The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 537

Home had never been a home. Just a prison with him as the warden.

The first time I felt anything like safe again, it was with Liora, months after I met her, sitting beside me on that rooftop when I was so piss drunk I poured my heart out. The words rushed out, and she didn’t judge me, and that was the moment I knew I loved her.

I hadn’t known what to do with that feeling. Most days I still didn’t. But climbing that wall with my father’s blood on my knuckles, I knew I wasn’t giving it up for him.

We came out onto the roof of the bell tower with the wind hitting us both like a wall. This high up, the city looked small and insignificant, the people in it like ants. My father was breathing hard, blood on his mouth, and for the first time since this started, something like fear had crept into his face.

Good.

He went for a loose piece of tile near the edge, wrenching it free before I could stop him, and swung it at my head. I threw my arm up just in time to take it on the forearm instead of my skull, and it still felt like getting hit with a car door. Something cracked. Maybe the tile. Maybe me.

“No weapons,” I said. “You agreed to that.”

“I think we’re beyond that, aren’t we? We’re going to kill each other. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To kill your old man?”

Before I could answer, he rushed at me again, wilder now, less controlled, hair flying in the wind. I caught his arm and used his own momentum to slam him against the low wall at the tower’s edge. He grabbed for my collar instead of catching himself, dragging me down with him.

For one eternal, gut-wrenching second, we were both leaning out over the drop, his fist twisted in my shirt like he meant to take me with him if he went.

Maybe he did.

I leaned back, using my counterweight against his. His eyes widened as I dug my heels into a notch behind the wall, holding fast, and shoved.

The ceremony had begun.

Taking care not to be spotted, I found another window to climb through, this one on the other side of the tower. My entire body ached, my wounds throbbing, knuckles raw, but I managed to drop down into the gallery and crouch there, amongst the rafters, where the shadows were too dense for anyone below to see me.

Not that anyone was looking up. They were all standing, turned to face the door, as a girl in a white dress covered in black marker came through.

Murmurs rippled across the audience as Liora made her way up the aisle, toward Ambrose, toward Bianca and Belinda and the enthralled King.

My fingers tightened into fists against the wood.

Just wait for the right moment.