Tanner blocked my path with a cold, mocking sneer.

“What, trying to restrict my freedom now?” I narrowed my eyes as I asked.

“Freedom?” He burst into laughter. “You’re talking about freedom in the capital?”

“Kid, let me tell you something. Here, even the air you breathe belongs to the Jones family!”

His laughter grew wild and arrogant. My face darkened.

All these years, I had poured everything into serving the country from that hidden place.

To repay me, the higher-ups must’ve secretly supported Kylie.

But I never imagined that kind of support would raise them into such untouchable arrogance.

Just then, my daughter suddenly broke free from my grasp and dropped to her knees.

Her voice trembled as she begged, “Uncle Tanner, please let this uncle go. He doesn’t know you or Mom. That’s why he offended you. I’ll apologize to him, please.”

My tears broke free in an instant.

This was the daughter I had longed for day and night, the one whose photo I had clutched to my heart every night just to fall asleep.

Now, she was kneeling before those two beasts. How badly had I failed her over the past six years?

Tanner curled his lips in disdain, just about to speak, when the little boy in his arms suddenly rolled his eyes and sneered, “You want to apologize to him? Fine. Then clean the toy you knocked over just now, and I’ll let him go.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll clean it right away.”

My daughter quickly picked up the toy drone. It looked painfully expensive.

The boy added coldly, “But you can’t use water. I want you to lick it clean. Bit by bit.”

Her face turned pale. She hesitated, then murmured, “Romeo, I’m your real sister. How could you make me do that?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re just some bastard born from Mom and a dead ghost. I’m the only real child of Mom and Dad. Are you licking it or not? If not, don’t blame me for being nasty.”

“I’ll lick it!”

Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to glance at me, then turned away, heartbroken.

With her hand trembling, she lowered her head and stuck out her tongue, inching it toward the toy airplane in humiliation.

Just as her tongue was about to touch the dust-covered drone, I snatched it away and slammed it hard to the ground.

“You’ve gone too far!”

The rage in my chest made it nearly impossible to breathe. My eyes burned red as I glared at them.

I never imagined that even though Kylie and I were never officially divorced, she had already married someone else and had a child with him.

Even more shocking, their child was humiliating my daughter like this.

Kylie, even if your heart changed, how could you let Ariana suffer like this?

“You…you dare smash my plane?”

The little boy stood frozen for a moment, then his face twisted into something far too vicious for his age.

“Uncle Tanner, I want him to pay for that plane with his life!”

“Kid, it looks like you’re not dying fast enough! You dared to offend the young master?”

He turned and bellowed, “Security! What are you standing around for? Didn’t you see the young master getting bullied? Are you all dead?!”

The guards hiding in the shadows glanced at one another, then slowly moved in, forming a circle around me.

“Beat him. Beat him hard! If he dies, I’ll take the blame!”

Tanner barked the command.

I managed to fend off two of them, but a heavy club slammed into my back, sending me crashing to the ground.

In the next second, they swarmed in, fists, boots, and batons raining down on me without pause.

No one around dared to step in.

All they did was shake their heads and sigh.

“This guy must be tired of living. Of all people, he had to provoke that little devil Romeo.”

“Everyone in the capital knows how precious the son of President Jones is. That man is finished today.”

“This is what happens when someone overestimates themselves, trying to play the hero with no real power. He has only himself to blame.”

Some onlookers watched with pity in their eyes, while others sneered with mockery.

My daughter sobbed as she tried to shield me, but Tanner roughly shoved her aside, nearly sending her tumbling.

“Romeo, I’ll clean the plane for you right now. Please, please let this uncle go,” she cried.

She looked at me, lying in a bloody heap on the ground, then bit down on her lip, picked up the toy plane, and began gently licking it clean.

Her tiny tongue carefully wiped away the dust and grime, her tears falling freely.

My mouth was already full of blood and foam. Straining through the pain, I shouted with all the strength I had left. “Don’t lick it!”

“Stop right now!”

But she turned away, fighting her sobs, and handed over the now-cleaned plane.

“I’ve cleaned it. Please tell them to stop hitting him. He’s going to die…”

Romeo slapped the plane to the ground with a look of disgust.

“You’re disgusting. It’s covered in your spit now. It reeks just like you. I don’t want it anymore.”

“But you promised…”

My daughter trembled, her voice weak, eyes filled with disbelief.

“I did promise to let him go. But now it’s Uncle Tanner calling the shots. He didn’t make that promise,” Romeo said smugly, his eyes locked onto hers with cruel amusement.

Her face turned pale as snow. The sparkle that once lit up her eyes had been completely extinguished by their merciless cruelty.

Tanner stepped forward, puffed up with pride, and gave me two more kicks.

“The young master’s right. He dared to smash that plane. I’ll be the first to make sure he pays!”

My daughter’s face was drained of color, her gaze hollow, stripped of light, stripped of hope.

Then, in a flash, I twisted and rolled, dragging Tanner to the ground with me.

I swung my fists and pounded him with everything I had.

Blow after blow landed as he howled in pain, his face swelling into a mess of bruises.

“Ahh! Kill him for me!”

By the time the security guards dragged me off, he was nearly unrecognizable, screaming like a lunatic.

Just then, the sharp sound of footsteps approached, followed by a cold voice.

“What are you all doing?”

I looked up and locked eyes with Kylie.

She pushed through the crowd, hurrying toward me. Her gaze swept over me, disbelief clouding her expression.

“Brody Jameson, y-you’re still alive?”

“Does my being alive disappoint you?” I asked coldly, meeting her eyes without flinching.

Even after six years, she was still breathtaking, as if time had never touched her. She looked exactly like she did the day we married.

But the tenderness in her eyes was gone. In its place was something cold, unfamiliar.

She was still the same on the outside. But her heart had changed.

“Y-You’re my dad?”

My daughter looked at me, stunned.

And then, without warning, she threw herself into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Daddy, I missed you so much. Why did you only come back now? I dream about you every night, but Mom burned all your photos. I can’t even remember what you look like in my dreams.”

I gently and sorrowfully stroked my daughter’s hair, letting her release all her grievances in my arms.

Then I looked up, my eyes dark with hatred, my voice cold as steel.

“Kylie, in the six years I was gone, you stopped loving me, remarried, fine, I won’t blame you.”

“But what did my daughter ever do wrong? What gave you the right to treat her like this?”

Kylie’s expression instantly darkened, her voice filled with mockery.

“Ariana is also my daughter. How I treat her is none of your business. You have no right to lecture me, Brody. Now that you’re back, let’s settle the divorce.”

The crowd stirred in shock.

“That guy’s actually President Jones’s husband?”

“Husband? That was a lifetime ago. Everyone knows she’s married to Young Master Velez now, and they already have a kid.”

“With how much Young Master Velez adores her, this guy’s done for. If he falls into Velez’s hands, he’ll beg for death.”

I blocked out all the noise around me and drew in a deep breath.

“Fine. But I have two conditions.”

“Kid, don’t tell me you’re eyeing President Jones’s massive company and planning to make some outrageous demands?”

Before Kylie could say a word, Tanner cut in again with a mocking tone.

“I suggest you drop that thought. Or you’ll choke to death on your own greed.”

I simply gave him a cold glance, then turned back to Kylie.

“First, I want you to return the wedding gift my mother gave you.”

“You mean that worthless little pendant?”

Kylie frowned and pulled a dark pendant out of her bag.

My eyes trembled at the sight of it.

That was the very pendant my mother had tied around Kylie’s neck on her deathbed, entrusting her to love me, to hold on to our bond.

Kylie stared at it for a moment. A flicker of nostalgia flashed through her eyes.

But in the end, she only nodded and tossed it to the ground at my feet like it meant nothing.

I bent down, picked it up, and gently wiped the dust away.

Kylie’s voice rang out, filled with impatience. “What’s your other condition? Hurry up and say it.”

“The second condition is I want custody of Ariana,” I said firmly.

“That’s impossible. Ariana is my daughter,” Kylie snapped without hesitation.

“You still have the face to call her your daughter?”

I clenched my jaw, my fury spilling out in a near-roar.

“If you truly treated her like your own, would you stand there and watch her kneel before your assistant and your bastard son?”

Kylie’s expression turned cold.

With a sharp crack, she slapped me hard across the face.

“Bastard son? That’s my biological child! Don’t talk so disgustingly, Brody. I’m warning you: don’t push your luck. Sign the divorce agreement now, or I’ll make you agree in a hundred different ways.”

“Mama, don’t hit Dad. I won’t go with him anymore.”

Ariana knelt, trembling as she begged.

I immediately pulled her to her feet.

“Ariana, remember this: she’s not your mother anymore.”

“A woman like her doesn’t deserve your kneeling!”

That slap from Kylie crushed the last piece of what remained between us.

From this moment on, I wouldn’t show an ounce of mercy.

“Kid, if Kylie isn’t worthy, then what about you?”

“At least she raised Ariana,” Tanner sneered.

He scanned me from head to toe and mocked, “Just look at yourself. Can you even feed yourself properly? And you think you’re qualified to raise her daughter?”