"Stop!" I roared, lunging forward.
Click.
Three submachine gun barrels pressed against my temples simultaneously.
The lead mercenary spoke in stilted English. "Mr. Dunn. Don't move. Bullets don't have eyes."
Quinton watched me pinned down, his laughter wild and unhinged.
"Reginald! Thought you were tough, huh? Thought you could fight your way out of anything?"
"Go ahead. Hit me again. I dare you."
He struggled out of his wheelchair, limping toward me one agonizing step at a time, and raised his hand.
"That slap from earlier? I'm paying it back tenfold."
His hand came down hard.
But the slap never landed.
Because I caught his wrist mid-swing.
Quinton froze. The mercenaries instantly jammed their muzzles harder against my skull. "Let go! On your knees!"
The Harding bodyguards, the police, every single person surrounding us looked at me the same way. Like they were staring at a dead man.
In their eyes, I was a cornered ant about to be ground into nothing.
Power. Money. Firepower. Public opinion.
Every weapon the mortal world had to crush a man was stacked on top of me in that moment, layer after suffocating layer.
I looked at Quinton's face, that smug, sanctimonious mask stretched to its limit.
I looked at Vivian behind him, hand pressed over his mouth in mock horror, eyes glittering with barely concealed excitement.
I looked at my father, pinned facedown on the ground.
And I laughed.
Louder and louder.
In the dead silence of that circle, the sound was unnerving.
Quinton yanked his wrist free, skin crawling. "Have you lost your mind? What the hell are you laughing at?"
I stopped laughing. Slowly raised my head. Glanced at the overcast sky.
"I'm laughing at you," I said quietly. "All of you. You're pathetic."
"You think a few dollars and a few connections mean you control everything?"
"You people. You mortals. What are you, exactly?"
"I am the Thunder Lord."
