Saintess's Worthless Husband Turned Dragon Commander novel Chapter 152

CHAPTER 127 PART 2

“Two will do,” Marcus continued, with the same conversational tone he might use to confirm a restaurant reservation. “I’ll send them to West Lake Pier. Half an hour. If you’re late, the fish situation becomes your problem.”

A sound came through the phone that wasn’t quite speech.

“I have Benjamin Abbott,” Marcus said. “I have Ives Abbott, West Lake Pier. Thirty minutes.” He paused. “Bring a bag.”

“You-“Miguel Abbott’s voice cracked open and what came out was not composed. “You touch one more hair on my daughter’s head and I will personally—”

Cosmo looked at Ives.

Ives Abbott saw the look and opened her mouth to scream.

Cosmo slapped her.

The scream became something less structured. Ives grabbed her face with both hands and her voice, when it emerged, had abandoned its previous register entirely. “Daddy – Daddy, please-”

Marcus held the phone toward the sound for two seconds.

Then he raised it back to his ear.

“Threats,” he said pleasantly, “mean nothing to me. The next call you receive will be a location update for the pier.” He started to lower the phone.

“Wait.”

One word. Miguel Abbott said it the way a man says it when he has just spent a full second accepting something he did not want to accept and has decided that pride is no longer worth the invoice.

Marcus waited.

“West Lake Pier,” Marcus said again. Flat. Final.

He ended the call.

He handed the phone back – to no one in particular, simply held it out at chest height – and after a moment of nobody moving, one of the Red Star fighters took it with the careful motion of someone defusing something.

Marcus looked at Cosmo. “Take them to-”

“Please.”

Ives Abbott’s voice had changed entirely. Everything that had been in it before the entitlement, the contempt, the absolute bedrock certainty that her family name was a force field – had been replaced by something raw and simple and entirely human.

She was crying.

Not the performative tears she had deployed earlier when Wesley was her audience. Real ones, the kind that came from the throat rather than the eyes, that arrived without calculation or tactical purpose.

“Please,” she said again. Her hands were pressed together. Her face was a complete record of the last two hours.”

1/3

+25 Bonus

I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’ll-whatever you want, I’ll pay it. Whatever my family has, it’s yours, just – please don’t take me to the pier-”

She turned to Wesley Hartford with an expression of pure desperate blame. “He did this. He did this — he told me about Quinn, he told me she was weak, he said her husband was nobody, he manipulated me into coming here—”

Wesley, still kneeling, still bloodied, made a sound of protest that had no structural integrity whatsoever.

“I’m begging you.” Ives’s voice had broken down to its component parts. “I have money. My family has money. Please. Whatever the number is, we’ll pay it. Just—”

“Benjamin.” The word came from the floor, quiet and stripped of everything except necessity. Dominic Allen, wrist cradled, looked up at his employer with the expression of a man who had already crossed his threshold and was watching his employer approach the same line. “Do something.”

Benjamin Abbott hung against the boutique window in Cosmo’s grip. The fury had burned through its fuel somewhere in the last three minutes and what remained was the cooling residue of a man who had run the full inventory and found it empty. He looked at his niece on the floor. He looked at Marcus Steel standing in the open corridor with his hands in his pockets.

“Whatever he wants,” Benjamin said quietly. “Pay it. I’ll pay it personally if necessary. Just-” He stopped. Drew a breath. “Just stop.”

The phone in the Red Star fighter’s hand began to ring.

Marcus looked at it.

The fighter, with the expression of someone who had long since stopped having opinions, held it toward Marcus.

Marcus took it. Answered.

The voice on the other end was Miguel Abbott again. But the version of Miguel Abbott who spoke now bore almost no resemblance to the one from three minutes earlier. The hoarseness was the same. The size of the voice was the same. Everything else had been replaced.

“Is this “Miguel stopped. His voice was careful in the way of a man picking his words from a surface that might not support his weight. “Am I speaking with Marcus Steel?”

Marcus said nothing for a moment.

“You know the name,” he said.

“I know the name.” Miguel Abbott exhaled. It was a long exhale, carrying considerable weight. “I know what you’ve done in Grayson City, I know what happened to the Brand/Family. I know about the Ridge Family.” A pause. “I know who you are.”

The corridor was very still.

“I’m asking for mercy,” Miguel said. Directly, without preamble, without the architecture of negotiation. “My daughter. My brother. Whatever they did, whatever was said – I take responsibility. I’ll make it right. Whatever you need, whatever form that takes, I’ll provide it.” Another pause. “I’m asking you man to man. As a father.”

Marcus was quiet for three seconds,

Around him, the corridor held its breath.

Lance Casey had not spoken in four minutes, which was itself a form of testimony.

2/3

“HAPTER IS PART 2

+25 Bonus

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify