My Daughter Called Me Uncle

Chapter 007

"w***e!"

The word was followed by a sharp, violent shove. Peter Yates didn’t care about the fragile woman standing between him and his target anymore. He pushed Serena Ashford aside with such force that she stumbled, her heels skidding on the wine-slicked carpet before she collapsed onto the velvet sofa.

Peter let out a cold, mocking laugh, looking down at her with pure disdain. "Look at him, Serena. Look at your 'hero.' This is the man you’ve been waiting for? This is his so-called character? Even when you’re being hit right in front of him, he stands there like a statue. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t protect you."

He leaned in, his voice a venomous whisper meant to shatter whatever remained of her spirit. "He doesn’t care about you. He’s not even a thousandth of the man I am. I’m the only one who can provide for you. I’m the only one who can keep your world from ending."

Serena lay on the sofa, her hair disheveled, her eyes fixed on the ceiling with a vacant, hollow stare. The words were like salt in a fresh wound. Had he really changed that much? Had the wars on the Northern Front burned away every ounce of the man who had once promised her the world? She felt like a hollow shell, a walking corpse whose soul had been traded for the price of a hospital bed.

She laughed—a dry, self-deprecating sound that carried no joy. It was the laugh of a woman who had realized that her eight years of fidelity were a joke played by the heavens.

Derek Faulkner felt a tremor in his chest. The layers of discipline he had cultivated as the Supreme Warlord—the cold, tactical detachment of the Imperial Sage—were being vaporized by a sun-like core of pure, unadulterated fury. His affection for Serena, suppressed by the shock of her apparent fall, roared back to life with a vengeance.

"You bastard," Derek whispered. The temperature in the V.I.P. suite plummeted. "You have no idea the hell you have invited upon yourself."

A wave of killing intent, thick as a physical shroud, swept across the room. Derek’s eyes, usually the color of tempered steel, now glowed with a predatory, eagle-like sharpness that made the street thugs at the door instinctively recoil. They had spent their lives bullying the underclass, but they had never encountered a predator from the apex of the world.

Peter Yates felt the breath leave his lungs, but his ego was a bloated, diseased thing that refused to recognize the danger. He was in his club. He had forty men at his back. He was a king in this small, dark corner of Riverbend.

"Kill him!" Peter screamed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched shriek. "Beat him to death! I want him to understand who the real king of Riverbend is! Only the strongest man deserves the most coveted woman in the city! I’ll show her what a real man looks like!"

He was lost in a sick, megalomaniacal trance. The sight of Derek—the husband who had returned from the dead—had ignited a pathological obsession. He didn't just want to possess Serena; he wanted to erase Derek from existence.

"Go!" Peter roared at his men. "Earn your pay! Kill the loser!"

The mob of thugs, fueled by the Director’s orders and their own numbers, raised their baseball bats and batons. They snarled, their faces contorted with the cheap bravery of a pack of wolves cornering a lone stag.

"No! Stop!"

Serena found a sudden, desperate strength. She threw herself off the sofa, rushing toward the men. She didn't want to see him die. Despite the insults, despite the coldness he had shown her, Derek Faulkner was the father of her child. He was her youth, her love, the only piece of her heart that wasn't bruised and bleeding.

"Derek, run!" she shrieked.

"Get back, you b***h!" Peter Yates roared, his hand lashing out again. He caught Serena by the shoulder and threw her backward.

The shove was even more violent than the last. Serena, her balance already compromised by her high heels and exhaustion, couldn't catch herself. She tumbled through the air, hitting the hard marble floor with a sickening thud.

Derek stood perfectly still, but the vital energy surrounding him became visible—a faint, shimmering distortion in the air. He was about to turn the room into a slaughterhouse. He was about to unleash the focused force that had leveled mountain strongholds in the Gorge.

But then, the sound from the hallway changed.

THUD. c***k. AAAAAAGH!

The screams weren't coming from the room. They were coming from the corridor. The line of thugs blocking the entrance suddenly dissolved into chaos. Men were being thrown through the air as if they were made of straw. One unfortunate guard was launched through the doorway, his body hitting the mahogany table and shattering it into splinters.

The thugs at the front turned around, their faces pale with confusion. "What the—? Who’s there?"

Peter Yates froze. "Who dares to cause trouble in my club?"

"I do, you sniveling worm."

The thugs at the door didn't just move; they fled. Some literally dropped their weapons and fell to their knees. A path opened, and ten men in charcoal-gray suits marched into the room. These weren't street thugs; they were elite tactical specialists, their faces masks of professional lethality.

And in their center walked a man in his late fifties, wearing a suit that cost more than the entire club.

It was Lionel Graves, the wealthiest man in Riverbend.

The room went silent, save for the muffled sobs of Serena on the floor. In the city of Riverbend, Old Mr. Graves was a shadow that loomed over every industry, every bank, and every government office. He was the pinnacle of the privileged elite.

Lionel Graves stepped over a groaning guard, his face drenched in a cold sweat that he didn't bother to wipe away. He had received a call from the High Command, a message from a man who went by the name Mount Sovereign—the First Warlord. The message was simple: An Imperial Sage is in Riverbend. If a single hair on his head is harmed, your family will cease to exist before the sun rises.

Lionel looked at the man standing in the center of the room. Derek Faulkner looked plain, his clothes soaked with rain, but Lionel was an old fox. He saw the way the man stood. He saw the eyes that seemed to hold the weight of an entire empire.

He didn't know the man’s name—the Supreme Warlord hadn't dared to utter it over an unencrypted line—but he knew the status.

Lionel Graves came to a halt three feet from Derek. To the utter shock of everyone in the room, the man who owned half of Riverbend bowed his head until it was level with his waist.

"I... I came as quickly as I could," Lionel stammered, his voice trembling. "Please... forgive the delay. I will handle everything."

The thugs in the room felt their worlds collapse. Peter Yates stood there, his mouth hanging open, his legs literally shaking. He felt a warm sensation running down his trouser leg. He had just wet himself.

"Old Mr. Graves...?" Peter whispered, his voice cracking. "What... what are you doing? Why are you bowing to this... this pretty boy?"

Lionel Graves’ head snapped up. His eyes, usually cold and calculating, were filled with a terrifying, homicidal rage. He didn't say a word. He stepped forward and delivered a powerful kick to Peter’s stomach.

Oof!

Peter collapsed, clutching his gut, coughing up bile.

"You ignorant, suicidal fool!" Lionel roared, his face turning a deep shade of purple. "Do you have any idea who you are talking to? You think you have money? You think you have power? You are a maggot crawling on a dung heap! You have nearly brought destruction upon this entire city with your stupidity!"

Lionel turned back to Derek, his posture instantly returning to one of humble submission. He waited for a command, a sign, a single word.

Derek, however, didn't look at the billionaire. He didn't look at the shivering thugs. He looked down at Serena, who was pushing herself up from the floor, her eyes wide with a confusion that bordered on madness.

"Serena," Derek said, his voice dropping to a low, somber tone. "We were once husband and wife. For the sake of what we had, I will give you one last choice."

He reached out a hand to her, but he didn't move toward her. He stood his ground.

"You can stand up and walk out of this door with me right now. I will take you to Lemon. I will ensure you never have to worry about money, family, or enemies again. I will give you a life of peace and honor. Or..."

He looked around the neon-lit, d**g-scented room.

"Or you can stay here. You can stay in this house of pleasure, clinging to the 'protection' of men like this, and continue to let your soul wither in the gutter. The choice is yours. I will not ask again."

Derek was giving her more than a choice; he was giving her a chance to reclaim her dignity. He was remembering the woman who had once stood up to the entire Ashford family for him. He wanted that woman back.

Serena looked at his hand. For a split second, she saw the man from the train station. She saw the hero she had dreamed of. But then, the trauma of the last eight years rushed back in—the "Great Ban," the hunger, the sight of Lemon coughing up blood in a sterile hospital room.

In her mind, Derek was still a liar. How could he promise her "life without worry"? He was just a soldier! And Lionel Graves? Maybe he owed Derek a debt from the war. Maybe it was a mistake. But Derek couldn't pay for the Celestial Needle technique specialists. He couldn't buy the experimental drugs from the Grand Hall of Medicine.

She didn't see the Supreme Warlord. She saw a man who was asking her to gamble her daughter's life on a promise he couldn't possibly keep.

"A life without worry?" Serena’s voice was a jagged shard of glass. She pulled herself up, refusing to take his hand. "Stop it, Derek! Just stop with the lies! Do you think I’m still that twenty-year-old girl who fell for your poems and your promises?"

She stood on her own, her legs shaking but her gaze fierce with a desperate, broken pride.

"I am going to stay here until I get the money for Lemon’s surgery!" she screamed, the tears flowing freely now. "I’m going to do whatever I have to do! I will be a woman of the night! I will be a beggar! I will be anything except a fool who believes in you again!"

She looked at him with a gaze full of loathing and heartbreak. "You want me to be 'happy'? You want to 'protect' me? Then leave! Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and let me save our daughter in the only way I know how!"

She couldn't stay in the room a second longer. The presence of the billionaire, the silence of the thugs, and the cold, unyielding eyes of her husband were too much. She felt her heart literally breaking.

"I hate you!" she wailed.

She kicked off her remaining high heel and, clutching her bruised stomach, she bolted. She pushed past the elite guards, her bare feet slapping against the cold floor, and disappeared into the darkened hallways of the Abyssal Lounge.

Derek watched her go. He didn't move. He didn't chase her.

The silence that followed was absolute. Lionel Graves remained bowed, his heart hammering against his ribs. He felt like he was standing at the edge of a black hole.

"Master..." Lionel whispered, not knowing how else to address him. "Should I... should my men bring her back?"

Derek took a deep breath. The focused force that had been radiating from him slowly dissipated, leaving behind a cold, crystalline stillness.

"No," Derek said. "She has made her choice. She thinks she is the only one who can save the child. Let her see the reality of the world she has chosen to trust."

He turned his gaze toward Peter Yates, who was still huddled on the floor, trying to hide behind a sofa leg.

"You," Derek said.

Peter flinched as if he had been struck by a whip.

"Tomorrow morning, there is a parent-teacher meeting at Newbridge Preschool," Derek said, his voice chillingly calm. "My daughter invited me. She wants her 'Dad' to be there."

He leaned down, his face inches from Peter’s.

"You will be there too. You will bring the manager of the GoodFortune Mart. You will bring every person who laughed at her today. And you will apologize to a seven-year-old girl in front of the entire school."

"I... I will! I promise! Anything!" Peter blubbered, snot and tears mixing with the blood on his face.

Derek stood up and looked at Lionel Graves. "Ensure he follows through. If he misses a single person, or if his apology lacks... sincerity... you know what to do."

"I understand," Lionel said, his voice firm. "Consider it done, your Excellency."

Derek walked out of the V.I.P. suite, his silhouette disappearing into the rain-soaked night of Riverbend. He had a daughter to save, a wife to win back, and an entire city to purge of its rot. The Imperial Sage had returned, and the first lesson he was going to teach was that some debts are paid in blood, but others... others are paid in the truth.