My Daughter Called Me Uncle

Chapter 008

Derek Faulkner felt his heart seize with a sudden, agonizing spasm.

The image of Serena Ashford—the way she had looked at him with such raw, unbridled resentment—flashed through his mind. If she were truly the cold, indulgent socialite he had feared, she wouldn't have looked so broken. She would have been defiant, or perhaps indifferent. But her eyes had held the depth of a thousand tragedies.

Was the intelligence wrong?

Derek’s mind raced through the cold facts. He knew the cost of medical care in Riverbend. Even a bone marrow transplant for leukemia at Riverbend General Hospital would cost, at most, a few hundred thousand dollars. He had sent a military stipend of ten thousand dollars every single month. Over eight years, that was nearly a million dollars.

"Tell me," Derek commanded, his voice vibrating with a dangerous, low-frequency hum. "What exactly did she go through?"

He had to know. If he had slandered a woman of virtue—if he had insulted the wife who had bled for him—he would spend the rest of his life on his knees seeking her forgiveness.

Peter Yates let out a jagged, b****y laugh. He looked at Derek with a hatred that was almost pure. Despite his villainy, Peter’s obsession with Serena was the only real thing about him.

"What did she go through?" Peter wheezed, clutching his bruised ribs. "You’re her husband, and you have to ask me? You’re even more of a pathetic loser than I thought."

"Watch your tongue!" Lionel Graves roared, stepping forward to deliver another heavy-toed kick to Peter’s side. "Answer the question if you want to keep it!"

"Argh!" Peter rolled onto his back, gasping. But his gaze remained fixed on Derek, mocking him. "Fine. I’ll tell you. Three days after you vanished to go play soldier, the Ashford family threw her out. Her father was framed for embezzlement, and they stripped her of everything. They didn't just exile her; they issued the Total Blacklist Decree. Every company in this city was f*******n from hiring her. She went from being Riverbend's most coveted woman to a ghost."

Peter’s eyes shimmered with a dark intensity. "She was eight months pregnant, you bastard! She spent her final trimester living in a cardboard box behind a warehouse. She scavenged through trash cans for scraps while the rest of the privileged elite laughed at her. I offered her everything—gold, manors, the best doctors in the Grand Hall of Medicine. All she had to do was spend one night with me. One night! And she refused. For eight years, she refused."

He coughed, a spray of red staining his lips. "It wasn't until Lemon got sick that she finally broke. She only came to the Blue Horizon Club because it was the only place that would hire her off the books. And even then, she never let me touch her. She’s been a woman of absolute virtue and you come back and call her a w***e?"

Peter leaned forward, his voice a jagged snarl. "You don't deserve her. You never did."

The words were like poisoned daggers, each one finding a gap in Derek’s armor. The Supreme Warlord, the man who had faced the Reaper of the Northern Front without flinching, felt his knees go weak.

I sent the money, he thought desperately. Where did the money go?

But the answer didn't matter right now. Only the truth of Serena’s suffering remained. Derek didn't wait to hear another word. He turned and bolted out of the V.I.P. suite, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He had to find her. He had to make it right.

Lionel Graves stood in the wreckage of the room, looking at the cowering nouveau riche thug on the floor. He was a man of the world, and he could see the storm of tragedy brewing. He looked at his elite guards, then back at Peter.

"Should we... end him, Old Mr. Graves?" one of the guards asked.

Lionel hesitated. The Imperial Sage hadn't given a direct order to kill, only to strip him of his assets. "No. Let him live in the poverty he so loves to mock. But keep a close watch on him. If he breathes in the direction of the Ashford family, bury him."

Lionel sighed, his own heart heavy. He knew the story of Serena Ashford's fall, but like most of the privileged elite, he had simply looked the other way to avoid offending the Grand Lady Ashford. Now, he realized he had been ignoring the wife of a god.

Inside the V.I.P. suite, once the giants had left, Peter Yates began to crawl toward the wall. His face was a mask of bruised ego and delusional rage.

A 'pretty boy' like that? Peter thought, his mind twisting the reality of what had just happened. He just got lucky. He probably saved Lionel Graves’ life in the war once, and now he’s cashing in his chips. There’s no way a beggar like that is actually powerful.

"Serena is mine," Peter hissed into the empty room, his fingers clawing at the carpet. "You think you can scare me? You think you can take her back after eight years of silence? I’ll show you, Derek Faulkner. I’ll show her the truth of your 'heroism.' I’ll make sure she never looks at you again."

The night air was thick with the scent of ozone and wet pavement as Derek raced through the narrow alleys of the underclass district. He finally reached a dilapidated, four-story tenement building. The paint was peeling like dead skin, and the hallway smelled of damp rot and cheap cooking oil.

He stopped in front of a scarred wooden door—Unit 4B.

He raised his hand to knock, but his fingers trembled. The Reaper of the Northern Front was suddenly terrified. What could he say? 'I'm sorry I thought you were a windflower while you were starving for me'?

Inside the apartment, the air was cold. There was no heater, only a single, dim bulb hanging from the ceiling. Serena Ashford sat on the edge of a sagging mattress, cradling the sleeping Lemon in her arms. The girl’s face was even paler in the low light, the purple spots of her illness stark against her skin.

"You always wanted a Dad, didn't you, Lemon?" Serena whispered, her voice a hollow rasp. She stroked the girl’s hair, her own tears dripping onto the child’s threadbare blanket. "He’s back. But he’s not the man I told you about. He’s not a hero. He’s a stranger with a heart of ice."

She laughed softly, a sound of pure despair. "It’s my fault. I was so stubborn. I kept waiting, thinking he would come over the horizon and save us. I wasted your childhood on a ghost. And now... now he looks at me like I’m something he found on the bottom of his shoe."

The pain in her chest was so intense she felt like she was suffocating. She had endured the Total Blacklist Decree, the hunger, and the insults of the underclass, all while holding onto the image of the man who had loved her. To have that man return and spit on her dignity was the final, killing blow.

"I'll get the money, Lemon," she whispered, her eyes hardening with a desperate, suicidal resolve. "I'll get it from Peter Yates. I'll do whatever he wants. I don't care about my soul anymore. I just want you to live."

Patricia Hartwell, her mother, stood in the doorway of the tiny kitchenette, her own eyes red from crying. She had watched her daughter—a woman who should have been a golden child of the Empire—be destroyed by a man’s absence.

"Did he... find you at the club?" Patricia asked quietly.

Serena flinched. "You knew he was back?"

"I saw him at the mart," Patricia said, her voice dripping with venom. "He was pretending to be a savior. He’s a coward, Serena. A man who leaves his family for eight years and then has the nerve to act like a judge? He’s not worth your tears."

Patricia walked over and knelt beside her daughter, taking her cold hand. "Listen to me. The waiting is over. There is nothing left for us in Riverbend. Once we get the money for Lemon's surgery, we are leaving. We’ll go to the coast, find a new name, and forget that Derek Faulkner ever existed. He’s a pretty boy with a blackened soul. He’s not a father."

"I know," Serena sobbed, her head falling onto her mother’s shoulder. "I know. I’ll never forgive him. I hate him, Mom. I hate him more than I ever loved him."

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound was soft, tentative, yet it echoed through the small apartment like a gunshot.

Patricia’s face lit up with a sudden, desperate hope. "That must be your father, Solomon. He said he was going to try and borrow some money from his old contacts. Maybe he actually found someone who hasn't forgotten him."

She hurried to the door, wiping her eyes. "Hang on, Solomon! We’re coming!"

She threw the door open, her mouth already open to ask how much he’d gathered. But the words died in her throat.

Standing in the hallway, bathed in the flickering yellow light of a dying bulb, was Derek Faulkner. He looked exhausted, his shirt stained with the blood of the men he’d fought, his eyes filled with a shattering, silent apology.

"You!" Patricia screamed, her voice a jagged rasp of pure fury. Her hand flew up, pointing a trembling finger at his chest. "You have the nerve to come here? After what you said to her? After eight years of abandonment?"

She stepped out into the hallway, physically blocking the entrance to the apartment. "Get out! We don't want your pity! We don't want your lies! This home is for people who have survived, not for cowards who ran away!"

"Ma, please," Derek whispered, his voice cracking. "I know everything now. I know what happened. I was wrong. Just let me see them."

"You don't get to see anything!" Patricia shrieked, her voice waking the neighbors. "You are not a husband! You are not a father! You are just a dog who came back to sniff at the wreckage he caused! Go back to your army! Go back to your war! We are finished with you!"

Behind her, in the dim room, Serena stood up. She clutched Lemon to her chest, her eyes meeting Derek’s through the doorway. There was no love in them. There was only a cold, crystalline wall of ice that no focused force in the world could ever hope to break.