When my 8 Biker dads Entered the Company, My Bullies Began to Shake

The oversized leather shoe of a security guard pressed hard against my cheek, the rough sole grinding mercilessly across my skin. The office floor was covered in shattered glass from earlier, so with every bit of added force under his foot, the sharp fragments dug deeper into my face. Blood mixed with the scalding coffee that had been poured over me, flowing down from the corner of my eye and into it. I clenched my teeth and remained silent. Across from me, Lyra held her forehead, where there was only a faint red mark, stamping her foot as she cried out loudly, "Kevin! Look what she did to me! This is definitely going to leave a scar! I just had fillers done, and it cost me a fortune. Do you think someone like her can afford that?" Her sharp nails pointed straight at me and then turned to the security guard. "Do you want to lose your job? Press her face down harder. Grind it in. Trash belongs in the garbage." Kevin wrapped his arms around Lyra, his face full of concern, but when he turned to look at me, his eyes were filled with cold malice. He strode over, kicked the guard aside, and drove his foot straight into my stomach. The acid in my stomach surged upward, and I couldn't even let out a cry. I could only clutch my abdomen and curl up on the floor, as cold sweat soaked through my back in an instant. Before the pain could subside, a tearing sensation spread across my scalp. Kevin grabbed my hair and roughly pulled the upper half of my body up. It felt as though my scalp was about to be torn from my head. I was forced to raise my bloodied, mangled face. His spit landed on me as he shouted, "What do you think you are? How dare you touch my woman? In Manvidale, crushing you would be easier than crushing an ant." Kevin let go and shoved me back onto the glass-covered floor. "I'll give you ten minutes. Call your street-trash fathers over here. One hundred thousand dollars, plus Lyra's medical expenses and emotional damages. If you're even a cent short today, neither you nor your fathers will be walking out of this building." Hearing him demand my fathers' presence, my nerves instantly went taut. My first instinct was that I could not do it. I absolutely could not let them come. Images flashed through my mind of my eldest dad, Philip Holland, the horrifying old gunshot wound piercing through his shoulder blade and the mechanical prosthetic limb he carried; the dad who limped, Jason Lloyd, with the heavy weapons hidden beneath his bed, their serial numbers erased; and the news broadcast just days ago about the government crackdown on biker gangs. My dads had gone to great lengths to give me a clean civilian identity so I could live like an ordinary person. If they stepped into this multinational office building filled with surveillance cameras, those ever-present lenses would strip away their disguises in an instant. What awaited them would be irreversible, lifelong imprisonment. I could not drag them into this. "Mr. Woods, I'm sorry. This is all my fault... but my family is really busy. Could you... please do not call them?" I lowered my head and spoke through the pain, "I'll give up the full-time position. I don't want this quarter's performance bonus or even my base salary. Use it all to cover Lyra's medical expenses. I'll even apologize to her publicly at the company meeting. Please... don't make them come here." Kevin's face twisted with disgust. "Stop putting on this pathetic act. If you don't get your family here to sign the compensation agreement, I'll call right now and have you sent to federal prison." He took out his phone and dialed. "I'm very familiar with the police chief in Manvidale. Charging you with intentional assault is more than enough to land you with a felony. You can spend the rest of your life rotting in prison with that record." Felony record. Prison. The words shattered my last line of defense. If I ended up with a serious criminal record, the police would trace everything back to me, uncover my background, and find the basement where we lived. By then, the ordinary life my dads had painstakingly built for me would collapse completely. Now I had no way out. I lay trembling among the shards of glass. My hand shook as I picked up my shattered phone. The screen flickered on, and I pressed the number of one of my dads, Charlie Cohen.