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Chapter 785:
That look hurt worse than the slap, worse than the scalding coffee, worse than any insult she had absorbed that morning. It told her that she had ceased to exist for him entirely. That she had been erased from his life as completely as a name struck from a record.
Alycia’s body began to shake. She wanted to run up the stairs, throw herself at his feet, beg for forgiveness, promise him anything. But her legs wouldn’t move.
Cole didn’t hold her gaze. He took a slow sip of his whiskey and turned his head away, as though she had never been there at all.
Alycia stared at the space where his eyes had been, her chest caving in around the wreckage of her heart.
A loud crash cut through the music from the other side of the bar, followed by a string of curses. She turned. A man in a crumpled custom suit, his hair disheveled, was waving a broken beer bottle and screaming at the top of his lungs.
He was screaming a name.
“Lexi! Where are you, you scheming whore! Come back here with my money p>
Alycia blinked, her alcohol-fogged mind struggling to bring the figure into focus.
Her heart stopped.
It was her father. Richard Beasley.
𝖶еeklу 𝗿e𝘭𝖾𝘢𝘴𝘦𝗌 𝗼𝗻
The air in the underground bar seemed to solidify. Alycia sat frozen on her bar stool, staring at the man currently smashing pool cues against the wall and screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. Richard Beasley—once the proud, arrogant patriarch of the Beasley family—now looked like a man coming apart at the seams. His tie hung loose around his neck, his expensive suit was covered in beer stains, and his eyes were bloodshot and wild.
He grabbed the bartender by the collar and shook him. “Have you seen her? A blonde woman, about five foot six, wearing Chanel, carrying a Hermès Birkin? She’s pregnant! She’s carrying my son p>
The bartender shoved him off and brushed down his shirt with a look of pure contempt. “Get your hands off me. I don’t know who you’re talking about, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll have the bouncers throw you out with the garbage p>
Richard stumbled backward and tripped over a chair, crashing to the floor. The surrounding patrons burst into laughter. He sat there on the beer-sticky floor, his head in his hands, and began to sob. “She took everything,” he muttered, his voice broken. “All the cash. All the gold from the safe. She left me with nothing p>
Alycia downed the last of her vodka and stood, swaying slightly, gripping the edge of the bar to steady herself. Then she walked slowly toward her father, her heels clicking across the sticky wooden floor.
She stood over him and looked down with cold contempt. “So that girl Lexi ran off with all your money,” she said, her voice thick with alcohol.
Richard looked up. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed into a glare of pure malice. He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, leaning against the pool table for support.