Chapter 123
Charles Blackwell didn’t speak at first. He entered the house with slow, deliberate steps, the kind that made every second heavier than the last.
The air around him changed, stiff with tension, as he slipped off his coat and hung it over the back of the chair. He adjusted his cuffs carefully, like he was preparing for something. Like this confrontation was a business meeting he intended to win.
Then he looked at Alex. And everything inside the room went still.
“You really are that foolish.” he said, voice quiet, but sharp as glass.
Alex said nothing. He stood his ground.
“Dating a Turner?” his father continued, his tone dripping with disdain. “What a disgrace. Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
Alex didn’t blink. “I think I have an idea.”
That response, so calm, so unfazed, only seemed to pour fuel on the older man’s fire. His eyes narrowed, lips curling into a grimace.
“Do you?” he asked again. “Do you really understand the consequences of dragging our name into the mud? Mingling with filth?”
Alex’s hands stayed at his sides, but his fists curled slightly. His jaw was clenched tight.
“Do you have any fucking idea what that family cost me? What they cost us? After what they did to your brother?”
Alex raised his eyes slowly. Calm. Controlled. “She has nothing to do with that.”
His father stared at him, that silence louder than any scream. Then finally, he spoke again, his voice low and laced with
venom.
“You’re a disgrace.”
Alex didn’t react. Not this time. The word was familiar. Too familiar. But the sting of it still managed to pierce through.
“You broke up with Henry’s daughter for that? For her?”
Alex shrugged, the gesture lazy but firm. “She’s the one I want, though.”
That seemed to break something in his father. “You think that matters to me?” he snapped, stepping forward. “What matters is what your idiocy is going to cost this family.”
Alex took a step forward too. His eyes were locked on his father’s now. There was no fear there. No hesitation.
“You mean what it will cost you. And the ridiculous standard you set for us.”
The words hit hard, and Alex didn’t stop. Not this time.
“You can keep blaming Ethan Turner for Julian’s addiction if it makes you feel better, but we both know what really pushed
him into it.”
His father’s eyes darkened, a flicker of something passing behind them. But Alex kept going.
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You built this impossible version of him that only existed in your head. Punished him when he didn’t meet it. Made him feel like he was never enough. Even when he tried his hardest, when he stayed up all night studying, when he pushed himself to the edge-all he got from you was a look of disappointment.”
His father’s hand twitched at his side. But Alex didn’t stop.
“You drove him to chase perfection, and when he couldn’t reach it, he broke himself trying. The Turners didn’t do that. You did. You made him feel like he had to be superhuman to be worthy of love in this house.”
He was trembling slightly now, but not from fear. From years of holding this in.
He was guilty of it too, he had refused to call out the truth, but instead blamed the Turners too, hated them.
“He turned to drugs to keep up. To keep going. To numb how empty it felt not being good enough for you. So yeah, blame the Turners all you want. But Julian didn’t end up like that because of them. He ended up like that because he was trying to survive you.”
His father let out a loud, sarcastic laugh-the kind that chilled the room more than any shout.
But Alex stood firm.
He had said it. Everything he said is the truth, the truth they’ve all pushed around for years because they didn’t want to take the blame for what happened with Jullian.
And he didn’t regret a word.
“Here I thought, you’d be something. Turns out you’re more pathetic than that thing you call a brother.”
Alex felt something tighten inside him, but his face didn’t move. His hands remained at his sides, his voice steady.
“Trust me, we would’ve been better off with anyone else as our father.”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “Ungrateful bastard. I broke my back to give you and your weak brother a life most people can only dream of.”
“You mean locking us up in a room with twenty tutors a day?” Alex said, his voice cracking, not from weakness but from long-held fury. “Teaching us six languages before we were ten? Training us to be empty, perfect machines while kids our age were outside learning how to be human.”
He stepped closer.
“That wasn’t the best life, it was a damn prison.”
The older man shook his head, jaw clenched, nostrils flaring.
“You were never a father to us,” Alex went on. “You never even tried. All you cared about was building a perfect heir. Some golden image you created in your head. Well, guess what? You failed.”
“Get the fuck out of my house,” his father roared.
Alex didn’t flinch.
“I’ll leave,” he said quietly, but each word carried weight. “But if you go near my mom or Julian-if you try to punish them for something I did-I swear to God…”
His father scoffed, interrupting him.
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Chapter 123
“You’ll do what, boy?”
Alex didn’t move.
“Try me.”
For a second, neither of them breathed. The air stretched between them like fire, threatening to snap.
“You’re just like your mother,” he said. “Too soft. Always thinking with your heart. You’ll never go anywhere in life.”
Alex’s jaw clenched. But he didn’t take the bait.
He turned to walk away, brushing past his father without looking back. “And you think with nothing at all. Don’t touch them. Don’t even talk to them. Because if you do, I will destroy everything you care about. And unlike you, I won’t hide behind anyone else to do it.”
His father’s voice followed him as he reached the door.
“How about you all fucking leave then? Take them and get the hell out of my house!”
