The Shoeshine Girl and Her Godfather Father Chapter 06

The Shoeshine Girl and Her Godfather Father Chapter 06

I went still. The image of my mother, covered in blood, flashed through my mind.

Clenching my jaw, I dragged my prosthetic leg forward and lowered my head.

Renata only sneered. She grabbed my father’s arm and turned toward the door.

“Taking this long? Looks like you’re not sincere at all.”

Something inside me finally snapped.

I pounded my fist against the floor again and again until my knuckles split open.

“It’s all my fault…”

“Please… Please save my mother…”

“I swear I’ll never bother either of you again…”

My desperate sobs echoed through the hallway.

At last, a satisfied smile spread across Renata’s face.

“Antonio, look at her.”

“She’s throwing away every bit of dignity she has over two hundred thousand dollars.”

She laughed. “Two hundred thousand wouldn’t even buy one of your ties.”

My father watched me the entire time—no pity, no concern, only disgust.

He pulled out a bank card and tossed it onto the floor like garbage.

“There’s two hundred thousand on it. Take it and get lost.”

“And don’t let your mother come crawling back to me again.”

I grabbed the card and rushed to the hospital.

But right before the surgery was supposed to begin, a nurse stopped me.

There wasn’t a single dollar in the account.

That moment was the most hopeless I’d ever felt.

I looked at my mother lying on the hospital bed—covered in blood, barely clinging to life.

My hands shook as I wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes.

“Mom… Don’t worry.”

“I’ll find the money. I promise.”

I found an unlicensed clinic operating out of the shadows.

I signed papers agreeing to sell my organs.

Just as the anesthesia was about to be administered, my phone rang. It was the hospital.

My mother was gone. She had pulled out her own oxygen tube.

She didn’t want to be a burden to me anymore.

On her bed, they found a letter stained with her blood.

Sweetheart, I’m sorry. You have to keep living.

The day I took my SATs was the anniversary of my mother’s death.

Three years had passed. And I still hadn’t escaped that day.

Holding her portrait against my chest, I cried until I could barely breathe.

“Mom, we’re leaving. We’re going somewhere he’ll never find us.”

I grabbed my crutch and opened the door. My father was standing outside.

The moment he saw the memorial portrait in my arms and the empty pant leg beneath me—all the color drained from his face.

I went rigid. Without thinking, I tried to shut the door.

He blocked it with his arm. His eyes were red-rimmed as he seized my arms.

“What happened to your leg? I thought you were faking it.”

“Lena isn’t dead. None of this is real, right? You’ve both been lying to me.”

He shook me too hard.

The portrait slipped from my hands. It crashed onto the floor.

Glass shattered everywhere, a shard slicing right across my mother’s smiling face.

The hatred I’d buried for years exploded. I slapped him as hard as I could.

“Mom is dead!” My scream tore through the air.

“You never cared about us—not once in all these years!”

“So who are you pretending to be now? The devoted husband? The loving father?”

“Get out! You’re not welcome here!”

I had no degree, no job, no mother. He had already destroyed everything in my life.

There was nothing left for him to hold over me anymore.

I shoved him out the door, nearly hysterical. Then I slammed it shut.

The strength drained from my body. I slid down against the doorframe.

I picked up my mother’s broken portrait and held it against my chest, sobbing.

Outside, my father kept pounding on the door.

Beneath the anger in his voice, I heard fear and desperation.

His voice was hoarse. “Sophia! Tell me what’s going on!”

“How could Lena be dead? She was fine just before, wasn’t she?”

“And your leg… how did you lose your leg?”

A frantic silence followed. Then another violent knock.

“Was this all just another trick to make me feel sorry for you?”

“Why won’t you answer me? Sophia! Answer me!”