THE MIRACULOUS RETURN OF DAMIEN BLACK

Chapter 3

The excavator shook so violently it looked like it might flip over completely. The operator's eyes went wide with terror and he threw open the door, jumping out of the machine like his seat had caught fire. His boots hit the ground hard just as the entire upper arm of the excavator, the bucket, the hydraulic neck, everything above the base, just snapped clean off.

It didn't bend slowly or crack with warning. It shattered into two pieces, maybe even three, like someone had taken a hammer to glass. Metal that should have taken industrial tools and hours of work to cut through broke apart like dry bread in Damian's grip. The pieces crashed to the ground with deafening bangs that echoed across the wasteland, the bucket landing twisted and crushed like someone had wadded up a piece of paper and tossed it aside.

Damian let the mangled metal drop from his hand without even looking at it.

All seven men collapsed where they stood, their legs giving out beneath them as their buttocks hit the dirt hard. Their eyes bulged out of their skulls, sweat poured down their faces in rivers, and their entire bodies shook like leaves caught in a storm. Their teeth chattered so loud anyone could hear it over their panicked breathing.

"Is this person even human? How the hell did he do that?" one of them stammered, his voice barely making it past his trembling lips.

None of them could see straight anymore. Fear had wrapped itself around their throats and squeezed until the world went blurry. Then, as if someone had pulled strings attached to their heads, all seven of them bowed down simultaneously, pressing their foreheads into the dirt like they were begging for mercy from a king.

"We are very, very sorry for the disrespect! Please forgive us! Forgive us for the way we spoke to you, forgive us for everything we just did!"

Damian stared down at them with eyes that held no warmth, no pity, nothing but cold judgment.

"For what you did, you deserve to die. But I'm going to show you leniency this one time." He pointed at the land behind him, at his mother's grave still half-buried under rubbish. "You see this place? Go. And don't come back. The moment you step foot here again, your entire generation, I'm going to wipe it off this earth."

He paused, letting those words sink deep into their bones.

"Go."

They didn't need to be told twice. All seven men scrambled to their feet and ran like death itself was chasing them, their legs carrying them as fast as they could move, stumbling over themselves in their desperation to get away.

Damian watched them disappear into the distance, then turned around with his jaw still set tight.

"I deserve an explanation for this madness."

Immediately Damian flagged down a taxi and climbed into the back seat, giving the driver the address to the Nathaniel family house. His jaw stayed clenched the entire ride, his mind running through a thousand questions that needed answers.

Not long after, the taxi pulled up in front of the property and Damian stepped out, his boots hitting the pavement with purpose.

The place looked almost nothing like what he remembered from five years ago. Everything had been upgraded, modernized, transformed into something that screamed money and status. 

The compound now had a proper garden with trimmed hedges and flowers arranged in neat rows, the kind of garden that needed a full-time worker to maintain. The house itself looked bigger, more beautiful, with fresh paint and new windows that caught the afternoon sun and threw it back in brilliant flashes.

But Damian didn't care about any of that beauty today. He wasn't here to admire what money could buy. He was here to demand answers for the madness he'd just witnessed at his mother's grave.

He walked up to the front door and noticed there were no security guards stationed outside, which struck him as odd for a family that clearly had wealth to protect. He raised his hand and knocked hard on the door, then pressed the doorbell for good measure.

Several seconds passed, then stretched into a full minute before he heard footsteps approaching from inside. The door swung open and Penelope stood there in the doorway, her eyes landing on Damian with a look of shock that she couldn't hide fast enough.

She took a step back, her mouth falling open slightly as her brain tried to process what her eyes were seeing. She wasn't expecting to see Damian, not after five long years of silence, not after she'd believed the news that the bastard was probably dead and rotting somewhere on a battlefield.

"Aren't you dead? What the hell are you doing here? Am I seeing a ghost or what?"

Damian's face remained stone cold, his voice cutting through her shock like a knife through butter.

"Cut this crap of yours. What the hell were you planning to do with my mother's land? And where is your family? Where the hell is Mabel?"

The moment those words left Damian's mouth, Penelope's expression shifted slightly. She was still afraid, but not of Damian himself or anything he was saying. Her fear came from somewhere else, from the fact that she'd spent five years believing this man was buried somewhere far away, that he was nothing more than a memory the family could wipe clean from their records.

But seeing the way he stood there, hearing the strength in his voice, she realized he wasn't dead at all but instead looks angry.

"So you miraculously survived. Wow, what a life you have. We all thought you were dead." She waved her hand dismissively. "However, that's not even important. So what were you saying just now?"

Damian's jaw locked tight and he saw the shift happening across Penelope's face, that brief flicker of shock being replaced by something colder, more calculated. What surprised him though was how she kept insisting he was supposed to be dead, because only a handful of people knew what really happened to him on that last day of the war.

His best friend, the one who stabbed him in the back when he wasn't looking. The general, who died in the final battle. Damian only found out his friend was gone after he woke up from his near death experience, however he unlocked his family hidden powers in that process, however this meant it had to be his so-called friend Raymond who started spreading the rumor that he was dead, that crazy lying bastard. The moment he laid eyes on that fool again, he was going to make sure he paid for his betrayal with his life, because there was nothing Damian hated more than backstabbers.

immediately he pushed those thoughts aside for now and fixed his eyes back on Penelope.

"Now talk to me. What the hell were you planning to do with my mother's land? How dare you disrespect my mother in that manner? And where is Mabel? Where is everybody?"

Penelope's face twisted into something ugly, something that showed exactly who she was underneath all that expensive makeup and jewelry.

"Well, I don't have any business with you, and you're not worthy enough to make me speak to you because you are below me. You are below my standard. Just look at you. You miraculously survived the war and the next thing you think you should do is come here and commit nuisance, just like the way your sister did."