Chapter 3

In her senior year, she came back out of nowhere.

She didn't come to visit. She came to announce her wedding.

The groom-to-be was an "independent artist"—the younger brother of the wandering singer I had chased away years before.

Looking at the bleach-blonde punk with ear piercings standing beside her, my blood pressure spiked so high I almost collapsed.

"Out of the question! Over my dead body!"

"Chloe, you're an Ivy League graduate! You have the world at your feet! How could you throw your life away on a bum like this?"

"Does he have a job? Does he have health insurance? Does he own a house? What kind of future can he give you?"

Chloe watched me coldly, looping her arm tightly through the man's. "He loves me. That's enough."

"Besides, I'm already pregnant."

Those words struck me like a bolt of lightning, freezing me to the core.

Unmarried and pregnant.

In our conservative town, the gossip alone would tear a girl to pieces.

Trembling with rage, I pointed straight at the front door. "Get out! Both of you, get the hell out!"

"Get an abortion! Immediately!"

"You want to marry him? Over my dead body!"

This time, Chloe didn't scream or cry.

She merely looked at me with an eerie calmness, her eyes flickering with the sweet taste of vengeance.

"Fine. Then I'll just wait for the day you die."

She turned around and left with that man.

I thought she was just speaking out of anger, that she would come back to her senses in a few days.

I was dead wrong.

That man was no artist. He was a stone-cold con artist.

He didn't just prey on Chloe's emotions; he manipulated her into taking out massive predatory loans from private loan sharks, claiming he was opening an elite art gallery.

By the time the debt collectors called me, the man had already cleaned out the accounts and fled the state.

They had Chloe trapped in their compound.

Over the receiver, her voice was shattered by frantic sobs: "Dad, help me... please... they're going to kill me..."

For the first time in my entire life, I felt true, suffocating terror.

I grabbed every cent of my life savings, along with the bank certificate meant for her future home, and drove like a maniac to that abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town.

Waiting inside was Marcus, a notorious local enforcer, holding a steel pipe with a sneer across his scarred face.

"Hey, old man. Did you bring the cash?"

I slammed the bag of money onto the dirty floor. "Let her go."

They counted the cash, but showed no intention of releasing her.

"This barely covers the interest, pop. What your daughter actually owes us... is this much."

Marcus held up five fingers.

Fifty thousand dollars.

Back in those days, in a small town like ours, that was an impossible fortune.

I glanced over at the corner, where Chloe was curled up, clothes torn, her face covered in dark purple bruises.

A sharp, searing pain ripped through my chest.

This was the girl I had raised in the palm of my hand, the girl I had pushed with everything I had.

I had barely brought myself to lay a finger on her, yet these animals dared to touch her?

"I don't have that kind of money," I rasped, taking off my jacket to reveal the heavy wooden baton tucked into my waistband—contraband I had confiscated from a student years ago and kept. "But I have my life."

"Frank, call the police!" I roared at Frank, who was hiding outside the warehouse door.

Then, like a mad dog with nothing left to lose, I charged straight into the pack.

That fight was bloody and chaotic.

I was an old man; there was no way I could overpower a crew of young, brutal thugs.

Steel pipes crashed into my spine and skull, warm blood blinding my vision.

Yet, I lunged forward and sank my teeth straight into Marcus's ear, refusing to let go no matter how violently they battered my ribs.

"Touch my daughter... and I'll tear your throat out!"