Chapter 4The Birthday They Kneeled

Before I could finish, Brock swung the steel pipe again, this time aiming directly for my hand.

CRACK!

A blinding, white-hot agony shot up my arm as my wrist shattered.

‘You little shit! Still trying to call for backup?!’ he bellowed, his face inches from mine. ‘Don’t you know where you are? In Crestview, the Fairfax family is God! Anyone who wants to survive here has to call me ancestor!’

He grabbed my collar and hauled me to my feet. ‘Now, get on your knees and beg my father for forgiveness!’

I thrashed wildly in his grip, my eyes burning with rage. ‘You’re the bastard! And your father is a bastard just like you! You want me to apologize to him? Dream on! You’d be better off thinking about how you’re going to get out of the mess you’ve made today!’

Brock was momentarily stunned by my defiance. In that brief pause, Lena sauntered over, a wicked smile on her face. She pulled out her phone and video-called my mother.

The call connected almost instantly.

‘Auntie,’ Lena said sweetly to the screen, ‘I hear you haven’t been feeling well lately. Do you miss Ethan? Because he certainly misses you…’

She muted the call and turned her venomous gaze on me. ‘Ethan, if you don’t get on your knees and kowtow to my father-in-law right now, I’m going to let your sick old mother see you like this. If I remember correctly, she just had bypass surgery a few years ago, didn’t she? What do you think will happen to her fragile heart when she sees her precious son beaten to a pulp?’

When Lena and I were dating, my mother treated her better than she treated me. And now this monster was using my mother’s life to threaten me.

‘Lena, dear, I miss him so much,’ my mother’s frail voice crackled through the phone. ‘Is he there with you? Please, let me see him…’

Lena’s eyes were locked on mine, a silent, vicious command in them as she slowly angled the camera toward me. Her lips formed the words silently: Time’s up, Ethan.

‘Lena? Where’s Ethan? Why aren’t you saying anything?’

With a flick of her wrist, she started to turn the phone.

In the split second before the camera found me, I stumbled forward and collapsed at Mr. Fairfax’s feet.

Thud.

I bowed my head and slammed my forehead against the cold marble floor, three times.

A triumphant laugh escaped Lena’s lips. She turned back to the phone. ‘Oh, Auntie, Ethan was just here a second ago, but he seems to have wandered off. I’ll go find him for you.’

My mother thanked her profusely as Lena muted the call again and turned back to me, her eyes glittering with malice.

‘You’ve apologized to my father-in-law. But you still haven’t apologized to my husband. This time, you don’t have to kowtow. Just call my husband ‘Dad’.’

‘Lena!’ I choked out, the word tearing from my throat. ‘My mother was so good to you! How can you do this? Do you have any conscience at all?!’

She just smirked and waggled her phone at me. ‘I’m not interested in your whining. Are you going to say it or not?’

My former classmates were howling with laughter. ‘Say it! Say it! Say it!’

Lena held up five fingers. ‘You have five seconds, Ethan. Five… four… three…’