Victims No More: Daddy Dearest (Phoenix Club: No More Victims - Volume 2)

CHAPTER 3

When Kelly told Nina the news about Franny's father, the other girl was stunned... and heartbroken. She sat on the bed beside Kelly and gripped her hand.

"They won't make Franny go with him, will they?" Nina whispered. "I mean if she don't want to? And she won't—she loves Max and Horatio."

"I don't know." Kelly stared at their clasped hands. "Emmy said if he can prove he's Franny's father... he'll have a legal right to her."

"That's not right," Nina replied stiffly, a catch in her voice. "Doesn't Franny have a say? She's not a little kid."

"She should," Kelly said softly, her heart in pieces. "But I don't..." Her words drifted away when she looked up and saw Tamara standing in the bedroom doorway. Kelly didn't know how long she'd been hovering around the door, listening in on their private conversation.

"He probably isn't even her dad," Tamara said dully. "They can fake the papers."

"Stop eavesdropping on us," Kelly muttered. "And what do you know about it?"

"I know most orphanages and foster places don't care if the papers are real. They just want to get rid of the kids so the state don't have to take care of them. Anyone can forge papers and claim a kid is theirs. And what do you think happens to those kids?"

Kelly didn't know if she was telling the truth or not, but it didn't matter—because that wasn't the case with Emmy and Oliver. "They won't let him take Franny without knowing for sure that he's really her father."

"And so, what if he is?" Tamara chided. "It doesn't mean he won't pimp her out again. Fathers are the worst. They rape their daughters as if they have some God-given right to stick their dicks in them because they made them."

"You're disgusting," Nina whispered with a tremor.

"Fathers are disgusting. All of them—real dads, stepdads, foster dads. They only want little girls for one thing. And it doesn't matter how little, either."

"Shut up." Nina glared at her. "Oliver would never do that to us."

Tamara huffed. "Maybe not, but that's only because you're girls. I hear he has a fetish for young boys and goes to strip clubs and has young boys strip for him and give him lap dances."

"Shut up," Nine cried. "He does not. He's married to a woman—he doesn't like boys that way. Just shut your mouth."

Kelly stared at Tamara. "Just go away and stop eavesdropping on us. All you do is say hateful things. No one wants to hear it."

The other girl stared back dully. "Maybe I should go away... like Amber did."

Nina gasped softly; eyes wide.

Kelly frowned. "Don't joke about stuff like that."

"Who says I'm joking."

The seriousness of the girl's tone scared Kelly. "Tamara... don't say that. We don't dislike you, it's just... the things you say, upset people. Even scares them at times. Why do you have to talk that way all the time?"

"I tell the truth. Most people don't like the truth. What—do you want me to start lying? Act fake happy? Pretend like everything is peachy now?"

"You could try to see the good in things," Kelly said quietly. "We're here. And this is a good place. We're not with the traffickers anymore. There's a lot to be thankful for."

Tamara shook her head. "You think because we were rescued... that we're actually free?" She huffed. "Most of these kids were ruined before the traffickers got a hold of them. They're damaged for life—they didn't escape anything."