Chapter 72: Lawrence's POV

The Greysons do things by the book.

The Greysons do thing by the book.

The Greysons do things by the book.

I had to keep reminding myself of that fact when I felt a familiar cold metal connecting with the back of my head the second I handed my phone over to David's boy.

I couldn't even turn around to see who was pointing that gun at me or check whether they were also pointing a gun at my wife.

All I could do was stand there while David's boy said the cruelest things to my daughter. I had to listen to him lie to her and tell her that she has never been loved. He told her she's only ever been tolerated and that he himself has never loved her.

My little girl has only ever loved one man her entire life and it's this man, but he didn't have the decency to try and reciprocate her feelings.

He said loving my daughter would be like trying to love a child and that is an inconceivable thought. He crushed her heart over and over again and there was nothing I could do about it.

She was crying, screaming and I honestly think she was even hurting herself, but there was nothing I could do about it.

All I could do was stand still while they spoke in the phone and hope that whoever is pointing a gun at my head won't shoot.

I need to stay calm.

I can talk my way out of this. My family has survived situations ten times worse than this, so we will survive this too.

I just need to stay calm.

I found myself hoping he would stay on the phone with my daughter for an eternity. He was disrespecting her and spoke things that would make any father weep for their child, but I found myself hoping that he would keep doing that for as long as possible so that I wouldn't have to face what comes after the end of that phonecall.

Brian said this place was secure.

He said the Prime Minister himself wouldn't be able to find this place or be able to get inside. And yet here we are.

I shouldn't have trusted him.

This man is more selfish than me.

I shouldn't have trusted him.

The second he refused to kill David's boy, I should have taken Liza and found a way out of this miserable country. I don't have a penny left to my name, but I could have snuck us on a boat or something. We could have fled to some remote country or island where those darn charges in that ridiculous lawsuit wouldn't follow us. We would have struggled for a few months, but I would have been running whatever place we found ourselves in within a year.

I should have listened to my instincts instead of trusting this man again.

Things are different now.

The Kim Group has been bleeding profits, shareholders are jumping ship, there's public outrage against the entire group and the Korean government has also started to abandon them. Brian is desperate and he's no longer thinking straight. He's scared because his enemies have him by the balls and there isn't much he can do about it.

If I had known all this before contacting him, I wouldn't have called him at all. I would have found another way.

I would have survived.

"Lawrence", the boy suddenly called my name.

I'm scared.

When did the phonecall end?

Is Lauren okay?

She killed his wife and it sounds like she killed his brother as well. Why doesn't he seem worried?

I'm so scared.

"Yes?"

"Look at me." He ordered me like I'm a dog. "Look at me so that you understand what a colossal mistake you've made."

I looked up and that cold metal was pressed a bit harder against the back of my skull.

"I knew you were planning something." The boy said calmly from behind the bars of his cell. "And I knew that you were smart enough to know that I'm the enemy you need to put all your effort into removing. My wife is brilliant at her job. She's brilliant at everything, but she hasn't been playing this vicious game of prey and predator for as long as you and I have and that means she still has a few blindspots that she needs to learn about. However", he smiled like a cruel king, "I'll always be there to take care of those blindspots and you know it. You know that my wife will fixate on using the law to fight you, but I won't do that. You know that, right?"

I just want to see Liza.

Where is Liza?

Does she also have a gun pointed at the back of her head?

If this is how it ends, then I should at least get to see Liza one last time.

I merely closed my eyes in response.

I don't think I'll survive this.

"I had to get you to focus all your attention on me until I could figure out what you were planning." He gave me an amused look. "And I had to make you think you had the upper hand, that you had succeeded in making my own men turn against me, that you could hold me captive without anyone having followed you or knowing where I am. I had to do all that so that your attention would be on me and not my wife."

"Right." I attempted to stop the slight tremble in my voice. "You win, Greyson. I'll back off. You win."

The laughter that moved through his body sounded like a giant's laughter. It reminded me of David's laughter.

He truly is David's son.

"I promised your daughter that she will bury a parent." He sneered. "So you and Liza are going to choose which parent your daughter will bury first."

A piercing wail cracked from behind me.

I didn't have to look back to know that it was my wife who was wailing like that. The last time she cried like that was when that boy James told us that Lisa lost one of her babies.

"Lawrence", his voice brought my attention back to him, "if my men are here, it means they're certain that your and your daughter's plans have been uncovered. It means they're certain my wife is no longer in danger. It means they've removed any of the bugs you may have put in our line of communication. It means they've uncovered your spies and they're certain that there's nothing you can do anymore to hurt my wife."

I would have killed David, his wife and his kids if I could go back in time. I would have killed his entire family and not looked back even once if I could turn back the clock.

Liza told me that's what I should have done when we went to David's funeral, but I enjoyed seeing Lorraine suffer. Everytime I had a bad day, I would see that woman suffering and my day would brighten a little.

She was studying to be a lawyer before David died. She had just started, but immediately abandoned her studies after his death. It wasn't a money issue. She just lost all hope.

David liked parading her around at all events, showing the world how unapologetic he was about choosing her. However, after his death, that woman hardly attended any social events anymore. She had money, she had all that Greyson money, but she finally understood that no amount of money could change the fact that she didn't belong in our world.

She kept to herself like a recluse. All she did was raise her kids, look after their farm and home and teach at some lousy kindergarten for abandoned toddlers.

I knew David had put people in place to protect his company and his family, but watching Lorraine suffer made me think of all the measures he put in place as non-threats. Even when some of my allies started dropping like flies after their eldest boy turned fifteen, I shrugged it off because I thought those kids would end up following me around like a puppy once they were old enough.

I was the perfect role model. Who else would they look to?

It was only years later that I found out it that that fifteen year old boy had managed to take some great allies of mine out of his family's company. I should have taken him out when I made that discovery, but he had grown so close to Lauren that I fooled myself into thinking he would marry her one day.

So I forgave that transgression and so many others that followed even though they isolated me in a company where I once had many many friends.

I let this boy grow to be unstoppable and I have no excuse for letting such a thing happen. I still don't know how he was able to hide his true nature for this long and how a boy who is not even half my age was able to get me to my knees.

Maybe Lorraine isn't as dumb as I thought. Maybe she was able to raise her kids well without David by her side.

"Impressive." Brian's cunning deep voice interrupted our exchange. "I'm impressed and that hardly happens, Greyson."

I couldn't see him. I think he's standing behind me. Wherever he is, I hope he has at least four guns pointed at his head. This is all his fault.

"I guess I have no leg to stand on anymore." He said nonchalantly. "You seem to be more impressive than my daughter."

The anger that filled Greyson's eyes, Charlene's eyes and Charlene's boy's eyes after that man spoke, was so much that I swore it would have spilled out of them in buckets if that were possible.

"Do you have any remorse at all?" David's boy directed his cold gaze at Brian. "Do any of you have any remorse for what you did to Charlotte? For almost leaving her paralysed or with a brain injury and for traumatising her for the rest of her life?"

Fuuuuuck.

Of course he knows. He fucking knows and that bitch most certainly also knows. That's why she's coming at us with so much force.

That girl has been finding ways to take us down all these years. That's why she has such detailed accounts of ledgers that no one but us and our most trusted confidants have access to.

How the hell did we miss this?

We thought she was coming after us because she's as obsessed with Greyson as much as Lauren is. We thought this was all happening because she was trying to punish Lauren for having the man she loves and living with him for all these years. I thought this was a spat between two girls who were fighting over a boy. I thought this was no more than a highschool fight between two little girls.

That fucking bitch knows. She fucking knows.

"No." Brian answered on our behalf. "I have no regrets over every bruise I left or bone I broke or a single strand of hair I ripped out of her head. I don't regret a single day of starving her or a single cigarette I put out on her tiny body. I don't regret refusing for her to be cleaned or making her sleep outside like a dog!" He started grinding his words. "I regret nothing, Greyson. She comes from me and whatever ill treatment I choose to inflict on her, she must take."

Shots went off.

Brian screamed.

Liza screamed.

I screamed.

And then that cold piece of metal was suddenly no longer pressed against the back of my head.

I turned around instinctively and saw Brian with a bloody arm. He got shot. That bastard got shot.

Then all the lights went off as multiple additional shots went off.

There was running, shouting, cursing, fighting and more shots going off.

"Liza!" I yelled for my wife in the darkness. "Liza, answer me!"

"Lawrence!" I felt her soft hand grab mine.

We started running and crawling.

We're Mitchells. Mitchells are survivors. We can survive this. We will survive this.

We crawled and hit walls, got stepped on in between the fighting and someone even hurled a punch at me.

We kept crawling until we hit a wall that didn't feel like metal. It was made of wood.

We found the door.

I beckoned for her to stand up and when she did, I slammed my body against that door until it opened and ran with my Liza as fast as my legs could carry me.

We were still underground and without Brian and his people leading us, this place felt like a maze, but we kept running.

"There!" She yelled. "There's an exit!" She pointed at a door in the metal maze.

We ran faster.

We're Mitchells. We're survivors. We'll survive this.

I know how to truly take down Greyson now. Force won't work on him. He's become too strong. I need to kill his wife. He'll give up on life like his mother if I kill his wife.

I'll use a crowbar myself to send that girl to the pits of hell. I will put her in a meat grinder to make sure she never walks this earth again. I'm going to make her pay for doing all she's done to my family.

My only regret is that I didn't kill her sooner.

We burst through that door like triumphant arrows and ran to the nearest car.

"The doors are unlocked!" Liza exclaimed and immediately got inside, as did I.

I started the car ... but then I felt that familiar cold metal suddenly pressed against the back of my head again.

How is this happening?

Who is doing this to us?

We just escaped. We just survived.

"To the airport, Mr Mitchell." An unfamiliar voice instructed me from behind. "Mr Greyson has booked you a ticket back home so you and your wife can get your affairs in order."

"Please." Liza started to beg, but that metal got shoved harder against the back of our heads.

"The airport." He demanded again.

"Just tell me." I looked down at my trembling hands. "Tell me how he plans to kill us."

He sighed. "In a fire." He answered. "One or both of you will die in a fire that will break out in that magnificent mansion of yours and burn your entire estate to the ground. You two get to choose who lives. Mr Greyson has agreed to grant you that kindness."

I tried to reach for Liza's hand, but the man gave a disapproving groan.

"Can we at least see our daughter first?" Liza dared to ask. "She gave birth and we didn't go see her because-"

"No." The man shut her up. "Your daughters have pictures of you. That will have to be enough. Now," he hit the back of Liza's head with the gun and she fell unconscious, "drive before I start the fire right here in this abandoned parking lot, Mr Mitchell."