CHAPTER 207: RICKY

The sheer force of his shout made her stumble back a step. She forced her head up, her terrified eyes meeting his.

In his face, she saw no mercy, no path to escape. She knew he would not let this go until he had his answer. She realized her struggle was futile. She took a ragged breath, mustering what little courage she had left.

"Yes, Father," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I was the one who gave Adam the poisonous mushroom. I told him... I told him that if he considered me his older sister at all, he would eat it."

The confession hung in the air between them, a sickening admission of guilt. The fury in Ricky’s eyes intensified, burning hotter.

"Anastasia," he thundered, his voice filled with a profound, bitter disappointment. "I thought you were just jealous of Adam, that you resented him because he would be the family heir, and not you. I never imagined you hated him so much that you would actually try to kill him."

Anastasia looked back down at the ground, unable to meet his gaze. She stood there silently, accepting his words. She knew what she had done. She was ready to face the consequences.

The air around Ricky began to shimmer with heat, a palpable aura of power radiating from him as he struggled to control his rage.

Anastasia could feel it, a suffocating pressure that made her want to retreat further.

"I want to hear the reason from your own mouth," Ricky demanded, his voice dropping to a dangerously quiet tone. "Why did you try to kill your brother?"

Anastasia took a deep, shuddering breath. When she looked up at her father this time, the fear in her eyes was still there, but it was now mixed with a deep, ancient pain.

Her voice, when she spoke, was no longer a frightened whisper. It was filled with a quiet, heartbreaking sorrow.

"Shouldn’t you already know the answer to that, Father?"

The question was not an act of defiance. It was a cry of anguish. The tears that had been welling in her eyes finally began to fall, tracing clean paths down her dusty cheeks.

"Since I was a child," she continued, her voice gaining strength, fueled by years of suppressed pain, "I have always been ignored by you. I thought if I just proved myself, then maybe you would finally acknowledge me."

Ricky’s stony expression did not change. He just stood there, listening.

"So I worked," she said, her voice growing stronger.

"Day and night, I pushed my body to its limits. I endured pain and exhaustion, all to become stronger, all for a single glance of recognition from you. I became the first female hunter in the history of this village. I broke every tradition, defied every expectation, just so you would see me."

A flicker of something—a memory, a brief flash of surprise—crossed Ricky’s face, but he remained silent.

"And then," Anastasia’s voice broke, the pain becoming unbearable, "the greatest tragedy of my life occurred. Adam was born." She took another ragged breath, the tears now flowing freely.

"In the beginning, I loved him. I loved him so much. I wanted to protect him from your behavior, to shield him from the coldness you always showed me. But then I watched how you treated him. How you smiled at him. How you praised him for the smallest accomplishments, things you never even noticed when I did them. And that’s when I finally realized where the fault truly lay."

She was not looking at her father now. She was looking inward, at the deep, festering wound in her own heart. Ricky just stood there, his face unreadable, his silence a heavy weight between them.

"It’s because I am a girl," Anastasia said, her voice a raw, broken whisper. She struck her own chest with her fist, a gesture of profound self-loathing.

"And because I am the eldest. That is my greatest crime, isn’t it?" She was not asking a question. She was stating a fact, a truth that had defined her entire existence. "I have no control over that! If I could have chosen, I would have been born a boy, just like Adam. But it was not in my hands! Can’t you see that?"

The last of her strength gave out, and she choked on a sob, her shoulders shaking.

Finally, Ricky spoke. He let out a long, heavy sigh, the sound filled with a weariness that went beyond the anger.

"I admit my mistake, Anastasia," he said, his voice softer now, tinged with a deep, undeniable sadness. "But there are things in my life... things that have happened... that make it so I can never look at you the way I look at Adam. The way I look at any boy. No matter how hard I try."

The words, meant perhaps as an explanation, were just another dagger in Anastasia’s heart.

She had poured out her soul, laid bare a lifetime of pain, hoping for some small measure of understanding, some sign that he saw her, that he valued her.

She had hoped he would finally embrace her, tell her it was his fault, and recognize the incredible warrior she had forged herself into.

She was the strongest girl in the village, a hunter in a society where women were not hunters. She had done it all for him.

All she had ever wanted, from the very beginning, was her father’s recognition. And in the end, it was the one thing he could not give her. His words confirmed her deepest fear: she would never be enough.

When Anastasia was born, Ricky had wanted a boy. He needed an heir, someone to carry on the family name and the heavy responsibility of leading the village.

Her father’s pained confession just now confirmed the truth she had always felt deep in her bones. She lowered her gaze to the ground, the last of her defenses crumbling. The tears would not stop.

Finally, unable to contain the lifetime of agony any longer, she screamed, her voice a raw, shredded sound of pure despair.

"I regret being born in this house! It would have been better if you had killed me before I was even born! At least then, I wouldn’t have had to suffer through all of this!"

Any other man might have responded with rage at her insolence or with shame at his own failings. But Ricky was not any other man. He simply exhaled a long, slow breath, the sound heavy with the weight of years.