Chapter Fifty-Three: Father and Daughter
David's eyes followed Lucia as she stood in the stark fluorescent light of the prison visiting room. Her calm, collected presence was unnerving, a mirror of the storm he had never seen coming. For decades, he had wielded control with precision, bending everyone to his will. But now, the daughter he had raised, the one he had thought obedient and fragile, sat before him unshaken, poised, and impossible to intimidate.
He tried to find footing in words. "Lucia… you don't understand. You don't know everything," he said, voice strained, trembling between desperation and anger. "I did what I had to do—for us, for you, for this family!"
Lucia's gaze did not waver. She folded her hands, her voice calm, controlled, yet cutting. "For us? For me? You call hiding your affairs, cheating, and infecting my mother 'for us'?"
David flinched. "I… I did what was necessary! You have to understand! Politics, power, the world—we live in it by strength! I… I protected you!"
She laughed quietly, a sound devoid of warmth, almost like a scalpel slicing through his illusions. "Protected me? You accuse my mother, framed her, destroyed her, and tried to take my life too. Is that your definition of protection?"
David's fists clenched on the table between them, knuckles white. "I am your father! I did what I thought was best! Everything I did was… I did it to survive! To keep us safe! You'll see one day!"
Lucia leaned in slightly, voice steady but filled with steel. "No, Papa. You did it to serve yourself. To feed your ego. To hide your crimes. You call it survival—I call it selfishness, greed, and cruelty."
David's face flushed with frustration, his mind scrambling for any justification, any defense he could cling to. "Margret… I never meant… she was sick! She… I didn't… It wasn't supposed to happen like that!"
Lucia's eyes narrowed, sharp and relentless. "You lied to her, to me, and to the world. You poisoned her life—literally and metaphorically—and yet you think words can fix this?"
He reached out, perhaps to touch her hand, perhaps to plead for some remnant of filial bond, but she recoiled slightly, her eyes hard. "Don't. Don't dare touch me. Every attempt to control me, every attempt to manipulate me—you've failed."
David's chest heaved. His voice cracked. "I… I wanted… I wanted us to be a family. I wanted… your mother, you… safe… happy…"
Lucia shook her head, almost pitying him for his inability to see the truth. "You wanted power, Papa. You wanted control. Nothing else mattered. Margret mattered to you only as long as she was useful, and I mattered only as long as I could be manipulated."
Silence filled the room. David's eyes darted away, unable to meet hers. The prison walls, cold and unyielding, seemed to close around him, echoing every moment of failure and every life he had corrupted.
Lucia's voice softened slightly—not in forgiveness, but in calculated clarity. "I am not afraid of you. I never have been. You taught me too well what it means to survive in a world ruled by deceit and cruelty. But unlike you, Papa, I will use that knowledge to uphold truth, not to destroy it for selfish gain."
David swallowed hard. "You… you're… just a child!"
Lucia's lips curved into a thin, chilling smile. "A child? Perhaps once. But now… I am the reckoning."
The words hit him like a blow. He had spent decades thinking himself untouchable, believing that his daughter was naive, weak, and malleable. He had been wrong. Every word, every pause, every quiet look from her confirmed that he had underestimated her.
David slumped back, exhaustion and fear blending in his features. "I… I didn't mean… I wanted to protect…"
Lucia interrupted, voice low and final: "You protected nothing but yourself. And now, Papa, the world sees exactly who you are. Your lies, your crimes, your manipulation—they are all exposed. And I… am the one who brought it to light."
David's face paled. He had been arrested, humiliated, and stripped of his power, but this—this confrontation with the daughter he had tried to mold—was a torment he could not have anticipated.
Lucia stood slowly, her shadow stretching across the table, her gaze never leaving him. "Remember this, Papa. I didn't just expose you. I made you powerless. I made the world see your truth. And most importantly… I made sure that justice, finally, will be done."
David could only watch, broken, defeated, and unable to find words. His empire, his authority, and even the illusions of control he had held over his own family had crumbled.
Lucia turned toward the door. Before leaving, she looked back once more, her voice cold, deliberate, and unforgettable:
"This is what it feels like to be powerless, Papa. And it's nothing compared to what you tried to do to us."
She left. The sound of the door closing echoed in the small room, leaving David to sit alone with the truth he had spent a lifetime trying to avoid: the child he had underestimated had become his ultimate adversary.