Chapter 10
1074words
Silas... he actually... got my father out of prison.
"Fiona?" Oliver's voice was filled with concern as he grabbed my hand.
My hand was as cold as iron.
I didn't respond to Oliver.
I looked at my father.
He looked old, twenty years older than his actual age. He wore an ill-fitting suit, standing awkwardly beside the heir of the Lancaster Family.
He was also looking at me.
His lips were trembling, his cloudy eyes filled with guilt, pain, and... a deep remorse that I couldn't comprehend.
"Fiona..."
He silently called my name.
I turned my wheelchair, turning my back to him.
"Oliver," my voice was flat, "please close the curtains for me."
"Fiona!"
Silas's roar came from outside the window. He probably hadn't expected that I wouldn't even want to see my father.
Oliver didn't move.
He sighed: "Fiona, it's very cold outside. They've been standing there for a long time. And..."
He paused: "That's your father."
My father.
My fingers gripping the wheelchair armrests turned white from the pressure.
Yes.
He is my father.
The father who, when I needed him most, chose to be "great," chose "sacrifice," chose to "take the blame."
The father who abandoned his own daughter for his "friends."
The father who left me alone, struggling for so many years in Silas Lancaster's web of lies about "favors" and "hatred"... father.
Do I hate him?
I don't know.
I only know that I'm tired.
"Let them in," I spoke, my voice hoarse.
Oliver breathed a sigh of relief.
"By the way," I added, "it's noon. Oliver, could you... prepare lunch for two more people?"
…………
Lunch was arranged in a private small dining room of the sanatorium.
It was warm, but the atmosphere was depressingly cold.
Oliver sat beside me, like a guardian.
Silas and my father, Robert Windsor, sat across from me.
Father, he... he didn't dare to look at me since he sat down. His hands were trembling violently under the table.
"Fiona... I..." he finally spoke, his voice old and hoarse, "I'm sorry."
I didn't speak, just lowered my head and drank my soup.
"You... you have suffered," he looked at my pale face, his eyes instantly turning red, "It's dad's fault... dad made... the wrong decision back then."
"You did nothing wrong," I finally spoke, my voice soft yet cold, "You are a hero. You saved the Lancaster Family."
My father was choked by my words, and he lowered his head in pain.
"Yes," I forced a smile, "you saved everyone, but didn't tell me the truth. You let me be like a fool, kept in the dark."
"I..."
"Let's eat." I interrupted him. I didn't want to hear his "difficulties."
The dinner fell into dead silence.
Father probably wanted to make it up to me. With trembling hands, he began to put food on my plate.
"Fiona, eat more... you're too thin."
He put a piece of fish on my plate, and I ate it silently.
Silas, sitting beside me, kept nervously observing me.
When he saw that I didn't refuse my father, in his bloodshot blue eyes, there flashed a faint... hope.
He also picked up his chopsticks.
Cautiously and somewhat clumsily, he picked up a piece of broccoli and put it in my bowl.
"Clack."
I threw my own chopsticks onto the table.
"I don't want his." I said coldly to my father, as if Silas was a non-existent transparent person.
Silas's motion of picking up food froze in midair.
The color drained completely from his face in an instant. His hand holding the chopsticks hung there, neither able to withdraw nor set down, lost and helpless.
"Fiona..." Father hurriedly tried to smooth things over, "You... you shouldn't be like this. Silas, he..."
"You're speaking up for him?"
I abruptly raised my head and looked at my father.
This was the first time I truly faced him, in the real sense.
"Dad," I questioned him, "why are you speaking up for him? Do you know what he did to me?"
"I know! I know everything!" Father stood up excitedly, "He told me everything! He... he's not human! He's a bastard!"
"Then why are you still defending him?"
"But Fiona!" There was a complexity in father's voice that I couldn't understand, "No matter how bad he is, he's not as evil as Senior Lancaster!"
I was stunned.
"His father, that old bastard!" Father mentioned Silas's father and trembled with anger, "He is the real culprit! He deceived me, and he also deceived his own
son! He was the one who enjoyed everything, yet pushed all the blame onto others!"
"Silas, he... at least... he admitted all his sins."
I was at a loss for words.
I had nothing to say.
Yes.
Silas was bad. He was arrogant, disloyal, foolish, and cruel.
But at least he dared to kneel in the snow and admit that he "betrayed those who helped him."
And his father, that Senior Lancaster whom I had never met, was the true source of this "mistake."
I fell silent.
Seeing that I didn't speak again, Silas tentatively used his trembling hands to put the piece of broccoli he had just picked up back into my bowl.
This time, I didn't throw my chopsticks.
I just looked at that piece of broccoli without making any comment.
I didn't want to eat it.
I will never forget that he had an affair during our marriage.
I will never forget how he abandoned me by the roadside for Savannah, how he rejected my child.
Father breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that I was no longer resisting fiercely.
He also realized that my decision would not change.
He sat down and respected my silence.
The meal was finished in this strange calmness.
After dinner, Silas suddenly spoke to father.
"Uncle Windsor."
He called him "uncle," not father-in-law. Perhaps he felt he no longer had the right.
"Lancaster Group," Silas's voice was hoarse but firm, "I want... to return it to your management."
Father was stunned.
"I'm old," Father shook his head, "I've just gotten out, and I don't understand anything anymore."
"Then you be the chairman," Silas revealed his true intention, "I'll be the executive officer. I'll work for you."
He looked at me, his gaze intense.
"The Lancaster Group... all the shares," his voice was hoarse, "I will transfer 51%, all of it... to you father and daughter."
