“Luna, would you finally sign the papers if I got down on my knees?”
Before she could even respond, I was already on the floor. I’d done so many humiliating things over the years—this was just one more to add to the list.
This one gesture, however, pushed Luna over the edge.
Luna yanked me to my feet and dragged me into the study on the first floor. In a flash, she shoved me down, pinned me beneath her, tore off my tie and used it to bind Seth to the leg of the desk.
Seth's clothes hit the floor in an instant. Luna’s heavy breathing came in broken gasps as papers flew everywhere like confetti in a storm.
I looked at their tangled legs before shutting my eyes in anguish. A tear slid down my cheek. How many times had this happened?
I’d lost count. Almost everyone Luna brought home ended up in the same twisted scene. I was always the one left to clean up after.
I didn’t know how long they kept going. My whole body eventually went numb and consciousness slipped away.
It wasn’t until my phone started ringing non-stop that I realized the study was finally empty, left in utter chaos.
“Cyrus? We’ve got your dad. If you don’t bring the money by six, he won’t live to see tomorrow.”
My heart barely reacted. Numb. Just numb. “How much this time?”
“Four hundred fifty thousand.”
That number still made me flinch, no matter how numb I felt inside.
***
I glanced at the clock, it was 3 a.m. Outside, the night was pitch black—like ink that refused to fade.
The door creaked open. Luna stood there, completely naked, a lit cigarette glowing between her fingers.
“Luna, I need four hundred fifty thousand,” I said quietly.
She just laughed, locked the door and didn’t even look at me.
That night, I didn’t sleep—not for a second.
By six, the sun had begun to rise.
Three days later, the police called. “Mr. Gray, we’ve found a male body in the southern outskirts of the town. We believe it’s your father…”
I stared at the photo the kidnappers had sent days earlier. The man who raised me for over twenty years—limbs severed, the scene soaked in blood.
I kept staring until I started laughing. Maybe this was better. Maybe now, we were all finally free.
I slipped out of the house unnoticed. However, just as I turned the corner, a car pulled up and nearly hit me.
The window rolled down and a familiar face appeared. “I’ll give you a ride.”
It was Vega, the girl next door I’d grown up with. She didn’t say anything else and neither did I.
Eventually, she broke the ice and asked quietly, “Cyrus, do you regret choosing Luna?” She hesitated, then added, “If you ever change your mind, there’s always a place beside me.”
Five years ago, the tabloids had caught a photo of me in a scandal. The woman in the picture?
She was the same Vega Crawford.
I remember Luna kept demanding answers from me back then.
“Why did it have to be Vega?” She said it like it would’ve been fine if it were anyone else. As if it wasn’t the betrayal, just who I’d done it with.
I couldn't even say a thing. So, I ignored Vega and left her car without a word. After everything blew up back then, Vega left the country.
I couldn’t reach her no matter how hard I tried. Hundreds of unread emails sat unanswered—each one another crack in the foundation of my marriage, my life.
If my father and brother had been the chains holding me down, then Vega was the final match that burned everything to the ground.
I didn’t want any of them anymore.
The police station was packed. Everyone was busy with their own thing, face mostly darkened like the clouds before rain in the sky.
“Has the victim’s family shown up yet?”
“Seriously? The guy’s been dead for three days and no one in his family even noticed?”
A few officers were chatting nearby. I walked up and gave them my father’s name. They glanced at me sideways, their frowns sharp with quiet judgment.
I handed over the phone number from the ransom call and the photo the kidnappers had sent. I also laid it all out—my father’s gambling, the debts, everything.
The police confirmed it was a murder but said the investigation was ongoing. They told me to go home and wait for updates.
