(Jay's POV)
The heavy, metallic stench of fresh blood from the pinned bodyguard instantly filled the grand dining room, mixing with the aroma of expensive food.
The entire room fell into a dead, terrified silence. Nobody dared to draw a single breath. The steak knife was still buried deep through the man's palm, holding him down like a specimen on a board.
Keizer Watson didn't even look at his screaming employee. He kept his sharp, calculating eyes locked completely onto me, a slow, sickening smile spreading across his thin lips.
"You are quite intelligent," Keizer said, his voice entirely smooth, carrying a terrifying calm. He leaned forward over the head of the table, his gaze dropping to my bruised right hand hidden under my sleeve. "It will be much better if you open your mouth soon, little tiger. Tell me exactly about your past ."
CRACK.
A sharp, violent sound shattered the silence from the left side of the table.
Every single head turned instantly toward Keifer. My breath hitched in my throat. Keifer had completely shattered the crystal wine glass in his right hand. He didn't just break it; he had squeezed it so brutally hard that the thick glass had literally crushed in his palm, and sharp shards were now buried deep inside his skin.
Thick, dark crimson blood was dripping rapidly from his hand, splattering onto the pristine white tablecloth below. But he didn't even blink. His face was completely distorted with an unhinged, homicidal fury, and his eyes were entirely, bloody red.
"Her past is absolutely none of your business, you old piece of garbage," Keifer growled, his voice deep, raspy, and shaking with a dangerous amount of lethal intent.
Keizer's smile instantly vanished, replaced by an expression of cold, aristocratic disdain. He didn't say a word. He simply raised his right hand and gave a sharp, subtle signal to the armed men lining the walls of the dining room.
Within a fraction of a second, the heavy clicks of firearms echoed through the space. Two massive guards stepped forward. One pointed a sleek, black handgun directly at Tita Serina's head, while the other stepped right behind me, pressing the cold, heavy barrel of a pistol directly against the back of my skull.
Jane gasped beside me, her entire body going rigid as she reached out to grab my arm, her fingers shaking violently. "Jay..." she whispered, her voice laced with pure panic.
But Keifer didn't back down. Instead, a terrifying, incredibly dangerous smile slowly spread across his face. He leaned his hands on the edge of the table, the blood from his broken palm smearing against the dark wood as he stared directly into his father's eyes.
"Touch my mom, touch my Jay," Keifer said, his voice dropping into a freezing, low register that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "And I swear to god, old man, I will show you the exact, real Watson monster hidden inside me. You think you know what I am capable of? Try me. Fire a single shot on my family , and I will personally tear your throat out with my bare, bleeding hands before your men can even reload."
I couldn't help the slow, dark smirk that crept onto my lips as I watched him. The barrel of the gun was still burning against the back of my head, but seeing Keifer claim me so fiercely in front of the man who ruined his childhood made the ice in my veins burn with a strange, dark triumph.
Keizer looked at his eldest son, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "You think you have grown up, boy? You think you can stand tall in my house and threaten me?"
Keifer tilted his head, his bloody red eyes wide and completely unblinking. "I would be absolutely glad to show you exactly how much of a man I have become, Dear Father. Do you want to find out right now?"
Before Keizer could even answer, Tita Serina let out a sharp, mocking laugh from the right side of the table. She adjusted her posture elegantly, looking at her ex husband with a level of pure, unadulterated contempt that completely cut through the tension.
"Oh, please, Keizer," Serina roasted him, her voice smooth and dripping with venomous sarcasm. "Don't flatter yourself. The only thing you've managed to grow over the past year is your list of failures and your thinning hair. You're sitting at the head of this table acting like a king, but everyone in this room knows you're just a pathetic, insecure coward who needs to hide behind hired guns to talk to teenagers. You're a joke."
Section E let out a collective, silent intake of breath. Nobody dared to laugh this time, but the psychological blow had landed perfectly.
Keizer's face went completely distorted with an ugly, dark rage. He slammed his fist onto the table, standing up to his full height. "I truly thought this would be a pleasant, quiet family dining experience," he spat, his voice trembling with fury as he looked around at our defiant faces. "But it looks like you all have completely different intentions."
He turned his head to the lead guard standing near the double doors, his expression turning entirely heartless. "Take them down. Move everyone to the basement right now."
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(Keifer's POV)
The transition from the grand, luxurious dining room to the belly of the Watson Mansion was a stark descent into a living nightmare.
The heavy black-suited guards shoved us forward, their weapons pressed firmly into our backs as we were marched down a long, winding stone staircase that led deep into the foundations of the estate.
The basement was massive, cold, and entirely constructed of damp concrete and heavy steel reinforcement pillars. The air down here smelled like rust, dust, and old blood.
The illumination was harsh, coming from buzzing fluorescent tubes hanging from the low ceiling. But the most terrifying part wasn't the architecture—it was the army waiting for us.
At least thirty heavily armed guards were standing in a rigid formation across the concrete floor, their hands resting on automatic weapons, stun batons, and steel rods. We were completely surrounded.
Keizer Watson walked down the steps slowly, his expensive shoes clicking against the concrete. He stopped in the center of the room, turning around to face us with a cold, triumphant sneer.
With a sudden, aggressive motion, Keizer reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a thick, official-looking document. He threw the papers straight across the floor, the sheets sliding over the dusty concrete until they landed directly in front of my mother, my little brother Keiren, and me.
"Sign it," Keizer demanded, his voice entirely flat. "Sign the complete transfer of the remaining family assets and the hidden Mariano files, or none of you are leaving this basement alive."
The moment the papers hit the ground, one of the guards standing nearby took a threatening step forward, raising a heavy steel rod directly toward my little brother Keiren, who was trembling violently against my mother's side.
Before the guard could even complete the movement, a blur of black sweater cut through the space.
Jay amd Jane threw their body directly in front of Keiren, completely shielding his small frame with their own. Their dark eyes blazed with a terrifying, lethal intensity as they stared the massive guard down, their jaw locked tight.
"Touch him," Jay whispered, her voice carrying a freezing, unhinged malice that caused the guard to actually hesitation for a split second. "Touch a single hair on his head, and I will personally ensure that your family spends the rest of their lives identifying your remains from a puddle on this floor. Move back."
Seeing them risk their own fragile body to protect my little brother sent a violent surge of pure adrenaline straight to my brain. The pain from the broken glass in my palm vanished completely. I spun around, my gaze locking onto my father.
"You coward!" I roared.
Keizer didn't hesitate. He took a sudden, brutal step forward and threw a heavy, unfiltered punch straight into my jaw.
The impact was loud, a sickening crack that sent a metallic taste of blood exploding into my mouth. I stumbled back a step, my head spinning for a fraction of a second.
"Keifer!" my mother shouted in absolute terror, trying to reach for me.
But I didn't stay down. The moment the fog cleared, the raw, monstrous Watson blood inside me took complete control. I lunged forward with a guttural scream, coiling my bleeding right hand into a massive fist, and threw a brutal, retaliatory punch straight back into Keizer's face.
The force of my blow connected perfectly with his nose, a loud crunch echoing through the basement as he stumbled backward into his own men, blood instantly pouring from his nostrils.
"Help them!" Angelo shouted from the crowd.
The entire Section E erupted into a chaotic frenzy, trying to break through the lines to join the fight.
But Keizer, wiping the blood from his mouth with a frantic, furious motion, pointed a shaking finger at the crowd. "Hold them down! Hold every single one of them down! Beat them if you have to!"
The thirty guards instantly moved like a wave of black iron. They slammed into the students, using their sheer numbers and heavy weapons to suppress the group. Within minutes, the basement turned into a battlefield of desperate struggles.
Angelo and Rafael fought like demons, throwing punches and dodging batons, but five massive guards tackled them from behind, dragging them toward a far concrete corner and binding their wrists tightly with heavy plastic zip-ties.
The rest of Section E was being pushed back, held at gunpoint against the reinforced pillars.
Two massive guards stepped out of the fray, their faces twisted in cruel sneers as they raised heavy wooden clubs, stepping directly toward my mother, who was trying to shield Keiren on the floor.
"Get away from her!" I screamed.
I didn't care about the weapons. I threw my body forward, tackling the first guard to the ground. I didn't just hit him; it was a brutal, unfiltered assault.
I pinned his shoulders with my knees and rained down heavy, continuous punches straight into his face, my broken palm smearing his skin with my own blood until he went completely limp beneath me.
I scrambled up, grabbing his dropped steel rod, and swung it violently into the ribs of the second guard, sending him crashing into a concrete pillar with a sickening thud.
But as I turned around to check on my mother, my heart completely stopped.
Another group of three guards had bypassed the center of the room. They were lunging straight toward Jay,Jane and Keiren, who were trapped against the back wall. One of the men raised a heavy leather whip, aiming it straight at Jane's face.
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(Jay's POV)
The image of that whip descending toward my sister's face shattered the last remaining boundaries of my sanity. I completely forgot about the dull, throbbing ache in my chest. I forgot about the cardiologists in New York. I forgot about survival. The only thing that existed in my universe was the burning, primitive need to destroy anyone who dared to threaten Jane.
I lunged across the concrete floor, my movement so sudden and violent that the guard holding the whip didn't even see me coming.
I grabbed his raised arm, twisting his wrist backward until the bone let out a loud, sickening CRACK.
He screamed in agony, dropping the whip, but I wasn't done. I brought my elbow down hard against his nose, crushing it instantly, and then delivered a brutal, unfiltered kick straight to his kneecap, sending him collapsing to the floor in a weeping mess.
The second guard lunged at me from the left, swinging a heavy iron pipe toward my head. I ducked beneath the swing, the metal whistling past my ear, and stepped into his personal space.
Using the momentum, I drove my left fist straight into his solar plexus, knocking the air entirely out of his lungs. As he doubled over, coughing violently, I grabbed the back of his hair and slammed his face brutally down against the concrete floor, knocking him out cold within a second.
"Jane, stay behind me!" I shouted, my breathing turning shallow and ragged as the sheer strain of the physical exertion began to press heavily against my ribs.
Across the basement, the sight of Keifer and me fighting like wild animals seemed to ignite a massive fire under the rest of our group.
Kuya Angelo and Rafael, who had been dragged to the corner, didn't let the zip-ties hold them back. .Kuya Angelo braced his feet against the concrete wall, using all his massive upper body strength to violently snap the plastic binds around his wrists with a loud POP.
Rafael followed his lead a second later, his teeth bared in an unhinged grin as he ripped his hands free.
"Let's go, Section E!" Felix roared, throwing himself back into the fray.
Aries, who had been held down by two guards against a pillar, saw a guard reaching for Jay's blind spot. With a loud, guttural scream of pure fury, Aries broke free of his captors, throwing a massive flying tackle that sent the guard crashing into a stack of wooden crates.
With Angelo, , Yuri , Aries, and Rafael freed, the entire Section E found their second wind. The basement erupted into an absolute, full-scale prison brawl.
The students completely abandoned their fear, using everything they could find—metal chairs, old pipes, and their bare fists—to fight back against the army of Watsons.
"Get off them!" Freya screamed, swinging a heavy metal clipboard she had snatched from a desk straight into a guard's jaw, sending his teeth flying across the concrete.
Yuri and Edrix worked in perfect, seamless synchronization. Yuri ducked low to sweep a guard's legs out from under him, while Edrix followed up instantly with a heavy, solid punch to the man's chest that left him completely incapacitated on the floor.
Down the line, Mayo and Kit were fighting back-to-back. Mayo blocked a incoming baton strike with a broken piece of wood, while Kit lunged forward, throwing a rapid series of punches that forced two guards to retreat backward into the darkness of the corridor.
Eman and David grabbed a long steel bench from the side of the room, using it as a massive battering ram. They ran forward together, slamming the heavy metal straight into a line of three advancing guards, knocking them down like a row of pins.
In the center of the chaos, a massive, scarred guard noticed Ion standing quietly near the base of the stairs, her arms still crossed as she watched the fight with her usual, cold Queen Victoria expression.
Thinking she was an easy target, the guard pulled a heavy stun gun from his belt and lunged straight toward her.
"Watch out, Ion!" Jane shouted.
Before the guard could even raise the stun gun, Jane sprinted across the space, her sweet persona completely transforming into something fierce and lethal.
She stepped directly into his path and threw a perfectly executed, brutal right hook straight into the guard's jaw. The impact was incredibly loud, the sheer force of her punch sending the massive man flying backward until he hit the concrete floor, completely unconscious.
Jane quickly bent down, her fingers moving rapidly as she picked up the fallen keys from his belt, and unlocked the remaining restraints on Ion's hands.
"Are you okay?" Jane breathed.
Ion slowly massaged her wrists, her eyes rolling with a cold, unbothered smirk. "I was perfectly fine, Jane, but nice punch. Queen Victoria approves."
We were winning. The thirty guards were slowly being pushed back into the corners, their formations completely destroyed by the sheer, unyielding fury of Section E and our family.
Keifer was a monster in the center of the room, his clothes soaked in blood as he defended his mother.
But just as the tide of the battle completely turned in our favor...
BOOM.
A sharp, deafening gunshot echoed through the enclosed concrete basement, the sound so incredibly loud that it caused everyone's ears to ring violently.
The entire room instantly froze. The punches stopped mid-air. Every single head turned toward the base of the stone staircase.
Dylan was standing on the bottom step. His face was twisted into a cold, psychotic smirk, and his hands were holding a sleek, silver revolver.
The barrel of the gun was pointed directly at the forehead of little Keigan, who was being held by the hair by another guard.
"Everybody drop your weapons right now," Dylan shouted, his voice dripping with pure, unadulterated malice. "Or I will personally paint this concrete wall with this little brat's brains. Drop them!"
The silence that followed the gunshot was absolute, heavy, and suffocating. The high-pitched ringing in my ears slowly faded, replaced by the sound of little Keigan's soft, terrified whimpers as the barrel of Dylan's gun pressed harder into his forehead.
Keifer froze in the center of the room, his steel rod slowly slipping from his bleeding fingers and clattering loudly against the concrete floor. His face was a mask of absolute, paralyzing horror.
"Keigan..." he breathed, his voice completely stripped of its monstrous strength.
"Do exactly what he says," Keizer Watson ordered, stepping out from behind his men as he wiped a fresh streak of crimson from his broken nose.
He let out a low, deeply cynical chuckle that echoed miserably off the damp walls. "You really thought a bunch of school children could take over my house? Pathetic."
The remaining guards, seeing our compliance, immediately moved in with a renewed, vicious force. They slammed Section E against the reinforced concrete pillars, kicking the weapons out of their hands and forcing everyone down onto their knees at gunpoint.
Angelo, Yuri,Rafael, and Aries were shoved brutally into the dirt, their faces pressed against the cold floor as heavy boots held them down.
Keizer slowly walked across the room, his eyes burning with an intense, vengeful hatred as he stopped directly in front of Keifer. Without a single word of warning, Keizer drew his hand back and delivered a brutal, heavy punch straight into Keifer's face.
The force of the blow sent Keifer crashing sideways onto the concrete, blood spraying from his lip.
"Keifer!" everyone shouted from the crowd, their voices tight with horror and desperation.
Keizer didn't even look down at his fallen son. He slowly turned his gaze toward me, a cold, ruthless smirk playing on his lips. He made a sharp, subtle signaling motion to the massive, scarred guard standing right next to me.
Before I could even brace my core, the guard lifted his heavy leather boot and delivered a brutal, unfiltered kick straight into my stomach.
The impact was devastating. A sharp, blinding explosion of pure agony ripped through my abdomen, the force of the kick driving all the oxygen entirely out of my lungs.
My knees buckled instantly, and I collapsed forward onto the hard concrete, clutching my stomach as my heart began to hammer a erratic, dangerously rapid rhythm against my ribs. A bitter taste of iron rose in the back of my throat.
"JAY!" Jane shrieked from the corner, her voice completely breaking as she tried to scramble toward me, only for a guard to slam a rifle barrel in front of her chest.
"Leave her alone ! You son of a bitch!"
Keifer tried to push himself off the floor, his eyes wide and completely wild with a homicidal panic as he saw me down. "I will kill you, Watson! I swear to god, I will kill you!"
Keizer chuckled dryly, looking down at me as I lay gasping for air on the dusty floor. "You see this, little tiger? This is what happens when you forget your place in my world. You are nothing but a fragile, broken little girl. Are you scared now?"
I lay there for a long, quiet three seconds, the pain in my stomach and the erratic thumping of my heart threatening to pull me into unconsciousness. But as the shadows began to edge into my vision, the fierce, unbending fire of the Mariano name rose up to completely burn it away.
Slowly, deliberately, I pushed my weight onto my hands. I lifted my head, wiping a smear of fresh blood from my lip with the back of my bruised hand.
I looked straight up into Keizer Watson's face, and a soft, low chuckle escaped my throat.
The chuckle slowly turned into a dark, unhinged laugh that echoed through the terrifying basement, causing several guards to shift uncomfortably on their feet.
"What's so funny, girl?" Keizer demanded, his brow furrowing deeply in sudden frustration.
I locked my pitch-black eyes onto his, a wide, terrifying smirk cutting across my face despite the agony racking my body. "You really think... you've scared me, Watson?" I whispered, my voice carrying a smooth, lethal stability that made his smile completely vanish. "You think you own this basement? You think you control the board?"
Keizer took a step back, his eyes narrowing in sudden, deep suspicion. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
BOOM.
Another sharp, deafening gunshot blasted through the basement, but it didn't come from Dylan's weapon.The heavy, reinforced steel security doors at the far end of the basement were violently blown off their hinges, crashing onto the concrete floor with a thunderous roar that sent a cloud of dust and debris exploding into the room.
Through the thick curtain of grey dust, a line of sleek, heavily armed figure dressed in dark tactical gear stepped into the light, the assault pistol raised in perfect formation. And his eyes burning with a promise of absolute annihilation, was ??? .The game wasn't over. The real monsters had just arrived.
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✍️ Author's Note
My absolute darlings, my beautiful, loyal readers! 💖✨
First and foremost, I want to take a very special, deeply emotional moment to wish every single one of you an incredibly Happy Friendship Day! 🫂🎉❤️
You all are not just my readers; you are the absolute best friends an author could ever dream of having in this creative journey! Your love, your continuous support, and your beautiful energy are what keep me going every single day! 🥺👉👈
I also want to say a massive, massive SORRY to all of you for the unexpected delay in uploading this highly anticipated chapter! 😭 I know you were all waiting anxiously, but unfortunately, it wasn't today—it was actually yesterday that there was a major, complete electricity cut-off in my entire area! 🔌❌
I had absolutely no power, no internet, and no way to finish writing or processing the social media uploads until everything finally came back online today. I felt so bad keeping you all waiting, but I hope this action-packed chapter makes up for it completely! 💥🔥
Once again, Happy Friendship Day to my amazing family! 🥳✨ Please, please leave your comments down below and let me know your thoughts on this insane, explosive ending! 📝💬
Did your jaw drop when Percy blew the doors off the hinges?! How do you think Keizer is going to survive the wrath of the Mariano siblings now?
I read every single comment, and your reactions are my absolute favorite part of writing! 🥺💬❤️
Stay safe, stay fierce, and see you in the next update! 🌙💖👋,