Tanner blocked my path with a cold, mocking sneer.
“What, trying to restrict my freedom now?” I narrowed my eyes as I asked.
“Freedom?” He burst into laughter. “You’re talking about freedom in the capital?”
“Kid, let me tell you something. Here, even the air you breathe belongs to the Jones family!”
His laughter grew wild and arrogant. My face darkened.
All these years, I had poured everything into serving the country from that hidden place.
To repay me, the higher-ups must’ve secretly supported Kylie.
But I never imagined that kind of support would raise them into such untouchable arrogance.
Just then, my daughter suddenly broke free from my grasp and dropped to her knees.
Her voice trembled as she begged, “Uncle Tanner, please let this uncle go. He doesn’t know you or Mom. That’s why he offended you. I’ll apologize to him, please.”
My tears broke free in an instant.
This was the daughter I had longed for day and night, the one whose photo I had clutched to my heart every night just to fall asleep.
Now, she was kneeling before those two beasts. How badly had I failed her over the past six years?
Tanner curled his lips in disdain, just about to speak, when the little boy in his arms suddenly rolled his eyes and sneered, “You want to apologize to him? Fine. Then clean the toy you knocked over just now, and I’ll let him go.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll clean it right away.”
My daughter quickly picked up the toy drone. It looked painfully expensive.
The boy added coldly, “But you can’t use water. I want you to lick it clean. Bit by bit.”
Her face turned pale. She hesitated, then murmured, “Romeo, I’m your real sister. How could you make me do that?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re just some bastard born from Mom and a dead ghost. I’m the only real child of Mom and Dad. Are you licking it or not? If not, don’t blame me for being nasty.”
“I’ll lick it!”
Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to glance at me, then turned away, heartbroken.
With her hand trembling, she lowered her head and stuck out her tongue, inching it toward the toy airplane in humiliation.
Just as her tongue was about to touch the dust-covered drone, I snatched it away and slammed it hard to the ground.
“You’ve gone too far!”
The rage in my chest made it nearly impossible to breathe. My eyes burned red as I glared at them.
I never imagined that even though Kylie and I were never officially divorced, she had already married someone else and had a child with him.
Even more shocking, their child was humiliating my daughter like this.
Kylie, even if your heart changed, how could you let Ariana suffer like this?
“You…you dare smash my plane?”
The little boy stood frozen for a moment, then his face twisted into something far too vicious for his age.
“Uncle Tanner, I want him to pay for that plane with his life!”
“Kid, it looks like you’re not dying fast enough! You dared to offend the young master?”
He turned and bellowed, “Security! What are you standing around for? Didn’t you see the young master getting bullied? Are you all dead?!”
The guards hiding in the shadows glanced at one another, then slowly moved in, forming a circle around me.
“Beat him. Beat him hard! If he dies, I’ll take the blame!”
Tanner barked the command.
I managed to fend off two of them, but a heavy club slammed into my back, sending me crashing to the ground.
In the next second, they swarmed in, fists, boots, and batons raining down on me without pause.
No one around dared to step in.
All they did was shake their heads and sigh.
“This guy must be tired of living. Of all people, he had to provoke that little devil Romeo.”
