Chapter 38
Stephanie's Point of View
My eyes widened with a terror I had never experienced before, and I felt the ground shifting beneath me. I slid down the wall until I collapsed onto the floor, my hands clutching my stomach frantically as if I were trying to hide my children inside my ribs, far away from his cruelty. I screamed in a voice shattered by weeping, "No, Father! Please... kill me, but don't touch them! They are souls... two innocent babies!"
But my father's features had turned into a mask of stone; there wasn't a shred of mercy in his eyes as he watched my breakdown. "Their existence is my death and the death of my honor every single day," he hissed in a way that made my skin crawl. "I won't allow a whore like you to bring me more shame with bastards that remind me of your fall with a man who didn't give a damn about you."
