He Came Home Early and Found a Pet Collar Around His 6-Year-Old Son’s Neck. His New Wife Called It “Discipline”—Until Her Own Mother’s Phone Revealed What They Had Planned Before the Party Even Began. / Chapter 78 / 80

Chapter 78 - Fire on the Cliffs

"NO!" Arthur Vance’s muffled shriek reverberated from the pod’s external speakers.

Emily’s discipline shattered. For a split second, her eyes followed the arc of the silver ring as it plummeted into the freezing surf.

That fraction of a second was all Daniel needed.

Daniel closed the distance between them like an artillery shell. His boot struck the wet stone, lunging forward with every ounce of kinetic force left in his battered body. Before Emily could bring the barrel of the MPX to bear, Daniel’s left hand seized the weapon’s receiver, driving it upward toward the sky.

A burst of automatic fire ripped harmlessly into the storm clouds.

Daniel drove his forehead directly into Emily’s face.

The brutal, unyielding headbutt shattered her nose with a sickening crunch. Emily cried out in pain and shock, stumbling backward across the slick rock, blood spraying across her lips. The submachine gun slipped from her grasp, tumbling into a crevice.

"You... you brute!" she spat, wiping the crimson from her mouth, her eyes burning with pure, murderous hatred. She drew a ceramic tactical blade from her belt, slashing viciously toward Daniel’s carotid artery. "You ruined five years of research!"

Daniel dodged beneath the blade, but his fractured ribs seized with agonizing spasms, slowing his counter-strike. Emily’s blade sliced across his bicep, opening a deep gash through his tactical shirt.

She drove forward with ruthless, military precision—proof that her training went far beyond the laboratory. She struck with short, lethal combinations: a palm strike to his injured ribs, a knee toward his groin, followed by a downward thrust of the blade aimed at his collarbone.

Daniel absorbed the blow to his ribs with a strangled roar, refusing to yield an inch. As the blade came down, he caught her wrist in an iron grip, twisting the joint with brutal, mechanical leverage.

*SNAP.*

Emily’s wrist broke. The ceramic knife fell to the rocks.

"This is for the collar," Daniel growled, grabbing her by the lapels of her tactical vest and slamming her violently against the steel frame of Arthur’s transport gantry.

The impact rattled Arthur inside the glass capsule. The old patriarch stared through the glass at his son with eyes full of sheer, unadulterated terror.

"And this," Daniel whispered, drawing his .45 and pressing the cold steel muzzle under Emily’s chin, "is for Mason."

Emily looked down the barrel of the gun. Blood dripped from her nose and mouth, but even now, pinned against the glass pod of her creator, a twisted, mocking smile crept across her features.

"Go ahead, Daniel," she whispered, her voice bubbling with blood. "Pull the trigger. Kill Mason’s mother. Let him watch you execute me. Show him what an animal you truly are."

Daniel looked back over his shoulder.

Mason was standing ten yards away, watching in the pouring rain. His little hands were clenched, his face pale, but his eyes were clear. He was watching his father make a choice between vengeance and humanity.

Daniel’s finger rested on the trigger. His soul screamed to blow her head off—to erase the woman who had turned his life into an abattoir, who had left their son to be starved and collared by monsters.

"Daddy..." Mason’s voice was soft, cutting through the thunder. "Don't become her."

Daniel stared at the boy. The crimson rage blinding his vision slowly receded, replaced by the heavy, sorrowful weight of a father’s duty.

Daniel lowered the weapon.

"You're not worth his innocence," Daniel said coldly.