Chapter 8 - The Ultimatum
“You always were too predictable, Nathan,” Arthur mocked, his voice echoing in the server room.
I gripped the metal bars of the cage separating us, completely powerless to help my daughter.
“Let her go, Arthur,” I demanded, my voice dangerously calm.
“This fight is between you and me.”
Arthur laughed, pressing the barrel of the gun harder against Lily’s dark hair.
“She is the only leverage I have left to force your hand,” he sneered.
He pulled a folded legal document from his tailored suit jacket and tossed it through the bars to my feet.
“Sign this absolute transfer of your entire corporate empire over to me,” Arthur ordered.
“If you refuse, I will put a bullet in her brain right in front of you.”
I looked at the document, realizing it was the total surrender of everything I had built over twenty-five years.
I looked up at Lily, fully expecting her to be crying in terror.
Instead, she looked at me with the exact same fearless, defiant expression her mother used to wear.
“Do not sign it, Nathan,” she commanded bravely.
“He is going to kill us both anyway.”
I knew she was completely right about Arthur’s murderous intentions.
But I also knew I could never live with myself if I let Mei’s daughter die.
I reached into my pocket and slowly pulled out my signature pen.
I knelt down on the cold floor and smoothly signed my name on the dotted line.
Arthur’s eyes lit up with absolute greed as I slid the paper back through the metal bars.
“A wise decision for a dying man,” Arthur smirked, pocketing the multi-billion-dollar contract.
He raised his gun, aiming it directly at my chest through the gaps in the cage.
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“Goodbye, Nathan,” he whispered, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Suddenly, every single computer monitor in the massive server room flashed a brilliant, blood red color.
