SUPREME WAR GOD The Despised Son-in-Law Returns

Chapter 9: Ten Thousand Dollars to Lick a Shoe

The Grand Imperial Hotel glowed at the top of Harbor Avenue like a palace made of light. Black cars lined the driveway, cameras flashed along the red carpet, and the richest families in Eastbay stepped out in silk and diamonds.

Inside, the main ballroom held three hundred guests. A band played under gold flowers, and a news crew from Eastbay Channel Six stood by the wall with their camera already rolling. Lucas Grant had paid for every bit of it.

At the head table sat Grandmother Agatha with a leather folder in front of her. It held the divorce papers, open to the last page.

Damon walked up the red carpet in his old grey work clothes, and the photographers lowered their cameras, because nobody wanted a picture of him.

The two guards at the door stepped together and blocked his way. "Kitchen staff use the back entrance."

"I'm a guest."

"Sure you are, and I'm the President." One of them shoved his shoulder. "Get lost before we drag you."

The second guard laughed. "Look at his shoes, man. They're held together with tape."

"Let him in!"

Derek came striding down the hallway with his cast in a black sling and a huge grin on his face. "He's the main show tonight. Without him, there's no party!" He threw his good arm around Damon's neck like an old friend and pulled him into the ballroom. "Everybody, look! The bride's old dog has arrived!"

Three hundred faces turned at once, and the laughter came like a wave.

"Is that him? The one who pushed Lucas into the cake?"

"I heard his brain doesn't work right."

"He doesn't even own a suit! Poor Vivian, five whole years with that thing."

Damon walked through the noise to the head table. Vivian sat beside her grandmother in a long grey gown with the diamond necklace at her throat. She didn't lift her eyes to him even once.

Margaret patted the chair at the very end of the table, the one facing the wall. "Sit there, and don't speak until someone tells you to."

Damon stayed standing.

From a side table near the wall, Lily caught his eye. She shook her head hard, and her lips made two silent words: Don't sign.

He gave her the smallest nod, and something in her face relaxed a little.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed once. It was a message from Shaw: Traffic on the bridge. Fifteen minutes late. Hold on, sir.

Damon put the phone away. Fifteen minutes was a long time in a room like this.

Cousin Brandon leaned back in his chair, smirking. "Aunt Margaret, should we give him a bowl instead of a plate? Dogs don't use forks."

The whole table laughed, except Vivian and her father, Gerald, who stared hard at his own hands.

Agatha rose and lifted her glass. "Tonight, the Whitmore family closes an old mistake," she said, "and opens a new door with the Grant family. Five years ago, my late husband made a foolish choice out of pity. Tonight, I correct it."

The guests applauded politely, and Damon thought of the old man under the bridge in the rain, holding out his coat.

The band stopped. Lucas Grant walked onto the stage in a white suit with a microphone, and the camera light from Channel Six fell across his face.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming! Tonight is the happiest night of my life, because tonight I'll be engaged to the most beautiful woman in Eastbay." He smiled and pointed straight at Damon. "But first, we have a small piece of old business to clean up."

He stepped down from the stage and crossed the floor until he stood right in front of Damon. Up close, a faint bruise still showed on his jaw, and his eyes held something ugly and nervous at the same time.

"A few nights ago, this man put his filthy hands on me in front of the whole city," Lucas said into the microphone. "Last night..." His smile flickered for half a second. "Well, let's just say he got lucky. But I'm a generous man, so I'll make him an offer, right here in front of all of you."

He lifted one shiny black shoe and set it on the seat of a chair.

"Lick this shoe clean, here, in front of everyone, and I'll give you ten thousand dollars as divorce money." He took a thick white envelope from his jacket and dropped it on the table. "That's more than you've earned in your whole useless life."

The ballroom exploded with laughter. Derek laughed so hard he had to hold his cast, and Margaret covered her mouth with shining eyes. Brandon whistled and clapped his hands, and at the back of the room, a group of Lucas's friends held up their phones to film.

"Come on, idiot!" Derek shouted. "Use your tongue! You've had five years of practice on our floors!"

Agatha tapped the leather folder with one bony finger. "Sign first, boy. Then do whatever you like with Mr. Grant's shoe."

Damon looked at Vivian. She was staring down at the tablecloth, very pale, and her hand trembled slightly around her glass.

She didn't say no. She didn't say anything at all.

"Well?" Lucas leaned closer and lowered the microphone, so only Damon could hear him. "Is the idiot thinking? Take your time; I want to enjoy every second." His breath smelled of whiskey. "And once Vivian is mine, I'll start on the little sister. Lily, right? She has such a sweet, soft face."

Damon's hand went still on the tablecloth.

The Asura Core gave one hard beat, deep and heavy, like a war drum. Heat flooded into his arms, and he knew he could break Lucas's neck before the man finished smiling. Not one guest in this room would be fast enough to blink.

He breathed out slowly and pushed the heat back down.

Not like this, he told himself. Not yet. Shaw was still stuck on the bridge, and Elena hadn't called; if help didn't come, he would find another way, but he wouldn't kill a man in front of Lily.

He picked up the pen lying beside the folder.

"Good dog," Lucas said into the microphone, and the laughter rose higher.

Damon held the pen over the line marked Husband. Three hundred people leaned forward in their seats, the Channel Six camera zoomed in on his hand, and Margaret was already straightening her pearls for the photos.

"Go on," Agatha said. "Sign it."

The tip of the pen touched the paper.

Then the ballroom doors flew open so hard they slammed against the walls.

Every head in the room turned toward the sound.

A slim old man in a dark grey suit stood in the doorway, leaning on the arm of a young woman in gold-rimmed glasses. His face was still a little pale, but his back was straight, and his eyes were as sharp as a hawk's.

The name went from table to table in frightened whispers.

"That's Dr. Henry Moore."

"It can't be! I heard he was dying in the ICU!"

"The Chairman of Saint Moore himself? Here? Why?"

"Did the Whitmores invite him?"

The old man looked slowly around the ballroom, past Agatha, past Lucas in his white suit and past the camera, until his eyes landed on the man in grey work clothes standing at the head table with a pen in his hand.

Dr. Moore smiled at him warmly.

Then he raised his voice so every corner of the ballroom could hear him. "Forgive me for being late, everyone." His eyes moved to the folder on the table. "I'm told somebody here is about to make the biggest mistake of their life."