I failed my mother and sister, Returned as a Billionaire

CHAPTER 11

Blake Morrison leaned forward in his chair and looked at Lily still curled in the corner of the cage with blood running down her arm and her whole body shaking like a leaf in a storm. His patience, what little he had brought with him tonight, was running out.

"Listen carefully, blind girl." His voice dropped to something quiet and cold. "If you don't crawl out of that cage right now and start doing what you were brought here to do, I can guarantee your ex-convict brother won't live to see tomorrow morning. I have people in every prison in this state. One phone call from me, and he'll be found hanging in his cell by lunch."

The words hit Lily like a fist to the stomach.

She could survive pain. She had survived pain her whole life. Hunger. Cold. Darkness. Loneliness. All of it. But the thought of Kevin dying because of her, because she refused to obey, because she was too weak to protect him the way he had always protected her, that thought was worse than any cage, any chain, any wound Blake Morrison could ever give her.

She bent her knees.

Her hands found the floor of the cage, slick with her own blood, and she started to crawl forward inch by inch, her breath coming in short, broken gasps.

Olivia smiled.

Damon laughed.

Blake's eyes went bright.

And then the doors exploded.

BOOM.

The heavy wooden doors at the entrance to the VIP hall didn't just open. They shattered inward from a single kick so powerful that the wood splintered into a hundred pieces and the iron hinges tore clean out of the wall. The doors hit the marble floor with a crash that echoed through the entire room like a gunshot, and every conversation, every laugh, every clink of glass stopped dead.

Kevin Hale stood in the doorway.

His voice cut through the silence like a blade dragged across stone.

"Get away from my sister."

The entire hall went so quiet you could have heard a pin drop on carpet three floors down.

Lily's whole body jerked at the sound of his voice. Her hands stopped moving. Her head lifted, those cloudy eyes searching blindly toward the sound, and her lips formed his name but no sound came out.

Kevin's eyes moved across the room and landed on her.

The chains around her ankle. The blood soaking through her torn clothes. The bruises covering her arms and legs. The open wound on her forehead still dripping red. The way she was crouched on her hands and knees inside a cage like an animal waiting to be sold.

Something behind his eyes ignited.

But when he spoke to her, his voice went soft.

"I'm here now, Lily." He took one step into the room. "It's okay. I'm here."

Olivia recognized him first, and the shock on her face lasted exactly one second before it twisted into something ugly and amused. She threw her head back and laughed so hard she had to grab Damon's arm to stay upright.

"Oh my god." She could barely get the words out. "Oh my god, this is perfect. Kevin. Kevin Hale. You actually showed up here? To the Meridian Club? Are you out of your mind?"

Damon was grinning ear to ear. "Man, this is rich. Someone call security. Get this homeless junkie out of here before he stinks up the whole building."

"You need to leave, Kevin." Olivia wiped her eyes, still laughing. "Right now. Before someone breaks both your legs and throws you into a dumpster where you belong."

Kevin didn't even look at her.

He kept walking forward, slow and steady, his eyes locked on Lily.

Blake Morrison watched him come closer, and his expression shifted from confusion to irritation to something darker. He snapped his fingers once, sharp and loud, and four bodyguards stepped out from the corners of the room. They were big men, all of them, the kind of men who looked like they had been carved out of stone and taught to break things for a living.

"Throw him out." Blake's tone was bored. "Take him to the suburbs and feed him to the dogs. I don't care what you do with him. Just get him out of my sight."

The first guard reached for Kevin's shoulder.

Kevin tilted his body half an inch to the left.

What happened next was so fast that most of the people in the room didn't see it. They only heard the sounds. The crack of bone. The wet thud of a body hitting the floor. The electric hiss of a dropped taser sparking against marble.

In less than three seconds, all four guards were on the ground.

None of them got back up.

One was clutching his ribs and gasping for air that wouldn't come. Another had his arm bent at an angle arms don't bend. The third was unconscious before he finished falling. The fourth was awake but couldn't move, staring at the ceiling with wide, terrified eyes.

Blake's smile froze on his face like ice forming on glass.

He stared at Kevin, then at the guards, then back at Kevin, and for the first time all night, uncertainty crept into his expression.

Damon's grin vanished.

He looked at the four bodies on the floor, looked at Kevin still walking forward like nothing had happened, and something shifted behind his eyes. Fear. Real fear. The kind that makes a man's hands go cold.

He grabbed the chain around Lily's ankle and yanked it hard, dragging her forward in the cage. Then he reached through the bars, wrapped his hand around her throat, and squeezed just enough to make her gasp.

"Stop right there, Hale." Damon's voice had gone high and tight. "One more step and I crush her windpipe. I swear to god I'll do it."