008: Confession

Alexander's POV

I watched as the tiredness disappeared from my father's eyes the moment he seemed to realize where I was headed with everything.

"W..what am I supposed to do with this?" He stammered before tossing them right back at me dramatically. "You got legs worked on, congratulations I guess—"

"Don't act dumb!" I cautioned him sharply, my tone blunt and devoid of any emotion that might suggest that I wasn't being dead serious at the moment. "You consulted those doctors, you said they were the best of the best. So explain that!" I raged on, my finger pointed at the envelope in his grasp.

"There's nothing to explain here. Dr Harrington was just better than them.. it's just luck..."

It might be true that Dr Harrington was simply more qualified than the other doctors, but even doctor Harrington had confirmed that a well trained orthopedist would handle the surgery without much difficulty. So unless all of the doctors my father had called in the past were all illiterates, there was simply no way they could have examined me and come to the conclusion that I could never walk again. Something had definitely happened, and I needed to know what it was.

I stared at my father with rage and disappointment written all over my face. It was one thing to be disappointed in your son, but it was a completely different thing to lie and sabotage his life. And at that moment I couldn't help but feel that my father might have paid those doctors to give me the false narrative that they all did. But then again, it didn't exactly make sense to me. Why on earth would my father want me to remain crippled when he had made it painfully obvious that seeing his only son rot away on a wheelchair made him want to throw up. What could he possibly gain by making me more miserable?

"Are you really going to stand there and lie to my face? Don't you have any sense of dignity left in you?!" I asked in a shaky voice as I tried to keep my emotions in check. My entire body was trembling in rage, and my nails threatened to break through my skin from the insane strength I had balled my fists.

Logan stared at me with visible guilt. He was definitely hiding something, and I could feel that it wasn't something light to vocalize. He definitely knew something, and it was clear that he didn't want me to know about it.

"Just spit it out already! I know you want to say something, so just get on with it! You hate that I'm crippled, right? So why would you keep me that way—"

"It wasn't me! I didn't want that!" Logan yelled back at me.

Logan froze, his eyes widening as though he’d just realized the magnitude of what he had said. His mouth opened and closed several times, but no words came out. He looked like a man trying desperately to backtrack, scrambling to erase his slip-up from existence.

"I-I mean... you’re twisting my words, Alex..," he stammered, his voice losing the authoritative edge it usually carried. "You’re being irrational. You just had surgery. You should focus on recovery, forget about those incompetent doctors."

But it was too late for him to deflect. I had heard him loud and clear, and I was certain anybody in the hallway had done the same.

"Don’t you dare try to gaslight me," I growled, slamming my fist onto the table beside me. The sound reverberated through the room, making Logan flinch. "You just admitted it! You knew! You’ve been lying to me this whole time! So stop dodging and tell me the truth. Why didn't you want me to walk?!"

Logan took a step back, his guilt written all over his face. He ran a hand over his mouth, as if trying to physically hold back whatever was threatening to spill out. "It’s not what you think," he said weakly, though his trembling hands betrayed him.

"Then tell me what it is," I hissed, wheeling closer. "Why would you let me waste a year of my life believing I’d never walk again?! Why?" My voice cracked with the raw pain behind my words.

Logan’s facade crumbled under the weight of my fury. He looked away, ashamed, and muttered something under his breath.

"What did you say?" I barked, grabbing his arm and forcing him to look at me. "Speak up!"

"I was protecting you!" he finally shouted, his voice breaking. "Alright? I did it to protect you!"

The room fell silent except for the rapid pounding of my heart. "Protect me?" I echoed, incredulous. "From what? From who?"

"Your damn cousin!" Father finally confessed and I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I had only one cousin, and that was Mathew Forger. He was the son of my father's brother who was now rotting in prison, Luke Forger.

Ever since his father got sentenced, nobody had heard from Luke, so hearing my father mention him now was definitely a surprise.

"Matt? What does he have to do with any of this?" I asked with a gentler voice, now more curious than angry.

"He's been threatening me all this while. I don't know how he does it, but he knows my every move. When I got your first doctor, he called and threatened me. He said your legs were the price I had to pay for what I did to his father. And if I tried to fix you, then he would come for your life instead."

I stared at my father with a curious glare. His words sounded like a fairytale, but I knew cousin Matt enough to know that he was capable of such. His father Luke had a cartel, one that helped him carry out his dirty works. There were rumors that Matthew had taken over, but nobody could reach him to confirm if the rumors were true or not. If they were true, then the possibility of my father's words being true were high. But even then, I simply couldn't look past the fact that he made me feel miserable for a whole year. He was the reason I was crippled, he was the reason I couldn't get treatment, and yet he would stare at me with disgust in his eyes.

To me it didn't seem like he was trying to protect me, it simply seemed like he wanted to be done with all the drama concerning his brother, and I was simply a minor collateral. This man was not my father, he was nothing less than evil, and I couldn't believe I had spent my whole life wishing for him to love and acknowledge me. I was disgusted to my bones, and there was simply no way I could forgive him for what he'd done.