My father sold me to the Mafia King-Chapter 140/The Fist of Vengeance

Chapter 140

Stuart’s Point of View (Julie’s Father)

The door swung open and Robert entered with that aura that makes knees tremble.

I sprang to my feet, swallowing hard as I looked at the bruises coloring his face; who was the suicidal fool who dared to strike a man protected by an army of guards? He sat in his leather chair with chilling coldness and asked in a tone dripping with venom: "What is it, Stuart... what brought you here?"

I sat on the edge of the chair, interlacing my trembling fingers: "Sir... I’ve come to take Julie."

He fixed his terrifying gaze on me, and I felt my body stiffen under its weight: "Take Julie?"

I said, trying to muster my courage: "Yes, sir... and I will buy her from you."

He raised an eyebrow in biting mockery: "You’re buying her from me?" His repetition of my words made cold sweat break out on my forehead. I nodded quickly: "Yes... just tell me the amount you want."

He leaned back and said in a calm, lethal voice: "You sold me your daughter to settle your debts. I even took pity on you and gave you a sum for her, despite what you owed."

I interrupted him, stammering: "Mr. Robert, I—"

He raised his hand to silence me with a hiss: "I haven’t finished yet."

My heart pounded in my chest as I awaited his judgment.

He continued: "Then I brought you here and offered you the choice of taking your daughter for free or taking 5 million dollars... is that correct?"

I answered in a faint voice: "Yes... that’s correct."

He exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke and said: "But you took the money and left your daughter... didn’t you? And now you come offering to buy her back? I’m curious to know what changed."

I said, feigning brokenness: "I regret it... the money blinded me, but I can’t live without her."

He asked coldly: "And how much are you offering? Do you actually have the funds?"

I answered impulsively: "Any amount you want! Yes, I have it... just give me the figure."

He narrowed his eyes and asked the question I dreaded: "I wonder where you got all this money from?"

I tried to evade: "It doesn’t matter where from... what matters is that I will pay."

Suddenly, he leaned toward me and spoke in a tone as sharp as a blade: "Are you going to pay me with my father’s money, Stuart?"

I was stunned. I felt the ground shifting beneath me; how did he know? I tried to deny it with a trembling voice: "No... I don’t know your father."

He roared in my face, shattering my act: "Stop the performance! I know my father is behind this plan. Trash like you wouldn’t come back for his daughter!" I swallowed the insult by force. Then he asked with lethal suspicion: "Why does my father want to buy her? Is there a secret I don’t know?"

I said in terror: "There’s nothing!"

He asked with intense focus: "Are you sure?"

Before I could find a way out of my predicament, the door opened and Julie walked in. She looked well empowered, even in this place, which astonished me. When she saw me, she froze, her eyes widening in bitter shock.

She took a few steps and said with a coldness I had never known: "What are you doing here, Stuart?"

"Stuart"? She didn’t call me "Dad." That little bitch, has she started doubting her roots? I stood up quickly, masking my face with fake tenderness, and reached my hand out to her: "My daughter... I’ve come to take you home."

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Julie’s Point of View

My eyes were fixed on his hand extended in the air; it was trembling slightly.

That same hand whose coldness I felt as it pried my fingers off him last time, leaving me behind without a single backward glance.

A dry lump formed in my throat, but I swallowed it with bitterness and said in a voice devoid of any emotion: "You really want to take me?"

He took a step toward me and gripped my shoulder with a light pressure that made disgust surge through my body like an electric current. He said in a voice laced with false affection: "Yes, daughter... you’re coming home with me."

I shook his hand off with a swift motion and backed away until I was leaning against the hard edge of the desk. I straightened my posture, lifting my head with wounded pride as I asked him stolidly: "Why?"

He knit his brows in a perfect act: "What do you mean, why?"

I said, the hiss escaping from between my teeth: "Why come now after you sold me twice? What makes you come now to take me?"

He answered, rubbing his palms with noticeable tension: "I regret it, Julie... forgive me."

I searched his eyes, digging for a single shred of honesty, but I found nothing but a desolate void and greed lurking behind his flickering eyelids.

I turned toward Robert, who sat like a stone statue, watching my disintegration in a terrifying silence. I said to him with biting sarcasm: "Do you believe he’s telling me he regrets it?"

Robert didn’t say a word; he just watched me with sharp eyes, as if reading what lay behind my mask. I turned my gaze back to Stuart and pointed toward Robert, saying: "Fine... what did he tell you? Did he allow you to take me?"

My father muttered, looking at the floor: "He hasn’t given me an answer yet."

I asked him, curiosity gnawing at me: "Are you going to pay him back so he returns me to you? I’m dying to know."

Then Robert’s deep voice intervened, cutting through the silence like a sharp blade: "He offered me an unspecified amount for you."

My eyes widened in shock, and I felt a hysterical laugh threatening to erupt from my chest. My bankrupt father, who used to sell the house furniture to pay his debts, was now offering astronomical sums? I said mockingly: "What? Did you find Ali Baba’s cave?"

He snapped with suppressed sharpness: "Julie... this is no time for jokes!"

I took a step toward him, my hand clenching tightly: "Your return here and this performance of yours is the real joke to me."

He said in a broken tone: "Julie, truly forgive me... I wasn’t in my right mind."

I ignored him completely and directed my gaze to Robert; I wanted to see my reflection in his eyes. Would he get rid of me so easily? I asked with a stability that surprised even me: "Do you accept his offer? Will you sell me to my father again?"

Robert’s eyebrow arched slightly, and his jaw tightened as he looked at me as if seeing a different woman than the one who had been flustered about burning him with coffee moments ago. He said in a voice final and irrevocable: "I do not accept."

I felt a small victory repairing the shards of my heart. I turned toward Stuart and pointed my finger toward the door with lethal coldness: "You heard him... you can leave now."

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Robert’s Point of View

My eyes were glued to her as I watched her command the battle with a strength I hadn’t expected. I expected her to collapse, to run to him with the tears of a child fooled by illusions, forgetting that he had put her up for sale.

But she stood with a straight back and a dignity that shattered that piece of trash’s ego. She called him by his name as if stripping him of his paternal authority before my very eyes.

When she turned to me and asked with that terrifying stability, I felt a strange prick in my chest... Yes, I, Robert Cross, who doesn’t bat an eyelid, felt fear. I was afraid of this eighteen-year-old girl; how does she transform with such frightening speed? It’s as if there’s an army of personalities inside her, each one pulling me back into the depths of obsession and admiration for her.

Stuart’s jaw trembled with rage, and he lunged toward her with a hostile step, screaming: "Julie! Didn’t you want to get out of here? What changed?"

Julie didn’t blink; she replied with icy coldness: "I said it... I wanted to. That was in the past, not the present."

A heavy silence fell over the office. Did she really mean that, or was she playing with my nerves? But Stuart lost his mind completely, spitting his venomous words in her face: "What changed, Julie? Did you decide to become a whore?"

In that moment, my vision turned pitch black. I heard nothing but the word he called her a whore. I surged from behind my desk with a primal motion, the chair screeching violently as I stood.

My hand instinctively slid toward my piece behind my back, my fingers itching to empty lead into his skull. I didn’t care that he was her father; I was going to kill him on the spot.

But a sharp voice halted my movement: "I’ll handle this... this is my business!"

My hand froze on the grip of the pistol as I watched Julie advance toward Stuart with an eerie calm the calm before the storm.

Suddenly, with a graceful, lightning-fast motion I never imagined she possessed, she balled her fist and delivered a snapping punch that echoed throughout the office.

Stuart staggered back, his jaw connecting with a muffled thud as he clutched his face in disbelief. My eyes widened as I saw her small fist trembling from the impact, and I wondered in awe: How did she manage that? And where did she get this hidden strength?