?... You hate her."
He wiped his chin with a trembling palm, answering dryly:
"Because I needed her for something important."
I took a domineering step toward him, trapping him beneath my towering shadow:
"And why didn’t you tell me when you found her?"
He shook his head, speaking with bitterness:
"You know I don’t like that girl."
I let out a dark, venomous laugh, my voice laced with poison:
"Why don’t you like her? Isn’t she the daughter of your mistress?"
His hardened features contorted, and he blurted out in heat:
"Because she plays with your mind, Robert! Weren’t you the one who rejected the very idea of marriage entirely?! And now I see you’ve gone and proposed to her!"
I dismissed him with a contemptuous wave of my hand, breathing a threatening hiss:
"None of that is your concern... Now, why did you help her brother escape?"
My father exhaled in utter helplessness, speaking in a low voice:
"Robert... I know that you know."
I locked my eyes onto his frail face, hurling the cold truth directly into his teeth with merciless precision:
"Because you want her liver!"
My father squeezed the armrests of his wheelchair, confessing in stifled agony:
"Adam is sick! He needs a liver transplant immediately, or he will die!"
And at that exact second... the door slammed open with terrifying force. Harold stormed into the center of the office, having heard every single word!
Harold’s eyes widened in monumental shock, darting back and forth between my father and me, his voice trembling violently:
"What?! Adam is sick?!"
A flash of surprise invaded my chest Harold didn’t know a single damn thing about his son’s illness, while my father had been pulling the strings behind his back all along!
My father raised his hand, attempting to calm him down:
"Harold... calm down, it’s—"
Harold cut him off with a roar that rattled the structural pillars of the mansion:
"What the hell do you mean my son is sick?! How could you hide this from me, Father?!"
My father offered a pathetic excuse:
"I didn’t want you to worry! He needs a liver donor... and I found someone who can donate to him!"
I intervened in a firm, velvet tone that cut through the noise:
"This is not happening without Julie’s consent."
Harold turned toward me, his face turning pale as a corpse, as he asked:
"Is the donor... Julie?"
My father replied in a bone-chilling tone:
"By a strange coincidence... Julie’s tissue is a perfect match for Adam."
Harold stepped aggressively toward my father, shouting in furious protest:
"Really?! Is it truly a coincidence, Father?!"
My father insisted with suspicious firmness:
"Yes... a coincidence."
Harold slammed his palm down onto the desk, bellowing in mad frustration:
"For God’s sake, Father! Stop lying... just stop!"
My father’s expression darkened, turning far more aggressive:
"Harold... listen to me—"
Harold screamed, shaking his head in sheer disgust:
"You are a massive liar, and I’ve finally exposed you! How could you deceive me like this?! How did I let you fool me for all these years?!"
I stood there, observing the heated argument with a sharp furrow between my brows. I couldn’t comprehend what lie Harold was talking about with such unhinged hysteria!
Harold turned toward me, his eyes burning with tears and utter betrayal, speaking in a shattered voice:
"Do you know that he’s keeping a massive secret, Robert? A secret that made me carry a burden for all these years too?!"
My father jolted upright in his seat, bellowing in a terrifying roar:
"Harold... stop!"
I sharpened my tone into a clear, lethal threat:
"What the hell is going on here? I don’t understand a single thing!"
Harold turned completely to face me, breathing out a bitterness that sliced through the air:
"Brace yourself, brother... to learn the absolute truth..."
Suddenly... breath caught dead in my chest as time itself ground to a complete halt!
The muscles in my father’s legs contracted, and with a smooth, fluid movement devoid of any weakness or frailty, Thomas stood up straight from his wheelchair!
He planted his towering frame firmly onto his two feet with absolute stability, while Harold and I stood frozen in place like lifeless corpses!
My father can walk?! My father can walk with his full strength, for hell’s sake?!
My father locked his dark eyes into mine with a sickly coldness, speaking in a voice completely stripped of disability:
"This is the secret, Robert... I am not crippled."
My pupils hardened into ice. My eyes traveled upward to see my father the man we had spent years pushing around in a wheelchair standing at full height with a raw power I hadn’t seen in him since my youth. I felt betrayal scorching through my veins; years of care, of pity, of service... all of it was nothing more than a grotesque theatrical performance staged to deceive us.
Harold, who was staggering beside me like a man hit with sudden vertigo, stared at my father with terror-filled eyes, choking out a breath:
"You... you can walk?"
My father ignored me completely, keeping his eyes locked onto Harold, speaking in a quiet tone that dripped with poison:
"Yes, I can... and don’t act as if you didn’t know, Harold. You were my accomplice in this for a very long time."
I turned toward Harold with terrifying slowness, my rage crystallizing into a deadly, unyielding calm. My brother’s face quivered, and I felt my blood boiling inside my chest:
"You knew?... You hid this from me for years?"
Harold moved erratically, raising his hand in an attempt to touch my arm, stuttering:
"Robert, no... I was talking about... I didn’t mean to—"
The sharp chime of the front doorbell shattered the room. It was a piercing, unwelcome sound that cut straight through the suffocating tension. We all froze. The maid moved quickly, hurrying toward the front door, while I remained trapped between my father’s elaborate lie and Harold’s devastating betrayal.
A heavy silence swallowed the entire mansion.
𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
A woman walked in with confident, measured steps, her short black dress hugging her figure with lethal elegance. She stopped right in the middle of the room, and I froze in my tracks. She was the older, harsher, and far more mysterious version... of Julie. The exact same facial features, the same detail in her eyes, the same jawline of beauty hiding a violent storm behind it.
She didn’t glance at me, nor did she pay the slightest attention to Harold.
Standing in the center of the hall, she looked at my father with a provoking calmness, then let out a cold, warmthless smile, speaking in a low voice packed with hidden meanings:
"Hello, Thomas."
My father’s eyes widened in a shock that rattled his very core. His features twisted, and the color drained from his face as if a ghost from the darkest depths of his past had just manifested right before him.
His firmly planted foot stumbled backward, brushing against the edge of the wheelchair, and he spoke in a trembling voice dripping with terror:
"Violet!"
I stood rooted to the spot, my jaw locking with a force that nearly pulverized my teeth. Violet... the woman who had carved the destruction of our family in cold blood! The woman my father cheated on my mother with—the dark hand that drove my mother to end her own life in a tragic suicide!
The very same woman I had sworn to myself I would put a bullet through her head if she ever dared to show her face before me!
She tilted her head with a eerie stillness, casting a mocking glare at my father’s living corpse, before shifting her eyes identical to Julie’s to lock directly into the depths of mine. Then, she spoke in a heavy, poison-dripping voice:
"I want my daughter, Thomas."
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Julie’s POV
I gently wrapped my fingers around his small hand, answering him in a low voice wrapped in steady composure:
"I’m not crying, sweetheart."
He blinked his emerald eyes in innocence, asking me:
"Where’s my daddy?"
I wiped the lingering tears from my cheeks using my thumb, taking his soft hand as we guided our steps back toward the mansion, whispering:
"Come on, let’s go inside to see him... he’s in there."
The moment our feet crossed into the main hall, the blood froze solid in my veins. Thomas was standing at his full, towering height on his two feet completely free of any disability or weakness!
But my shock at his miraculous, suspicious recovery vanished in an instant when my eyes landed on that woman standing in her elegant black dress right in the middle of the room.
Time came to a complete standstill. I never imagined for a single day that my path would cross with hers ever again... let alone right here, inside the house of Robert’s father!
I remained frozen, my eyes locked onto her, while she stared at me with unyielding eyes carrying the exact same features she had passed down to me. She was my mother... and despite every single time she had pushed me away, despite every form of harsh coldness she had inflicted upon my existence as if I hadn’t come from her own womb, my body moved toward her with blind, desperate eagerness a longing that was consuming my soul.
I rushed toward her, wrapping my arms tightly around her body, breathing out in a broken, tearful sob:
"Mom!... You’re here?!"
They say a person cannot feel hate in the presence of their mother that you cannot stay angry at her even if she never gave you an ounce of love. It is a strange, overwhelming feeling that cannot be captured in words.
And for the very first time in my life... her hands rested over my back! Her fingers actually patted with warm tenderness over my trembling body, and her voice rose in a low, gentle whisper:
"My daughter, Julie..."
My heart constricted in utter astonishment. Was I trapped in a waking dream?! Was I asleep somewhere, imagining this warmth?!
For the first time in my entire life, she called me "my daughter"! My God, I couldn’t believe what was happening for hell’s sake!
I slowly pulled back from her, studying the details of her face with subtle apprehension. Her gaze was strange, eerie in its calmness, as if another woman possessed her body... but I didn’t care! If this magic would grant me the maternal warmth I had been denied for years, nothing else mattered to me at all!
I looked into her eyes with desperate eagerness, asking in rapid, breathless gasps:
"Mom... how did you find me?"
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Writer’s Thoughts
They always whisper in our ears that this is your life, that you alone are the artist painting its canvas and controlling its course. Beautiful, effortless words when spoken yet light-years away from reality. They so easily forget that the path is never empty; there are solid, unforgiving obstacles, and there are other human beings standing directly in your way, turning your arrival into something akin to a miracle.
Talking about resilience is one thing, but executing it and enduring is a completely different nightmare. No matter how fiercely you try to fight back, you will eventually reach a point of absolute collapse; because the story doesn’t end at the first wall. Beyond the wall, a towering mountain rises, and beyond the mountain, you plummet into a bottomless pit.
Then someone comes along, pats your shoulder, and says: "After the pit, you’ll find your purpose!".. But where on earth do they get such blind confidence? No one holds the map, and seeing reality while your feet are sinking in suffocating mud is nothing like viewing it from a safe distance above.
Some were born with wings that carry them effortlessly, while chickens no matter how furiously they flap will never soar, and the penguin despite being a bird will remain forever grounded, incapable of flight.
So often, we cling to quotes of hope, we blindly trust phrases of determination, living by them and striving with every ounce of strength left in our bones... only to wake up to absolute nothingness.
Because, quite simply, we do not possess the luck of those who uttered those quotes, nor do we share the privileges of those who wrote them, nor the vast wealth of those who achieved them...