Chapter 150

CAMILLA’S PO.V

I couldn’t keep my excitement at bay until the next morning, Ryker and I immediately rushed up the stairs and with only a lamp as a source of light, we opened the box. The key fit perfectly and within a second, the box was open. I was terrified for what I would find or not find. It had been buried in the ground for years and there was a possibility that the elements had gotten to the items inside but to my shock, the bound papers were in pristine condition almost as if they had been put there only a few days prior.

I undid the ribbon holding it together and was shocked when I saw that the first letter was addressed to me, not by name though, it read ‘to my daughter’. I glanced at Ryker with scrunched eyebrows wondering what to make of it but he simply shrugged. I lifted the lamp to get a closer look at the box in case I had missed something and that was when I saw it. It was scribbled all over the inside of the box as if someone had taken a small carving pen and etched it- a single name. It wasn’t one I had ever heard before but it was clearly one that had haunted my father for him to have written it like a prayer.

“Who is Annette?” I asked but Ryker shrugged. “My mother never mentioned anyone by the name of Annette. Could that be the woman he loved, the one who got married to someone else?”

“I’m not following.” I remembered he wasn’t there and explained what Briggs had told me. When I was done, he hummed to himself. “Annette could be that girl. I am surprised that he thought of her after all this time.”

“You’ll never know until you read them. They’re all addressed to you.”

“I can get to them tomorrow,” I said in a failed attempt to shrug it off but Ryker wasn’t having it. He could clearly see through my bulls hit because he grabbed a hold of my upper arm.

“I think this is the part where you stop pretending not to care about your father,” he whispered and his worse struck such a deep chord in me that I had to look away. “I know exactly what it is like to have a father who is a complete and utter failure and I know that you are disappointed in who yours turned out to be but I would like to believe that he isn’t the worst.”

“How do I forgive him for everything? How do I read this knowing everything he has caused for us- for my mother. He cheated on her for the entirety of their marriage. How do I live with that? How do I live with myself if I read this and forgive him?”

“It is possible for someone to be a great father and a terrible husband. It is possible for terrible people to do good things and for good people to do bad. Your mother would never have wanted you to hate him because of her. That is one of the reasons she kept all of this from you. It is up to you to make your own choices about him. You can toss this away and pretend like you never saw it but it will eat you for the rest of your life.”

I hated how much his words rang true. I hated how much I wanted to know him, not just from what people said to me but because I knew him personally. I hated how much I cared and if I could erase

“If you had one chance to talk to your father, to get an explanation, would you take it?” I asked and he hesitated before shaking his head.

“My father was a terrible man and I came to terms with that a long time ago. I made my peace with him when I buried him and I said everything I wanted to say to him when I drove my knife into his gut. I have made peace with that but Camilla, my father is not yours. You cannot hold them to the same standards.”

“Do you

think I should read it?”

“I think you should do whatever you think is best. I think you should do what would leave you the least regrets.”

with

I sighed because I knew what I had to do.copy right hot novel pub