SWNOVELS Chapter 17: Zia
Zia entered the study room of Joshua when he was checking some papers on his desk. He looked at her briefly before gestured her to sit down at the couch. He had been busy lately while he was trying to locate Samuel’s killer. Zia already knew where the killer lived and in fact, she slept in the same bed as him once, but she’d rather held onto the information unless it was necessary for her to share it with everyone.
“You called for me, dad?” she said as she sat down even though she knew well that he wanted to see her.
He nodded before he put down the papers and took out something from his briefcase. Zia’s eyes wandered around the study room endlessly. She could still recall every detail of the room easily. When she was a young girl, Joshua never allowed her to enter this room. Then she followed him to hunt, things changed. Every book and file in this room was about supernatural species. Zia knew there were more than just vampire and werewolf, but Joshua never told her anything else. She heard stories from fellow hunters that there were more than just those two supernatural species. They spoke of lycan which had gone extinct, but someone said it didn’t go extinct.
“I heard what happened,” Joshua started as he poured a glass of whiskey and eyed her briefly.
“What did you hear?” Zia questioned because she wanted to know which part he had heard.
“Everything,” he stared at her. “Brody is a good kid.”
Her mouth almost fell to the ground on the second the sentence left his lips. Zia couldn’t believe that her father defended the man who cheated behind her. She saw what he did at firsthand. If it wasn’t because of Jaxon was there, Zia would have pulled out the hidden gun in her boots and shot Brody square on the head. Was that how a good man should behave? He shoved his dick up into another woman’s vagina and yet here Joshua defended him as if that action didn’t have any repercussion. It baffled Zia as she watched the man who she called as her father. He should have taken her side in this matter, but no, he decided to defend Brody as if that cheater was his biological child instead of her.
“Listen to me, Zia,” Joshua said carefully as she wasn’t able to say anything right now. “I know what he did was wrong, but he did that because he wanted to lure the vampire woman out and he did it at the best way he could.”
“What’s next?” her hands clenched. Her tone was getting harsher, “One day, he would bring another woman to his bed and fucked her and you would still defend him too? Saying that he was doing his job to kill her? By what? By shoving his dick up into her vagina too? Is that it, dad?”
“Zia!” Joshua slammed his hands on the desk which caused her to jump a bit on her seat, “Choose your words wisely. I do not condone such foul language in my home!”
Her tears fell not because she was scared, but because the way her father defended Brody instead of her. That hurt a lot because it showed her where she was standing in her family. It showed that Brody could get away with anything as long as it was related to his missions even though in the end, Zia ended up hurt by his actions.
“You defended Brody as if he was your family while I’m the stranger,” she pointed out while she tried to stay strong. “How could you do this to me? I’m your daughter!”
“Even if I have to choose between a president’s son and Brody as your husband, I’d still chose Brody than a stranger to be my son-in-law.”
Son-in-law? Where did that come from? Did Joshua really think that Zia would end up marrying Brody? She never even said the words of love to him. Let alone a wedding vow. That was something she knew she would never do while she still breathed.
“Or you’d rather sleep with your brother’s killer?!” He threw several photographs of Zia with Jaxon at the park.
She picked one of them and stared at it. Joshua had someone tailed her all along. She knew that she was being followed, but she didn’t expect it would be under the instruction of her own father.
“How could you do this to your family, Zia?” He started to play the guilty card on her. “I’m your father and you’ve been snooping around with the man who killed your twin brother.”
Her hands trembled as she held onto the photograph. “I know you never trusted me.”
“I trusted you with my life and now you broke that trust by seeing him!” Joshua’s index finger slammed against another photograph. “He ruined our family when he killed Samuel. Did you forget about that? So you think his doing is not as bad as what Brody did to you?”
“If you didn’t force Samuel to go hunting, he wouldn’t have been dead!” she shouted with her tears streamed down fast on her face. “He hated hunting, but you forced him to kill! You forced him to hold the gun!”
“Do you think this monster would forgive you?!” Joshua yelled. His nose was flaring with anger. “Do you think the Alpha would forgive you when he found out you killed his uncle?!”
Zia was close to collapse to the floor if she didn’t get a hold onto the chair.
“No, you’re lying. You said the wolf was a rogue!”
“The wolf that you killed a few days ago, his name was Hanson Creighton, the Gamma of Eastern Werewolves Pack. And the man you’ve been sleeping with, his name is Jaxon Creighton, the Alpha of the pack and nephew of Hanson. Jaxon is hunting the killer of his uncle. And what do you think he would do when he found out that the woman he had been seeing was the killer?” Joshua stood straight with his arms crossed his chest, “I can see that your loyalty is shifting to him when you defended him.”
“I’m still your daughter. I didn’t even know he was Samuel’s killer.” she lied on her second sentence because she didn’t want to hear what came next from him.
Joshua grabbed a sniper case from the gun cabinet and put it on the desk, “Proof to me that you are my daughter and your loyalty is still within this family.” he pushed the case to her, “Either you kill him or he kills you.”