Twisted (Never After #4)(8)

I shrug. “You’re like a roach, always lurking in dark corners.”

He smirks, straightening off the wall and sauntering toward me, leaning down slightly as he picks up my hand and presses a small kiss to the back. “I could teach you a lot about what happens in dark corners, gattina,” he murmurs.

My heart shoots to my throat.

“You two are like siblings,” my father says with a laugh.

Julian frowns as he stands up straight again. He smooths down the front of his black suit jacket, the veins on his hands pronounced from the ink that weaves around them. Squinting my eyes, I realize it’s a tattoo of a snake peeking out of his sleeve, and I track my gaze along his arm, wondering how far up the art goes.

A snake.

Fitting, I think.

A tingling sense of foreboding slithers up my spine and wraps around my neck.

“Baba,” I say, tearing my eyes away from Julian. “Can we talk in private?”

I keep my attention on my father, but the side of my face burns, and I can tell just from the feeling that Julian hasn’t taken his gaze off me.

“I was just leaving,” Julian states. “Rest up, old man. I’ll call you with any important news.”

My father nods as he watches Julian leave, and my fingers dig into the sides of the leather chair to temper the urge that’s whirling through me, telling me to follow him and make sure he never speaks about what he saw. To ask him who the hell he thinks he is.

“I wanted to speak with you too,” my father says. “I’m not sure how much time— ”

“No,” I cut him off, panic suddenly filling up my chest like wet cement. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

His gaze softens. “We have to talk about this. There’s no cure here, sweetheart, and there are things I need to say before I… before I can’t.”

My fingers curl into fists until my nails break skin, hoping the sharp bite of pain grounds me.

“I need you to listen with an open mind,” he continues. “Can you do that for me?”

The knot in my throat swells until it feels like it will burst through my esophagus. I swallow around the pain. “I would do any…” I suck in a shaky breath. “Anything for you, Baba.”

A dark emotion hits his eyes, and even through the ashen skin and the dried-up lips, I see a spark in him, one that I thought was gone forever.

“Do you mean that?” he asks.

I nod, straightening in my chair, desperate to make him see the truth. “With my whole heart.”

“Then I do have one request.” He stops, a heavy cough breaking free. It makes my lungs cramp tight as I watch him struggle through the harsh sounds and rattly breaths before he pulls himself together. He gives me a sad, small smile. “Consider it a dying man’s last wish.”

My heart aches.

“Anything,” I whisper.

“I need you to marry.”

Shock rushes through my middle like a flooding dam.

“Wh-what?” I stutter.

He smiles softly, sitting back in his chair. The clock on the wall is ticking audibly, muddling up my already-racing thoughts as I try to figure out what it is he means. It must be a metaphor or a euphemism, because I know it’s not what it sounds like. He wouldn’t ask this of me. Not this.

My father nods and stands up from where he was sitting behind his desk, walking slowly around the edges and making his way toward me. My heart is beating so loudly I can hear it in my ears, and the sound makes me sick to my stomach.

Am I going to throw up all over his Persian rug?

Sighing, he sits in the chair next to me, reaching out and grabbing my fingers, his frail thumbs smoothing over the backs of my hands.

I glance down at the movement, my chest tightening from the affection. From the way his grip isn’t as strong as it used to be and the fact that every single thing he does is another reminder of just how sick he is.

“You’re my daughter, Yasmin. The most important thing in my life. I need to know you’ll be taken care of,” he murmurs.

I swallow around the dread that’s creeping through my pores. “I can take care of myself.”

“Listen, I…” He pauses, his gaze flicking from my face to something behind me and then back again. “I don’t trust outsiders. My legacy is you and what our family has built. Sultans has been ours since my father came here with a dream to build an empire, knowing one day it would pass down to me and then to a son of my own.”

His words slap me in the face and are a stark reminder that for all the things I am to my father, there’s also one thing that I’m not.

A son.

“Sultans belongs in the family,” he continues. “Everything I have is yours.”

“Then let me have it,” I say, my voice growing strong. This is my moment to prove to him that I’m more than what he sees. It’s not my dream to run a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. My degree was in psychology, not business, and I’d have no clue what in the hell to do, but I could learn. I’ll do anything to make sure his name lives on, that our family’s legacy lives on, if that’s what he needs me to do.

He chuckles, but it’s an empty sound. “You’re the light in my life, Yasmin. But you aren’t meant to live in my world.”

“That’s not fair, Baba. I— ”