3,696 whips
After locking eyes with Davis, Jeremy said as he smiled leisurely, "You know for being the mastermind behind the raid on Azalea, you're pretty dumb Albert."
"Don't call me that! My name is Dev, DEV! And it seems you still haven't realised who the one in charge here is, the one on the OTHER side of the cell.",Dev exploded before he continued,
"I think your brain is too complicated to process such simple logic, so should I lock you up for maybe 2 weeks so you can try to understand what's going on?!"
However, Jeremy ignored him and continued with a cheeky grin,
"Anyway Albert, sorry....DEV, according to Rule No. 18 of the Club rules, you don't have any right to imprison or hold the heir of the Cube hostage no matter their offence, if you don't want to be flogged 77 times the number of days you kept him hostage in every hour for 24 hours. In this case, Davis is the heir, hasn't committed an offence and has been kept here for 2 days already, so I'm guessing you'll be flogged hmm....154 times in every hour would be....3,696 whips."
Dev frowned, "What?! I don't know of such a rule.", then he looked towards Damian who nodded his head in agreement to Jeremy's words while he thought,
'I'm sorry boss! I really didn't expect Mr. Davis to actually be Mr. David(〒﹏〒)'
Their interaction made Jeremy give a dry chuckle as he continued to rile Dev up, "Tsk tsk...you really should have done your homework properly Albert."
Clenching his fists, this discovery only managed to stump Dev for a few seconds before he recovered his wits and gave a sly smile.
"Whether you're the heir or David or Daniel or...whatever! It doesn't matter cause Azalea is mine now and no one will find out that you're here. And what do you think would happen if I told Father that you Davis, the heir of the Cube died tragically by drowning...?",
Dev said as he looked at Davis with contempt and anger but if one looked closely, there was a hint of insecurity and envy in those eyes. He continued, "...I guess I'd be the new heir to the Cube, don't you think so, Davis?"
Davis and Jeremy were amazed by Dev's logical and admittedly well thought out plan while Ann and Damian felt gratified cause of their boss's comeback.
So in order to extinguish such thoughts from Dev's head, Jeremy quickly retorted, "Father knows that Davis is here!....."
"But he doesn't know the EXACT location, before he sends people over to search for you, you'd have been dead.", Dev interrupted, "...and yes, I DID do my homework Jerry.", he continued before he laughed wholeheartedly.
Looking at Davis, Jeremy thought, 'It seems the ugly duckling has grown to become a swan over the years'
But Dev wasn't done, "Since we are in the mood for sharing secrets, I have a very juicy one to share with you guys. I don't just have control over Azalea, I also have something extra that'd make it greater than the Cube...do you want to know?", Dev asked with a smile and his hands in his pockets.
"It doesn't matter if you don't want to know, I'll tell you anyway, my lovely scientist here finally found the perfect DNA amongst your children to create my very first mutant. Her name is Pa..I mean Penny Winters. Exciting isn't it?", Dev said as he held Ann's hands and played with her fingers.
However, what he didn't expect was for Davis to suddenly walk close to the laser beam barrier with a frightening look on his face.
"Say that again! What did you do and to whom?!", Davis bellowed.
Looking at Davis who had so much anger on his face, Dev couldn't help but be scared cause although they were separated by an invisible laser beam that was filled with about 500V of electricity, he knew without the barrier separating them both, he was no match for Davis.
Yeah he looked muscular but even Jeremy could beat him at hand wrestling. So he tried convincing himself that he was in charge before he took a deep breath and answered as casually as he could.
"I said Penny Winters, what? Are you surprised that I know about the Cube's secret while you don't? Heh...the Marsons have known about it since the very beginning which shows that we are the ones that are meant to be in charge of the Cube.I....!"
"Shut the hell up Albert! You have crossed the line!", Jeremy yelled as he looked at Davis worriedly.
Dropping Ann's hand, Dev looked at Jeremy and cried out, "Its Dev, you fool! And what line did I cross? I'm doing what the true leader of the Cube is meant to do!". After taking a quick breath, he continued, "My first mutant will be ready in a few hours and I don't want you to ruin my mood so I'll...."
Everything that was going on around Davis seemed to be blur and he wasn't able to hear what Dev was rambling about. He just had the picture of one person in his mind, 'Penny...my daughter, Penny...my daughter, Penny...'
This thought kept going round Davis's head and began to overwhelm him but just as he was about to ignore all odds and grab Dev's collar through the electric laser beam, there was an earpiercing sound...