"Mortals... they're truly terrifying..."

Tears spilled from my eyes before I could stop them.

I was the Thunder Lord, for heaven's sake. A hot-tempered god with a reputation across all Nine Heavens. And I'd let my sworn brother suffer like this in the mortal world.

"Don't be scared. I'm taking you home."

I eased the tubes from his back as gently as I could, then pressed a wad of sterile gauze hard against the wound.

I'd barely gotten him upright when a stampede of footsteps erupted outside the door.

"Nobody move!"

Quinton Harding, the eldest son of the Harding family, stood in the doorway flanked by a wall of armed bodyguards.

He wore a tailored suit, and behind those gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes radiated the cold arrogance of a man who'd never been told no.

The moment he saw me propping Thomas up, his brow knotted into a vicious scowl.

"Reginald Dunn? A thug from some two-bit gang dares break into my family's estate?"

"Do you have any idea what you've done? One phone call. That's all it takes to wipe every last one of your crew off the map."

I let out a cold laugh and passed Thomas to Bruno behind me.

"Bruno, get him to the car. There's a first-aid kit inside."

Bruno took Thomas under his arm and started toward the exit, but Quinton's bodyguards closed ranks and blocked them solid.

Quinton kept his hands in his pockets, voice dripping with contempt. "Put him down. He belongs to the Harding family. If he dies, he dies under our roof."

"I don't care what kind of stunt you're pulling, Reginald. Take your lowlife crew and get out. Now."

Before I could respond, Vivian, who'd been lying on the hospital bed, suddenly broke into pitiful sobs.

He kicked off the covers and ran barefoot to Quinton's side, latching onto his arm.

"Quinton, please don't blame Reggie. This is all my fault!"

"I shouldn't have gotten sick. I shouldn't have needed Thomas's bone marrow... If Reggie insists on taking him, then just let me die!"

He stood there in an oversized white hospital gown, eyes red and swollen, swaying like he might collapse at any second.

Quinton immediately pulled him close, his glare cutting back to me twice as sharp.

"You hear that, Reginald? Vivian is this kind and selfless, and your so-called brother is that selfish? It's just a little bone marrow. Instead of giving back, he goes running to gangsters to trash our home!"

Irene snapped out of her shock and jabbed a finger in my face, shrieking.

"Where is that ungrateful little animal? We spent twenty years searching for him! We fed him, clothed him, and now that we ask him to repay even a fraction of what this family gave him, he plays dead!"

"Nobody takes him out of here until we've gotten every last drop of marrow we need!"

I looked at this shameless family and laughed. The kind of laugh that comes when fury circles all the way back around to amusement.

"Repay you?"

I stepped forward and raised my hand.

CRACK.

The slap connected flush across Vivian's two-faced mouth. I put everything I had behind it.

Vivian launched off his feet, sailed a good six feet, and slammed into the hospital bed. His lip split on impact, blood streaming down his chin.

"Ahhh! My face!" He clutched his cheek and screamed.

Dead silence.

Quinton's eyes went wide, as if his brain couldn't process that someone had just struck a man on his turf.

"You're dead, Reginald!" Quinton roared and lunged at me.

I raised one foot and drove it straight into his kneecap.

The crack of bone was crisp and clean. The mighty firstborn of the Harding dynasty dropped to his knees in front of me.

"You want to talk rules?" I grabbed a fistful of his hair and wrenched his head back so he had no choice but to look me in the eye.

"Let me teach you how rules work where I come from."

I backhanded him across the face. Half a tooth spun through the air and clattered to the floor.

"Harry! Anyone tries to stop us, break their legs!"

"Yes, sir!"

The Dunn brothers drew their weapons, every pair of eyes burning with menace.

The Harding bodyguards were well-trained, but standing against a pack of men who'd spent their lives dancing on the edge of a blade, their nerve crumbled in an instant.

I stepped over Quinton's body and shielded Bruno and Thomas as we pushed toward the exit.

Irene shrieked behind us, hysterical: "Call the police! Call the police right now! Have these thugs arrested!"

I didn't even turn around.

The moment we cleared the Harding estate, the SUV roared to life and tore out of there.

"Our private hospital! Now!" I shouted from the back seat.

Thomas slumped against my shoulder. His face was white as paper, his breathing so faint I could barely feel it.

I'd already formed a Divine Seal in secret, channeling a thread of spiritual energy into his body to shield the meridians around his heart.

But in the mortal world, a god's power was severely restrained.

If I pushed too hard, I wouldn't just invite divine retribution. I'd accelerate the collapse of his mortal body.

By the time we reached the Dunn Group's private hospital, the top medical team was already waiting at the entrance.

Thomas was rushed straight into the ICU.

I sat on the bench in the corridor, my brother's blood drying on both my hands.

A rush of heavy footsteps echoed from the far end of the hall.

My father, Malcolm Dunn, strode toward me in a loose linen suit, flanked by several of his top lieutenants.

The man who commanded fear across every street in the city had nothing on his face now but raw worry.

"Reggie! Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?" He grabbed me by the arms and looked me over head to toe.

I shook my head and pointed at the sealed ICU doors. "I'm fine. But Thomas is barely hanging on."

Malcolm's expression darkened.

"Those animals. Doing that to their own flesh and blood." He gripped my shoulder. "Don't worry. This hospital is ours. The doctors are the best money can buy. They'll pull him through."

But things were far worse than I'd imagined.

Two hours later, the attending physician emerged drenched in sweat, his face ashen.

"Mr. Dunn, sir... Mr. Harding's condition is extremely dire."

"He's had an excessive amount of bone marrow forcibly extracted. His hematopoietic stem cells have sustained catastrophic damage. He needs an immediate blood transfusion and emergency medication."

"However..." The doctor swallowed hard.

"However what? Spit it out!" I snapped.

The doctor's voice shook. "Ten minutes ago, every unit of compatible blood in our hospital's bank was requisitioned by the city's Department of Health. And the supplier for the specialized medication just called to terminate our contract unilaterally. They're refusing to deliver."

My head went blank, a single tone ringing through my skull. "Who did this?"

Malcolm's phone rang. He answered, listened for two seconds, and the color drained from his face.

He hurled the phone into the floor. It shattered into pieces.

"The Hardings!" Malcolm's teeth were clenched so hard the words barely came out. "That old bastard Garry Harding gave the order. They've pulled every political and business string they have. They didn't just cut off our medical supplies. They've rallied half a dozen major families to launch a coordinated assault on every legitimate business we've been building."

The Hardings moved fast. In less than half a day, the internet was flooded.

#OrganizedCrimeInvadesPrivateHome#

#LostHeirAndSyndicateBossAssaultOwnParents#

#BoycottDunnGroup #CrackDownOnOrganizedCrime#

The articles were plastered with surveillance stills of me and my men smashing through the Harding estate gates, alongside interview footage of Irene and Vivian sobbing in a hospital, heads wrapped in bandages.

In the video, Irene wailed until her voice cracked: "We just wanted Thomas to come home. But he accused us of favoring Vivian, and then he brought gangsters to destroy our house! He tried to kill his own brother! Where is the justice in this world?!"

Vivian looked even more pitiful, his voice trembling with rehearsed fragility: "As long as my brother is willing to come home, I'll give him back his rightful place in the family. I don't want anything for myself..."

The comments section beneath the broadcast was a cesspool of abuse. The public had been whipped into a frenzy, demanding a full investigation into the Dunn family. The Hardings were weaponizing the media and their connections to back us into a corner with no way out.

"Young Heir, we've got a problem!" Harry burst out of the elevator.

"Quinton Harding's here with cops and health inspectors! They're claiming we're holding Thomas against his will and demanding to search the hospital!"

"And there's more. A whole squad of mercenaries has the building surrounded. Our guys can barely hold the line!"

I walked to the window and looked down.

The hospital courtyard was swarming with armed officers and black-clad private security, shoulder to shoulder.

Quinton sat in a wheelchair with bandages wrapped around his head, a bullhorn raised to his lips as he shouted up at the building.

"Reginald Dunn! You're surrounded!"

"Hand over Thomas Harding and turn yourself in! Otherwise, today is the end of the Dunn family!"

Malcolm grabbed my arm. "Reggie, don't go out there. Let me handle them. If it comes to it, we go back to the old ways and fight."

I looked at the gray streaking my father's temples, and something twisted in my chest.

A mortal, even a syndicate boss, was still nothing against a dynasty backed by real money and real power. Fragile as glass against a battering ram.

But I was no mortal.

"Dad, stay here and watch over Thomas."

I shrugged off my blood-stained jacket and rolled up my sleeves.

"The Hardings want to crush me? Today I show them who really holds the power."

I shoved open the corridor window. Before anyone could react, I vaulted over the ledge and dropped three stories straight down.

BOOM.

I landed square on top of the fountain statue in the hospital courtyard, the impact sending a shockwave through the stone.

Within seconds, over a dozen gun barrels swung toward me in unison, black muzzles steady and cold.

Foreign mercenaries. Quinton had paid top dollar for them.

Quinton sat in his wheelchair, and the moment he saw me land, a flicker of manic satisfaction lit up his eyes.

"Well, well. You've got guts, I'll give you that."

"Unlawful detention. Assault. Aggravated battery." His lips curled into a sneer. "And let's not forget the Dunn family's colorful history. You're going to rot in prison until the day you die."

Vivian wheeled Quinton forward, dressed in a loose white hospital gown that made him look every bit the delicate victim. He stepped around the chair and sighed at me, dripping with false sympathy.

"Mr. Dunn, why do you insist on making this harder than it needs to be?"

"Just hand my brother over to me. One small bone marrow procedure, that's all. I promise the Harding family will drop every charge."

"Surely you don't want your father, at his age, catching a bullet alongside you?"

The words had barely left his mouth when the courtyard's iron gates groaned open. Several officers shoved a familiar figure through.

It was my father. He must have gone downstairs while I wasn't looking. They had him pinned to the ground, faces pressed into concrete.

"Get off me! You spineless dogs, licking the boots of the rich!" Malcolm thrashed against them, but it was no use.

Quinton looked down at him from the wheelchair, then nudged my father's face with the toe of his shoe.

"Boss Dunn, times have changed. Money and power make the rules now. That street-thug code of yours? Take it to the gutter where it belongs."

"Go to hell!" Malcolm spat a mouthful of bloody foam.

Quinton's expression darkened. He raised his hand and slashed it through the air. "Beat him."

A cluster of bodyguards closed in and laid into my father with fists and boots.