Chapter 8

After Oliver spoke, dozens of red laser sights danced across Victor and his family.

Isabella's legs were shaking so badly she could barely stay on her feet. Victor's mind was racing, desperately searching for any way out of this.

Lucas was alive. He was actually still alive.

Marco peeked out from behind the sofa, locked eyes with Lucas, and his whole body went cold.

His legs gave out. Marco hit the floor with a thud.

"Lucas… I was wrong…"

Lucas looked down at Marco on the floor.

Half an hour ago, this same man had been lounging on that sofa, laughing about Lucas "turning into a corpse." Now he was lying there with a wet stain spreading across his pants, unable to string a single sentence together.

Oliver stepped out from behind Lucas, his dress shoes grinding slowly through the spilled champagne, each step deliberate.

He glanced at Marco on his knees, then over at Victor and his wife huddled behind the dining table.

"Victor."

Victor's throat bobbed. His lips trembled as the words stumbled out. "Mr. Colombo, there's… there's been a misunderstanding…"

"A misunderstanding?"

Oliver bent down and picked up the bottle of Dom Pérignon still fizzing on the floor, turned it over once in his hand, and let go.

The bottle exploded against the marble, sending glass and foam across the floor.

Victor flinched at the sharp crack.

"I gave you three days to hand over the person who hurt my daughter." Oliver looked at Victor. "You spent those three days finding a scapegoat to dump in front of me, and then sat here with your whole family popping champagne?"

"No… that's not—"

"Then who is this?" Oliver pointed at Marco, kneeling on the floor. "Tell me. Was he the one who pushed her off the cruise ship?"

Victor's mouth opened and closed, opened and closed.

"Answer me!"

"He…" Isabella broke first. She stumbled out from behind the dining table and threw herself at Oliver's feet, clutching his pant leg with both hands. "It was Marco, but he just… he wasn't thinking straight… please have mercy… he's still just a boy…"

"A boy?"

Oliver looked down at the woman kneeling before him, then lifted his foot and slowly pried her fingers off his leg, one by one.

"My Sophia is also just a girl. She was in the water for forty minutes before anyone pulled her out. She was in a coma for three months, possessed by Evil Spirits, and nearly died."

He turned slightly and tilted his chin toward the guards behind him.

Two men in black stepped forward immediately and hauled Marco up off the floor, one on each arm.

Marco was hysterical. "Dad… Mom… help me… I don't want to die…"

Oliver gave the guards a small wave. "Take him out. Shoot him."

Victor finally broke. His knees buckled, and he collapsed. A man who had run the family business for twenty years was now on his knees in broken glass and spilled champagne, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Please… Mr. Colombo… he's my only son… please let him go."

"Your only son?" Oliver stopped. "What about Lucas? Isn't he your son, too? Does his life not count?"

Victor wiped his face with the back of his hand and grabbed onto those words. His trembling finger pointed at Lucas.

"Lucas isn't our biological child! He's an orphan!"

The room went dead silent.

Lucas didn't move.

Isabella knelt on the floor. Her mind worked fast for two seconds, then she jumped in. "Alfredo showed up early one morning, carrying you, claiming he found you at the estate gate! He knew full well you were some kind of freak with horns, and he still forced us to take you in! It was only when things were about to blow up that he offered to take you out to the countryside himself."

She was getting worked up now, crawling on her hands and knees toward Oliver, voice rising to a shriek.

"Alfredo was the real lunatic! If he hadn't picked up Lucas, none of this would have happened to us! He was a bastard! Lucas carries evil blood — he's a curse on everyone around him…"

Lucas's fingers curled slightly.

His temples started to pulse.

The power of Pan, dormant inside him, began to stir. He clenched his back teeth and forced that restless energy deep down into his chest.

Michael's warning looped through his mind. "Every time you lose your temper, Pan wakes up a little more."

Don't lose control. Not here. Not because of people like these.

Oliver glanced over at Lucas, held his gaze for three seconds, then turned back to Isabella kneeling on the floor.

"You just called his grandfather a lunatic?"

"Yes! A complete lunatic!" Isabella nodded hard.

"The man who traveled to Harmony City alone to find a doctor for his grandson… you're calling him a lunatic?"

Isabella's mouth locked up.

Oliver took one step forward. The toe of his shoe stopped half an inch from her knee. She shrank in on herself, her chin nearly buried in her chest.

"You ignored Lucas, called him a monster, fine. Then when your own son got into trouble, you used Lucas as a stand-in to die for him. When that didn't work, you turned around and bit back… calling the man who raised him a lunatic?"

Oliver crouched down to her eye level.

"Mrs. Moretti. You've really opened my eyes tonight."

Isabella crumpled, her lips moving without making a sound.

Victor pressed his forehead against the floor, knocking it down again and again, each thud dull and hollow.

Then a sharp voice cut through from the doorway.

"Let go of me!"

Every head turned.

Sophia pushed away the maid trying to support her and stood at the entrance to the hall, one hand braced against the doorframe. Three months in a coma had hollowed her out — she was wrapped in a blanket, her body barely holding itself up, her face still carrying the pallor of someone freshly awake.

But her light gray eyes were burning.

She stared at Marco, held up between the two men in black, her jaw locked tight.

"That's him."

Sophia's nails dug into the wooden doorframe, her fingers reddening inch by inch.

"He was the one who dragged me into the cabin on that ship. He was the one who pushed me into the sea. I was screaming for help in the water and he was standing on the deck filming it on his phone."

Marco shook his head wildly. "It wasn't me… you've got the wrong person…"

"Shut up!"

Sophia snapped at him, and the force of it nearly knocked her off balance. She caught herself on the doorframe.

"Three months. I was trapped in that darkness for three months. No sound, no light — just that thing tearing into me over and over. Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

Marco's wailing died in his throat, breaking down into ragged, broken whimpers.

Sophia turned to Lucas.

"I need to ask you for something."

Lucas looked at her, puzzled.

"I'm asking you… to make him suffer. Three months — three whole months of hell. I want him to pay back every single second. Make him beg on his knees. Make him crawl and plead. Make him feel everything they put me through."

The fury in her voice filled the hall. Silence followed.

Oliver stood up.

"Lucas. You heard her."

Lucas turned and met Oliver's gaze.

"My daughter's debt is mine to settle." Oliver stepped back, hands folded in front of him. "But tonight, you saved her life. And this man…" he gestured toward Marco, "tried to buy his life with yours."

"How you deal with him is your call."