My Daughter Called Me Uncle

Chapter 006

The air in the V.I.P. suite of the Blue Horizon Club shifted violently, turning from a stagnant pool of luxury into a pressurized vacuum of raw, killing intent.

As Derek Faulkner’s focused force surged outward, it wasn't just a psychological pressure; it felt like a physical weight, a cold front sweeping through the room that caused the frost on the champagne buckets to c***k. Peter Yates, who had been riding a high of s******c arrogance just moments ago, felt the breath vanish from his lungs. His skin prickled with an instinctive, primal terror, the kind felt by a rabbit when the shadow of a hawk passes over the grass.

His knees buckled, and he nearly collapsed onto the plush white carpet. It was impossible to process how one man’s eyes could hold so much darkness, so much absolute, unblinking authority.

"You..." Peter stammered, his voice thin and high-pitched. "What do you think you’re doing? This is my club! This is my city!"

Derek took a single step forward. He didn't move fast, but there was an inevitability to his motion, like an avalanche beginning its descent. His voice was a flat, terrifying monotone. "I am going to kill you."

He hadn't come here to find Serena Ashford. He had come because Peter Yates had marked himself for death the moment he raised a hand against Lemon Faulkner at the GoodFortune Mart. Derek hadn't ended him there only because he didn't want the girl’s last memory of her father to be a fountain of blood in the rain. But here, in the neon-lit shadows of the Abyssal Lounge, there were no children to protect from the truth of who he was.

"You... you’re young! Don't throw your life away!" Peter shrieked, scrambling backward on his hands and knees until his back hit the velvet sofa. "This is a crime! You’ll go to the military tribunal! You’ll rot in the Inferno!"

His psychological defenses were crumbling faster than a sandcastle in a hurricane. It was no shame to him; even the most hardened commanders on the Northern Front had trembled when the Reaper entered the fray. Derek’s name alone was worth ten thousand soldiers. Against a man like Peter Yates, a mere nouveau riche thug, the pressure was enough to induce a heart attack.

"Serena! Serena, stop him!" Peter yelled, his eyes darting around the room as he looked for an escape. "If he kills me, you’re finished! You’ll have nothing! No one will save your brat!"

The mention of her daughter snapped Serena Ashford out of her state of shock. She saw the lethal intent in Derek’s posture—a man who looked ready to tear the world apart—and she saw her only source of financial survival cowering in the corner.

She lunged forward, placing her body directly between Derek and the man she loathed.

"Haven't you done enough?" she screamed, her voice breaking with a mixture of exhaustion and rage. Tears tracked through the heavy makeup she was forced to wear for the club. "Do you want to murder Lemon, too? Is that your plan?"

Derek stopped, his eyes narrowing. The sight of his wife—his Serena—acting as a human shield for a predator like Yates sent a new, colder kind of pain through his heart. "Move," he said simply.

"No!" Serena spread her arms wide, her silhouette a tragic contrast of elegance and ruin. "I hate this man. I hate every second I spend in this club. But he is the only one in this city who can pay for the specialists at Riverbend General Hospital. He is the only one who can keep the doctors from giving up on Lemon! If you kill him, you kill our daughter. Do you understand that, you arrogant fool?"

In her eyes, Derek was a ghost, a man who had been missing for eight years and had returned only to bring chaos. He was a 'pretty boy' who had likely spent the war in some back-line garrison, now playing the hero while having no idea of the reality of their lives. She didn't see the Supreme Warlord; she saw a husband who had failed her when the "Great Ban" was enacted, a man who had let her become a woman of the night just to buy medicine.

Peter Yates, sensing the shift in momentum, felt his heart start to beat again. His fear was quickly being replaced by a stinging, vengeful malice. While the two of them were locked in their emotional standoff, he reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small, sleek smartphone. With his thumb trembling, he hammered out a quick text to his head of security.

VIP SUITE. KILL THE INTRUDER.

Derek saw the movement. He saw the flicker of the screen and the tightening of Peter’s jaw. He could have intercepted it in a heartbeat, but he didn't. To the Imperial Sage, fifty men or five hundred made no difference. He remained focused on Serena.

"Our daughter is in the state she’s in because of men like him," Derek said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "He doesn't want to save her, Serena. He wants to own you. And he already tried to have her arrested today. He tried to humiliate her in the mud. He is a monster."

Serena let out a bitter, jagged laugh. "Lies! More lies! Why would a man like Director Yates care about a seven-year-old at a grocery store? He was here all day! You’re just making up stories because you can't face the fact that you’ve been a coward for eight years!"

She was shaking with a feral, protective energy. "If you want to kill him, fine. But you’ll have to go through me first. You’ll have to kill the woman who waited for you while you were gone."

Derek looked at her—really looked at her. He saw the way she had hardened her heart to survive. He saw that she had lost all faith in him, and perhaps, in the world. He had intended to give her a life of unimaginable glory, to restore her to the top of the privileged elite, but he realized now that the damage went deeper than money.

The silence stretched on, heavy with the weight of eight years of unspoken grief.

"Fine," Derek said, his aura suddenly receding. The room felt lighter, the temperature rising back to normal, but the coldness in his eyes remained. "It seems you have made your choice. You prefer the protection of a wolf to the love of your husband."

Serena’s jaw tightened. She didn't speak, but the defiance in her eyes was her final answer.

"Ten years ago," Derek continued, his voice devoid of emotion now, "you saved my life. You found me in the rain and gave me a home. Today, I have repaid that debt. I am letting this man live—for now—because you asked it of me. Consider the debt of my life settled. From this moment on, we are strangers."

He turned his back on her. The finality of the statement hit Serena like a physical blow. Strangers? After eight years of scavenging, after eight years of holding his photograph while she cried herself to sleep? The injustice of it made her want to scream until her lungs gave out.

"You’re pathetic!" she spat at his back. "You’re not even a man! You return and the first thing you do is try to destroy the only hope we have left!"

Peter Yates stood up, smoothing his charcoal suit jacket. Now that he wasn't under the direct pressure of Derek’s vital energy, his arrogance returned in a foul, surging tide.

"That’s right, Miss Ashford," Peter said, stepping closer to her, his hand reaching out to touch her shoulder in a mock-possessive gesture. "Listen to the loser. He’s leaving because he knows he can't compete. He’s a lowborn soldier with nothing but a big mouth. Lemon is a beautiful girl; I’d never hurt her. In fact, when you marry me, I’ll treat her like a princess. I’ll give her everything this 'hero' never could."

Serena flinched at his touch, but she didn't move away. The logic of survival was a cold mistress.

Derek didn't respond to the taunts. He walked toward the door, his boots thudding softly on the carpet. But before he could reach the handle, the broken mahogany doors were shoved aside from the outside.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The sound of heavy boots and the clattering of metal filled the hallway.

"Protect Director Yates!" a voice roared. "Which one of you is the rat?"

In seconds, the V.I.P. suite was flooded with men. They were the street thugs and private security of the Blue Horizon Club, a collection of forty or fifty men with scarred faces and the vacant eyes of career criminals. Most were armed with baseball bats or retractable batons; a few at the back had their hands on the holsters of their sidearms.

They formed a semi-circle, blocking Derek’s path to the exit.

"Finally!" Peter Yates barked, his face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated triumph. He stepped around Serena and pointed a shaking finger at Derek. "That’s the one! He broke into my private suite! He threatened my life! I want him broken! I want him crawling on the floor, begging for a quick death!"

Peter looked at Derek, his eyes shining with s******c glee. "What happened to that 'killing intent' now, tough guy? You think you’re a war hero? These men don't care about your medals. They care about who pays their bills. And in this club, I am the only god!"

Serena’s face went pale. She looked at the mob of thugs, then at Derek’s solitary figure. Despite her anger, despite her feeling of betrayal, her heart lurched with a sudden, sharp fear. She didn't want him dead. She just wanted him to understand.

"Director, please!" she cried out, stepping forward again. "He’s leaving! He won't bother you again! Just let him go! He didn't mean it—he’s just... he’s not well!"

She turned to Derek, her eyes pleading. "Run! Derek, please, just apologize and run!"

Derek didn't run. He didn't even look at the weapons. He stood in the center of the room, surrounded by fifty men who wanted to tear him apart, and he felt a strange, chilling sense of peace. He looked at Serena—the way she was begging for his life from the man who wanted to destroy her.

How deep was her love, that even after eight years of abandonment and a night of bitter insults, she would still humiliate herself to save him?

"You shouldn't have done that, Serena," Derek said softly. "You shouldn't have begged for me."

"Shut up!" Peter roared. "Kill him! Now!"

The first wave of thugs lunged forward, their baseball bats whistling through the air. These were men who had broken bones for sport in the underclass districts of Riverbend. They moved with a practiced, brutal efficiency.

Derek didn't move until the first bat was inches from his temple.

Then, he became a blur.

To the onlookers, it didn't look like a fight. It looked like a dance of physics. Derek moved with the focused force of a man who had mastered the Order of Celestial Healers and the ancient martial arts of the Northern Front. Every strike he delivered was surgical, aimed at the pressure points that governed the nervous system.

He didn't use a weapon. He didn't need one. His hands were faster than the eye could follow.

Crack. Thud. Snap.

The first thug went down with a shattered collarbone. The second was sent flying back into his comrades, his breath driven from his lungs by a strike to his energy center. Derek moved through the crowd like a wolf through a flock of sheep, his expression never changing, his breathing as calm as if he were taking a stroll through Newbridge Preschool.

Serena watched in stunned silence. She had never seen anything like it. This wasn't the 'pretty boy' she remembered. This was a force of nature.

In less than a minute, a dozen men were writhing on the floor, their groans filling the V.I.P. suite. The rest of the thugs hesitated, their bravado evaporating as they looked at the man who hadn't even broken a sweat.

"What are you doing?" Peter screamed, his voice cracking with panic. "There’s forty of you! Get him!"

But the men wouldn't move. They saw the bodies of their friends—men who were twice Derek’s size—lying broken and defeated. They saw the way Derek stood, his hands relaxed at his sides, his eyes fixed on Peter Yates with a terrifying, predator-like focus.

Derek took a step toward Peter. The remaining thugs parted like the Red Sea, none of them willing to be the next victim of the man who moved like a shadow.

"You speak of gods," Derek said, his voice echoing in the sudden silence of the room. "But you have no idea what a god looks like."

He looked at Serena, then back at the cowering Director.

"I told you the debt was paid," Derek said. "But I didn't say the reckoning was over."