The Generals Missile

Chapter 04 - Silence and Wine

Derek spotted me by the door, his face lighting up with that special kind of pleasure he reserved for my humiliation, I was his favorite punch bag, an overly used condom he, and only him of the Harrington family can discard into the abyss.

“Ethan! Come here... Do not be shy,” he called, his voice roaring across the room.

I walked to the center, feeling the weight of two hundred pairs of eyes following my every step.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Derek continued into the microphone as a smile appeared over his ugly face.

“I want to introduce you to the Harrington family's greatest investment... This is Ethan Cole, my sister's husband, he is so special because he does not work, he does not earn and does not contribute but he eats our food, sleeps under our roof, and breathes our air... I call him the family pet... What do you think?” He said pointing his microphone to the crowd.

Laughter erupted around the room, a chorus that stung my ears, the embarrassment hurtful but my character unshaken, I knew who I was really!

At the front table, a thick-necked businessman named Grant stood up, his smirk wide.

“If he is the family pet, does he do tricks?” His question was met with more laughter and the weight of their mockery pressed down on me.

Derek grinned, his eyes glinting with the devil.

“Actually, yes! Ethan, pour Mr. Grant a drink.” He ordered.

With a steadying breath, I picked up a bottle of Hennessy from the table and poured a glass for Grant.

My hand didn’t tremble; it couldn't.

Three years of practice had taught me composure in the face of humiliation, I had been through worse.

Grant took the glass, eyed it with a mock appraisal, and then, without warning, he poured the cognac over my head with liquid cascaded down my face, soaking my white shirt, burning the cut on my palm through the bandage whilst drenching me as it dripped from my chin onto the marble floor.

I started at Mr. Grant, this time my eyes lit with fire.

Do I cut off his head or do I skin him alive?

For a brief moment, the room went quiet, a stillness before the storm and then it exploded with laughter.

“That is what you do with a dog that does not know its place,” Grant said, sitting back down, the satisfaction on his face infuriating, it was a pleasure in his eyes and the Harrington family were the most excited.

Derek, unfazed, put his arm around my wet shoulders.

“See? He does not even flinch!" He said.

"Three years of training." He added.

"The Best investment we ever made.” He laughed.

I stood there, cognac stinging my eyes, soaking into my wounds with two hundred people laughing at my expense and then my gaze found Victoria.

She had turned away from the window, her champagne glass shaking in her hand, her lips pressed together so tightly they had gone white.

She wasn’t laughing, but she wasn’t stopping it either.

“Ethan,” Derek whispered in my ear, low enough that only I could hear.

“I know about the divorce papers... My father told me you refused to sign it and that was a mistake because tomorrow morning... I am going to personally drag your daughter out of this house and put her in a state orphanage and there is nothing you can do about it.” He said to me, a direct threat worthy of death!

He patted my shoulder and walked away, leaving me in the center of that room, soaked in cognac, as something inside me shifted.

Not broke, but shifted...like a gear that had been stuck for three years finally clicking into place.

Derek had made many threats over the years.

He had slapped me, poured wine on me, called me every name a man could be called and I had endured it all because of my promise.

But now, he had crossed a line.

He had threatened my daughter.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out with wet fingers...a text from Kang.

“Commander! Voss cell ETA reduced to Eighteen hours... they have local contacts and someone inside the city is feeding them information." It read

"Requesting emergency authorization for the Iron Protocol.” Another text dropped.

"The Iron Protocol." Hmmm!

I had created it during the Border Conflict, a last-resort measure that deployed a ring of elite soldiers around a target, creating an impenetrable perimeter.

No one in, no one out.

The last time I authorized it, an entire enemy battalion surrendered within six hours, knowing exactly what the Iron Protocol meant.

It meant Asura was no longer playing defense.

I typed quickly: “Iron Protocol authorized... Target: Lily Cole... Deploy immediately and Kang?”

“Sir?” He replied.

“Find out who is feeding Voss information inside this city and when you find them, do not arrest them, ai want you to bring them to me.” I ordered.

“Understood, Commander.” He replied.

I wiped the cognac from my face with my sleeve pushing past the laughter that filled the room.

I hung up the remaining coats, cleaned the cognac from the floor, and I smiled.

Because Derek Harrington had just made the last threat he would ever make to my daughter.

He did not know it yet; none of them did.

But the man they had been kicking for three years was not a stray dog.

He was a sleeping dragon, and dragons do not bark...they burn at annihilating speeds.

At four in the morning, Lily woke up screaming.

Not crying...screaming... The kind of sound that comes from a body being attacked from the inside.

I was beside her bed in half a second, my hand on her forehead. She was burning, her temperature spiking past anything the basic medicine could handle.

“Daddy, my chest hurts... It hurts so much,” she gasped, her words choked with pain.

I scooped her up; her body felt limp and hot, like holding a small furnace.

Her breathing came in short, ragged gasps, her lips turning blue.

I ran downstairs, the Harrington estate dark and silent.

The party guests had left hours ago, and the family was asleep in their silk sheets, dreaming of money and power, the many creative ways they would continue to destroy me.

I grabbed the house phone and called the hospital...not the one that had blacklisted us, but a private clinic on the east side that I had found through Mrs. Patterson's contacts.

“Eastside Private Clinic."

"How can I help you?”

“My daughter is having a respiratory crisis... She is four years old and her temperature is over forty degrees, she needs emergency treatment.” I requested.

“Bring her in immediately!"

"We will have a team ready.” the rep responded.

I carried Lily to the garage where Derek's Mercedes was but the keys gone as always, the family Audi locked and rhe SUV requiring a code I didn’t have.

I called a taxi but at four o'clock in the morning... the wait time was sixty minutes or more.

Sixty minutes! A whole hour.

My daughter did not have sixty minutes.

I ran, holding Lily against my chest, racing through the Harrington estate gates and past the sleeping security guards down the private road, panicked.

I might be strong but I know little for a kids strength.

Soon I reached onto the main highway.

The clinic was seven kilometers away and experiences kicked in, I had run further than that in full combat gear through a desert... So I could do this!

I motivated myself!

But I was not in combat gear... I was in pajama pants and a t-shirt, barefoot on asphalt, carrying a forty-pound child whose breathing was getting weaker with every step I took across the street.

At the four-kilometer mark, my phone rang!

It was Captain Fields!

“Commander, Kang told me about your daughter... I have a mobile unit two minutes from your position... Where are you?” He asked.

“Highway 7, heading east toward Tianyi Clinic.”

"Should I send 10 armored helicopters to you? They could help convey you and your daughter out." He asked and I shoke my head in disapproval.

That will sell my location to evil Voss further.

"No, that will bring excessive attention, come with a silent troop, no noise but with bullets." I ordered.

"By road it is then, affirmative?" He asked.

"Affirmative." I replied as I glanced at Lily.

My lily! - The world will burn before I lose YOU!