Chapter 256 - 0256: Get Ready To Be Disowned

Chapter 256: Chapter 0256: Get Ready To Be Disowned

Graham’s Point Of View

"She’s as valuable as an empty shell," he said, his voice dropping to a quiet register that somehow cut deeper than any shout. "And you’re willing to destroy everything for that."

Something inside me snapped.

"DAD!!"

The word ripped from my chest before I could stop it, raw and desperate. He didn’t even blink. His expression remained carved from stone, unmoved by the crack in my voice, unmoved by the plea buried beneath it.

"Don’t you ’Dad’ me." His voice came sharper this time, like a blade dragged slowly across glass, deliberate and merciless.

"Have you suddenly become holy?" he continued, stepping closer. His eyes narrowed as he studied my face, searching for cracks in my resolve, hunting for the weakness he knew had to be there. "Or have you conveniently forgotten everything you did to that woman?"

I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached.

"That’s not..."

"You yourself said those words to me." He cut me off without hesitation, without mercy. "I’m only repeating your words to you." He paused, letting each syllable land like a hammer blow. "Your exact words."

The room went still. Too still. The silence pressed against my eardrums, thick and suffocating, the kind of quiet that exists only in the aftermath of something irreversible. My chest tightened as his words burrowed beneath my skin, finding their mark with surgical precision. And before I could stop it, the memory came back. Not gently. Not in pieces.

It slammed into me with the force of a physical blow, dragging me under, pulling me down into a past I’d spent years trying to bury.

**********

I was standing in this same office. Same desk looming between us, polished and cold. Same leather chair, worn smooth in the same places. Same man in front of me, though his hair had been darker then, his face less lined by the years that now sat etched into it.

The only difference was the version of me that stood there that day - a stranger I barely recognized now. Relaxed. Annoyed. Careless. Cruel. I remembered the way I’d slouched against the doorframe, utterly unbothered by the weight of what I was about to say.

"She can’t even give me a child."

I remembered saying it with such casual venom, the words dripping with contempt. Clear as day. Frustration had colored my voice then, mixed with impatience and something uglier - disdain for her failure to fulfill what I’d seen as her primary function. Like I was discussing a failed business deal instead of a person. Instead of her. Instead of the woman who had once looked at me like I hung the stars in the sky.

My father had leaned back in his chair, listening with that calculating expression he wore so well. Watching. Waiting. Measuring, the way he always did, as if every conversation were a negotiation he intended to win.

"And you’re still keeping her around?" He had asked it casually, as if the answer was obvious, as if the solution was simple, as if she were a line item to be adjusted on a balance sheet.

I scoffed, the sound bitter even in memory.

"She’s useful." That was the word I used. Useful. As if she were a tool. An asset to be leveraged, nothing more. I let out a dry laugh back then, shaking my head with the arrogance of a man who believed he held all the power, who believed nothing could ever touch him.

"But let’s be honest," I had continued, my voice cold and dismissive, "she’s nothing more than an empty shell."

I had said it without thinking, the words spilling out with the casual cruelty of someone who believed himself untouchable. Without hesitation. Without any weight behind it, as if I were commenting on the weather rather than dismissing a human being. Just words tossed into the air between us. Empty. Careless. Cruel in their indifference. I hadn’t even looked back to see if they’d struck anything on their way out, hadn’t cared enough to wonder if walls had ears, if love could overhear betrayal.

My father had nodded slowly, his expression unreadable in that way he’d perfected over decades of business negotiations. Understanding flickered in his eyes. Agreement settled between us like a contract signed in invisible ink. That had been the end of that conversation, the matter apparently resolved to his satisfaction. Or so I thought at the time, foolish enough to believe such callousness could be forgotten, naive enough to think words like that simply evaporated once spoken.

**********

I opened my eyes, the memory dissolving like smoke, leaving behind only the acrid taste of shame. Back in the present, where consequences waited, patient and unrelenting. Back in the same office, though the leather chair across from me now held a different man, or perhaps I was the one who had changed, hollowed out by guilt I hadn’t let myself feel until now.

But everything felt different now, charged with the weight of words I couldn’t take back, words that had traveled years to finally land.

He was watching me with the intensity of a prosecutor who already knew the verdict. Waiting for me to stumble, to contradict myself, to prove once and for all that nothing beneath my polished exterior had truly changed.

"You remember now, don’t you?" His voice carried a note of grim satisfaction, as though my pain confirmed something he’d long suspected.

I didn’t answer, my throat tight with shame. Didn’t trust my voice not to betray the turmoil churning inside me, the nausea rising at the memory of my own cruelty.

He didn’t need me to confirm what he could already see written across my face. His expression said enough... disappointment mixed with something harder, something unforgiving, something that looked disturbingly like he no longer recognized his own son.

"And now you’re standing here," he continued, his tone rising again, frustration bleeding through every carefully chosen word, "trying to convince me that you suddenly care? That you’ve had some miraculous transformation?"

"I do." The words came out before I could stop them, raw and unpolished, more plea than argument.

He let out a short, sharp laugh that held no humor whatsoever, a sound that scraped against my already raw nerves.

"No."

"Yes." I held my ground despite the tremor in my chest, despite every fiber of me wanting to look away.

"No, you don’t," he insisted, each word clipped, final.

"I do," I repeated, hearing the desperation creeping into my voice, hating how much I sounded like a man begging for a verdict he didn’t deserve.

"Since when?" The question hit harder than I expected, cutting through my defenses like it had been sharpened specifically for this moment.

I didn’t have a clean answer, no neat timeline to present, no single date I could circle and defend. Didn’t have a single moment I could point to and say with certainty, this is when everything changed, when I became someone worthy of redemption.

Because it wasn’t one moment that had cracked open my carefully constructed world. It was a series of them, accumulating like water against a dam, each one small enough to ignore until together they became impossible to hold back.

Small observations that lingered. Quiet moments that refused to be forgotten. Uncomfortable realizations that had stacked up until ignoring them became impossible, until the weight of my own conscience demanded acknowledgment, until I could no longer look at myself in the mirror without flinching.

"I realized..." I began, searching for words adequate to the task, words that didn’t exist, not really, not for something like this.

"When?" he cut in again, relentless in his interrogation. "After you humiliated her in front of everyone? Or was it perhaps before that, when you first decided she wasn’t worth your consideration?"

I exhaled slowly, trying to steady myself against the onslaught, against the truth of every accusation.

"This isn’t about..."

"Oh, it is exactly about that," he interrupted, his voice sharp as broken glass. His voice rose again, filling the office with barely contained anger. "Let’s not pretend you suddenly became a different man overnight, Graham. Let’s not insult both our intelligences with that fantasy."

"I didn’t say that," I replied, forcing myself to meet his gaze, though everything in me wanted to retreat.

"Then what are you saying?" He spread his hands, demanding clarity, demanding something I wasn’t sure I could give him.

I looked at him, really looked at him, and saw the protective fury of someone who had watched damage being done, who had perhaps even warned me once and been ignored.

"I’m saying I was wrong." The words felt heavier than I expected, weighted with all the harm they acknowledged, with years of denial finally giving way. But they were true, perhaps the most honest thing I’d said in months, maybe years.

He stared at me, his expression carved from stone. Unimpressed by my confession, as though words alone could never be enough to undo what I’d done.

"And I’m supposed to believe that? Just accept your word after everything?"

"You don’t have to believe anything," I said quietly, recognizing the futility of demanding trust I hadn’t earned, trust I’d spent years systematically destroying.

"Good," he snapped, the single word like a door slamming shut, "because I don’t."

He turned away again, pacing once before stopping by the desk, his hand pressing flat against the polished surface as he leaned forward slightly, gathering himself, the muscles in his jaw working as though he were holding back something far worse than words.

"Do you also remember," he continued, his voice dropping again, quieter now but somehow more cutting, each word precisely aimed, "how you brought a mistress into your home?"

I froze, ice flooding my veins, my pulse hammering against my throat.

He didn’t wait for a response, didn’t give me the mercy of silence.

"Pregnant with your child," he added, and I could hear the disgust beneath his controlled tone, barely leashed, simmering just beneath the surface.

The words landed like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs, leaving me gasping for some kind of defense that didn’t exist.

"So don’t stand here," he added, turning back toward me, his eyes sharp enough to draw blood, his voice rising again with renewed intensity, "and give me all that ’I love my wife’ nonsense because it won’t sell. Not to me. Not after what you’ve done."

I didn’t speak, couldn’t find words that wouldn’t sound like more empty promises, more hollow apologies dressed up as sincerity.

"I won’t buy it," he stated flatly, crossing his arms, his posture closing off any possibility of negotiation. "Not for a second."

The silence stretched between us, heavy and uncomfortable, thick with everything neither of us dared to say. For the first time since I’d walked into this room, I felt something shift inside me - not anger, not frustration, but something far worse. Regret. It sat in my chest like a weight I couldn’t shift, pressing down on my lungs with each breath, suffocating in its totality.

Because everything he’d said was true. Every single word had landed with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through my defenses to expose the raw truth beneath, a truth I’d spent years dressing in excuses. And there was no argument strong enough, no justification clever enough to erase it, no amount of remorse that could rewrite what I had already done.

My father watched me carefully, his eyes never leaving my face. He was taking it all in, measuring my reaction, cataloging every flicker of emotion that crossed my features, the way he might study an opponent across a negotiating table, searching for the tell that would reveal whether I was bluffing. Then he straightened in his chair, squaring his shoulders in that way he always did before delivering a verdict.

"Graham." My name sounded final coming from his lips, like a judge pronouncing sentence, each syllable heavy with years of disappointment I hadn’t let myself see until now. Like a decision had already been made, and I’d simply been waiting in the dock for him to announce it.

"You have two options." His voice was calm, almost businesslike, which somehow made it worse, as though my entire life had been reduced to a transaction awaiting his signature.

I lifted my head slightly, forcing myself to meet his gaze even though every instinct screamed at me to look away, to retreat into the comfortable denial I’d lived in for far too long. His expression didn’t soften. If anything, the lines around his mouth hardened further, carved deeper by years of watching me fail to become the man he’d hoped for.

"Either you sign those papers..." He gestured toward the documents on the desk, the ones I’d been avoiding since I’d entered the room, their presence a silent accusation I could no longer ignore. "...or get ready to be disowned."