Chapter 7

• “Where have you been? I have been trying to call you,”
• Her dad yelled the moment she stepped into the house. whether he saw how she looked right now or that she wasn’t okay, he didn’t show it.
• “Dad, now is not the time to yell at me, I am not doing okay rig—”
• Whatever she was going to say died in her mouth as her face was forced to the side by the impact of the slap her dad landed on her cheek. Karina’s hand flew to her face as she stared at her dad in shock.
• “What did I do? Why?”
• She cried.
• “You fool, you can’t even do something right. If you know you couldn’t do the job right then why did you take it up? Because of you and your incompetence, we lost two important clients. I told you not to take them up because I knew you would fail but you were so proud and look where that got you,”
• Her Father yelled at her. Karina saw her stepmom laughing in the corner. She sniffed back tears.
• “I have been working hard for the company since I joined. This is the first time I have lost a deal. a lot of other deals have been lost before. Why is mine different? Do you even know what I have been through today? Do you even care?”
• “What have you been through? Are you crazy? Your incompetence cost us two important deals and you want me to care about what you have been through?”
• Karina couldn’t believe her father was saying that to her face. All he had to do was take one look at her to realize he wasn’t okay but he didn't. He cared more about the company than he did about his only biological child.
• “Yes, I expect you to care about what I have been through! I AM YOUR CHILD! YOUR ONLY BIOLOGICAL CHILD!!!”
• Karina yelled as tears started falling from her eyes again.
• “I have two daughters and only one of them is a headache,”
• Yeah, what had she been expecting him to say? Did she really expect him to care? The same man who missed all the important events of her life but somehow found time for the daughter that was brought to him through marriage.
• Why would she expect a man who went on vacation with the rest of the family while she battled for her life in the hospital when she was just thirteen? Why would she expect him to care? Like he ever gave a fuck about her. if this was Ava, it would have been different. Karina swallowed her tears and she bent to pick up her stuff that fell to the ground when her dad had slapped her and rushed blindly upstairs to her room. She closed the door and fell to the floor in tears.
• Getting slapped in the face by the one person in the world that she shared a close blood relationship with on the day that she needed her family the most was something no one should experience. Her life was hell. Her father doesn’t care. All the numerous deals she has brought to the company suddenly don’t mean a thing. Yes, today was her fault but the other client? They already signed a deal. How was she to know that he would back out?
• “I hate it here,”
• She cried. Her life was a mess already but she still needed to break it to her dad that the wedding was off. She couldn’t marry a man who could openly cheat on her just three days before their wedding. She already knew what her dad’s reaction was going to be. already knew that Ava wouldn’t be getting any kind of query for what she did.
• She always gets away with everything and Karina already knew that she would get away from this too or find a way to turn everything on her and blame her. She didn’t know how long she sat on the floor in her room and probably would have stayed longer if someone had not knocked on her door.
• “Knock, knock? Miss? Your Father wants you to come downstairs,”
• Karina heard one of the helpers say. She wiped her eyes and opened the door.
• “What does he want?”
• She asked her.
• “I don’t know but he wants you to come downstairs. They just had dinner,”
• The help replied.
• “Okay, give me a minute,”
• She said and closed her door. She walked to her restroom and splashed water on her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and almost started crying again to think that earlier when she left the house even though her stepmother and stepsister had provoked her, she had been happy. She had been so happy that she would finally leave this hellhole for them.
• If only she knew. She sniffed back tears. The only reason she was going downstairs to answer her father’s call was because she wanted to be done with everything tonight. Just tell everything so that he would be disappointed once and for all.
• She took a towel and wiped her face before retracing her steps back downstairs. The first person she saw was Ava. She was sitting next to her mom and the next person was the child that her stepmother had adopted or something. He was equally hateful towards her but at least she could escape him because he barely lived in the mansion with them. He only comes around once in a while and in those times, she did her best to avoid him.
• “Dad, you wanted to see me?”
• She asked when she walked in. Her father was seated next to his wife who had a paper in her hand. A paper that Karina recognized because it was given to her at the hospital where she went to do the test. Her heart skipped a beat not because of what she thought they would say but because she had no plans of keeping the baby. She couldn’t keep it. her life was a mess of its own. The last thing she wanted was to bring a child into the mess that was her life.
• “You are pregnant?”
• Her dad asked.
• “You saw the test report. You saw my name on it. that should give you the answer you want,”
• Karina responded. She was too tired to give any other answer that might be polite or stop her dad from giving her a dead glare.