Heart-On: Turf Wars #2 by Bella Jewel (7 ebook reader txt) 📕

filling up shipping containers with what looks like large crates of stationary supplies.

Hmmm.

Smart man.

“Right in there, Ramona.”

I look to Harold, humbled he knows my name. “Thanks, Harold.”

“Very welcome.”

I reach for the door and hesitate, but I know I have to do this. I don’t have any family left, well, not family that actually wants to be in my life. I can’t risk going through the rest of my journey alone. He is my father, at the very least I owe him the chance to explain himself.

I push the door open and step into a massive office where my dad is sitting behind a desk. It’s funny, seeing him behind a desk. He’s such a dangerous looking man, and even now he’s wearing a dusty old leather jacket, jeans, and his hair is a mess. He certainly doesn’t look in any way like he’s capable of running a business, but it’s clear to see he is.

His eyes meet mine and soften immediately.

That makes my heart feel funny.

“I thought he must have been joking when he said you were here. I’m glad you came.”

I shut the door and sit down on the chair across from him. I fidget nervously, my fingers fumbling together as I try to figure out what to say. On the way here I played this conversation over and over in my head, imagining exactly how it would play out, but now I’m here I’ve got nothing. Not even my sass wants to come out and play.

“I honestly can’t tell you what I hoped to gain by coming here,” I say. “I just know I needed to.”

“I respect that. You have questions and it’s about time you got the answers to them.”

I nod.

“You want to know why I left?”

“Yes, amongst other things.”

“Your mother, well, you know what she’s like. The relationship broke down naturally and I was planning on moving out and working out a custody arrangement with you. She wasn’t going to let that happen. She was angry I was leaving her, and probably hurt, so she did what she felt at the time she had to do. I said I’d give it time, a few weeks, but when I came back to see you, she threw court orders at me. She’d told the lawyer I assaulted you, that I was sexually abusing you and she feared for your safety.”

Oh, god.

Oh, my lord.

“I went to my own lawyer, but, as always, with an accusation like that, you’d be put through the ringer and back. You’d be forced to endure things I wasn’t okay with you enduring. So, at that time, I let it be. I let her have her way, figuring when she calmed down after a few months that it would be over. But that wasn’t the case. She outright refused me access and went as far as to threaten my life if I even dared come in and try to see you.”

My mother is the coldest, cruelest human being I know.

“I tried, still. I fought and fought, I came around and she’d slam the door in my face. She’d call the police, she’d do anything she could. I should have fought harder, Ramona, believe me. I know that now. I look back, and I know I should have let her do whatever the fuck she needed, but I should have kept fighting. Then she told me you didn’t want to see me, and she had you tell me that on the phone ...”

I shake my head.

I don’t ... I don’t recall that.

I honestly don’t.

“She had you tell me that you didn’t want to see me. You were crying and told me to just stay away, please, Daddy, stay away. It fuckin’ broke me.”

When he says those words, a flash of memory comes into my mind. As if those words are so familiar to me. God, did my mother make me say those things?

“So I left. I went and started a life away from everything, but I wrote every week. Every single fuckin’ week I wrote you a letter, and while I never heard anything in return, I had hoped she’d at least give them to you. The last time I tried to talk to her, and get her to give me your details, she told me she had remarried and you still wanted nothing to do with me. I let it be.”

I swallow the lump rising in my throat.

I mean sure, he could have fought harder, but god, my mother is a demon, and I know exactly how she works.

I know how she can twist anything to go her way.

“Does it mean I couldn’t have fought harder? Fuck no. I regret that every single day and I’ll own every part of it. But if you think I spent my life not wantin’ to see you, Ramona, you’d be very fuckin’ wrong. You’re my baby girl, and I wanted nothin’ more than to be in your life.”

Tears burst forth and roll down my cheeks.

I swipe them away and look to the side; I’m not sure what to say, what to do.

“Not goin’ to push you, and I understand if you don’t want to see me, but you have to know I’m here, and the second you open your arms to that, I’ll be there.”

I look at him, and the fond memories of the bond we had flash back through my mind. I know he loved me, but I also know my mother made it seem like he just abandoned me. She twisted and turned my heart until it wasn’t even sure it was a heart anymore. In the end I didn’t know who to believe.

“I do want you to be in my life,” I say softly. “But it has to be slow. I’m ... treading carefully. I’ve been hurt a lot. More than you could possibly know. Mom didn’t make my life easy, and she’s still not making it easy.”

“She hurtin’ you?” he growls, his face going from soft to hard in a matter of seconds.

“No, she’s