"You owe them money?"

They had all been summoned for a meeting and due to the events that happened the night before, they had all already predicted what was going to happen.

The way the deep growl echoed within the room, they could practically feel its weight on their shoulders. His presence was suffocating enough that a few of them even instinctively itched their throat. Especially Lori who had tears leaking along his cheeks, his hands raised defeatedly. They had wrapped a cloth around the hand that had been cut, but the blood had been seeping through. He couldn't feel any pain though, since the adrenaline of being in front of him was making him panic.

"P...P-Please..." he began to plead, clamping his hands together in a prayers stance.

Lori was always the most talkative with confidence and could pull any women he laid his sight on. Although his fighting was not up to par, he still made Dante had to focus and work for a victory during their sparring training sessions. From all of them, they had never imagined that he would be implicated in such deceits. "D-Don't kill me—argh!"

Draco's fingers wrapped around his neck and he slammed Lori against the wall. Since Draco was much taller than all of them, Lori's feet flailed in the air while Draco held him up merely by his head. He could feel the pressure in his brain start to rise that his hands gripped Draco's arm, tapping to make him release him.

The instinctive resistance from Lori as his nails began to dig within Draco's forearm, only made Draco squeezed even harder. "You owe them money and you haven't paid your debt yet?" His teeth were gritted and he hissed through them, "I'm the one that came up with that rule."

"You're going to kill him—"

"I don't care!" His father snapped to Dante who had taken a step forward. "You're lucky I'm not killing every single one of you!" Instantly, Dante's footsteps halted as he stared at the squeezing jaw of his father. "I told you all before you left—no incidents! Do not attract attention to yourselves! All of a sudden, I have a call from one of our guys in the police force telling me to get all of you to leave that bar before they get there!"

"It's not as if we asked to have attention on us," Dante defended, glancing towards his brothers who nodded their heads. "They came at us randomly—"

"Be fucking quiet, Dante!" His lips sealed into a thin line. What surprised him though was the tug he felt at the back of his long sleeve. When he glanced over his shoulder, he noticed the darkened eye of Nate glaring at Draco. He was afraid of Dante getting into more trouble, but he was prepared to fight Draco if Dante was in trouble. "He should have informed us of that before he joined us."

They heard a sigh. "We can deal with it."

They were surprised to hear Jake with his arms crossed, standing beside Reno and Bronsted who both didn't feel any remorse for the harshness towards Lori. There had been a high school graduation party that he had to attend last night, which explained his absence. He wasn't there to see Raphael or Lucius berate Lori and slice his finger, but he genuinely enjoyed Lori's company. They had grown a bit closer ever since Lori had gotten higher in the ranks, but never had Jake imagined he would be implicated in such situation. Regardless, he was certain Lori had a good explanation for all of this. "At the end of the day, we're a team so we all need to deal with it."

"Hmmm...." Bronsted protested, chuckling as he shook his head. "It doesn't work that way."

"Not for these types of situations, at least," Reno agreed.

A scowl formed on Jake's face as he turned and met the gaze of both Reno and Bronsted. The only thing he got in return was challenging raised eyebrows; not only were they not scared of him, but they barely took him as a serious threat. "It does work that way," he spat.

"No it doesn't," Dante interjected, sending a narrowed look to Jake. "Not for debts."

Bronsted added, "Lori should've known that his debt was due."

"And we're lucky Wolf isn't taking it out on our whole squad," Reno commented, followed by a scoff.

Jake shook his head; he wasn't going to implicate Lori all of a sudden. There should an accurate explanation for all of this. "We should at least get more information from Lori to know more about this debt." Jake was not going to let one of his friends be killed without any sort of fight and although Draco simply wanted to crack his neck and end it all, he released Lori who collapsed onto the floor, shifting himself onto his back as he gasped for air.

The colour in his face was slowly returning to normal and his vision that had grown blur was starting to readjust itself. He had always feared Draco, but he had never witnessed firsthand how vile Draco truly was; he didn't even give him a chance to explain himself. He wished he had lied to Raphael and had been taken by them, since facing Draco was much scarier than he could have ever imagined. This man was gigantic and his strength was out of this world. His being was basically the live monsters legends feared; even his stare was demonic.

It did help slightly that Jake was present to defend him. "Go ahead," Jake urged, nodding his head towards Lori who continued to couch uncontrollably, "explain yourself." He hoped that there was a reasonable explanation to his mistake, but if Lori didn't have a good one, it was his doomsday they would all witness.

When Lori took longer than expected to form a sentence, Draco stomped his foot forward and snapped, "I don't have all damn day."

Lori didn't even stand to his feet. He didn't even glance at any of them. All he did was turn onto his stomach, lean his head against the floor. With his palms placed at either sides of his face, he shrieked, "I-I...I owe them four billion dollars."

A silence fell upon the room, all of them speechless.

That amount of money was practically impossible to view in a lifetime. Before he could add anything more, he received a hit to his side, which propelled him towards the wall, his back slamming into it. Not only was his side throbbing from the kick Draco gave him, but the back of his head hitting the wall caused an excruciating pain. He howled from the agonizing ache, grabbing onto his ribs and head; it felt as if his entire body and organs were on fire. He had been punched before, but nothing was as devastating as Draco's hits.

Even Jake was in distraught. "Four billion dollars?"  he gasped with widened eyes, barely having enough breath to exhale, "b-billion?"

Reno's eyes were practically bulging from their sockets as his mind attempted to add the amount of zeros after that four. "What did you get yourself into, Lori?" To have that much money owed and the deadline was less than a week, there was no way Lori was going to make out of this unless it was in more pieces. Draco was not one to show mercy or forgive either, meaning there was no way he would offer any help.

Nate, who was behind Dante, had his mouth gaped open in disbelief. Owing such ridiculous amount of money didn't make any sense, and the fact that Lori had told them he would find every single penny. "I say we send him off, now."

"It'll be a miracle for you to leave this room in one piece, Lorenzo." When Lori heard his full name, spoken by Draco, he felt his breathing halt.

None of them could have imagined it would have been a sum of money that high.

Lori always portrayed himself as being wealthy and confident, a playboy that didn't care about hurting women's feelings and always kept his chin higher than others, a superiority complex to which he played a convincing part. Although he had never revealed his upbringing, they had all assumed that he most likely was the most generic story—came from a good wealthy family, enjoyed the deceitful lifestyle and ended up there.

They were surprised to hear the opposite; he finally found the courage to explain his story. "I-I never met my biological parents but...I was adopted by this family and..." he swallowed hard, biting his bottom lip for a moment. "They were harsh on me...a-abused m-me...pretty bad..."

Bronsted murmured under his breath, "Probably not as bad as Draco."

"Definitely not as bad as Draco," Reno mumbled.

Draco had heard both those whispers and furrowed his brows. "I was never abusive."

Reno and Bronsted glanced at one another and quickly lowered their heads to stop themselves from chuckling aloud.

Dante snorted, shaking his head as he breathed, "Right..."

Lori coughed loudly, a strain in his voice from being choked from Draco, who didn't show the slightest sympathy. His eyes had been closed the entire time he spoke, too frightened to look at Draco; from the look in Draco's eyes, he'd be able to tell if he would be killed or not and he didn't want to know. "I got close to this guy and would vent to him. He said he could help me. Come to find out he's apart of Wolf's team and next thing I know, they killed the entire family, gave me two million dollars and told me to run away."

Nate couldn't stop himself from inhaling a sharp breath. That was not a story they heard often; even Dante was taken aback.

"I was thirteen!" Lori wailed, finally looking upwards—avoiding Draco's eye contact—and that was when they saw the blotches of tears leaking across his cheeks, so much that it was dripping from his chin onto the floor. From the way he cried, it was evident he was at his whits ends, not knowing what to do nor where to go from here. "I didn't even have full access to the two million until I reached eighteen." The memories of the night where he found his entire home flooded with blood, stains on the walls, droplets from the door handles, marked on the carpets. "I had seventeen host siblings and because of my stupid venting to someone I thought was a friend..."

His entire life had ended that day and he had fled the city by train before questions were asked. No one searched for that family; people assumed that they had moved away without anyone noticing and without telling anyone. It was as if they had never existed. Even when a welfare check was done on the house, there was no evidence of anything. No stains, no prints—it was spotless. The case was closed before it had even truly started.

"Please!" Lori gripped his shirt right above his own heart, as if it was physically hurting him. He couldn't stop himself from crying and he locked his gaze onto Dante, to which he could feel felt a bit of compassion for him. "I need help! I don't deserve to die! I've done nothing wrong, they tricked me!"

There was a pause in the room. None of them knew what to say—well, none of them but Draco, who scoffed and folded his arms, the scowl on his face remaining bold. "That has nothing to do with us." Lori's breath was caught in his throat. "You fix that shit before next week."

"They never told me it was a debt!" Lori pleaded louder, the fear echoing from his trembling voice. Still, he was too frightened to meet Draco's eye. "They came to me eight months ago right after I joined you. They said my bill was racking up; I didn't even know it existed—" He inhaled a sharply, his breathing stopping for the few seconds that his body fell paralyzed when Draco's voice was only inches away from him. Even though his face was lowered towards the ground, the presence of Draco was as if a wave of heat washed over him, and his tongue went dry.

Draco had moved closer to him.

"The moment you found out was when you should have dealt with it." Draco yelled, not letting the emotions affecting him in any way. It was clear though, that they had touched his sons; their features had instantly softened, glancing at one another uneasily.

"Hold on," Reno intervened, stepping forward cautiously. Draco seemed to be a famished wolf waiting for the prey he could pounce on; it was best to keep an adequate distance. "How does two million turn into four billion anyway?"

"They said its interest for all the years its late," Lori whined, curling into a ball. He had known it all along that he would be killed, but it didn't hurt to try to reason with them. Draco was not one for sympathy, meaning he knew Draco would not have agreed to help him, neither would he understand him. Draco's view on life was too bitter and cold; to him, Lori was a weak link.

"Lock him up in the dungeon," Draco ordered, waving his hand. He then shoved his hands in his front pockets and announced, "He will be beaten until they arrive to collect what's left of him." Lori couldn't feel his muscles anymore. In his head, it was as if he was already dead. "I hope this is a lesson for all of you."

However, Draco noticed how they all glanced at one another in hesitation. He was shocked to see the reluctance, a few of them swallowing hard and lowering their eyes. None of them even tried to bring Lori to the dungeon, nor had moved a foot. That was when he noticed the hint of sorrow in their gazes, and he couldn't help but burst into cackles. "Don't tell me you all feel bad for him?!"

All of them had been taught to keep their emotions to themselves, especially anything having to deal with sadness or care. The known rule was to prevent it from hindering their common sense, which was clearly in issue that Draco was facing presently. Even worst, he made it known that displaying any sort of sorrow or hurt in front of him was grounds to be beaten to a pulp, hence he was shocked to see it in the faces of his own sons. "I'll be damned."

None of them responded, but Draco thought the silence had much more of a voice, showing how much his sons had failed to follow his rulings. The worst of all was that the person who hadn't been raised by him, displayed the coldest regard towards Lori, with no hint of sympathy whatsoever. The only person that seemed to be on the same page as himself, was Nate.

They all shuddered when they heard his loud roar, "I raised all of you better than this, especially you, Dante." He began to pace in front of them with his hands on his hips, incredulously chuckles escaping his lips as he ruffled between growls and laughter in disbelief. "The most important rule was to lose that emotional connection. It only makes you weak! Sadness, sorrow, love, guilt—these things are useless, they lack objectivity, they corrupt your minds."

"But dad..." Reno gulped when his father's eyes turned sharply to stare at him. "He's one of us."

"What type of foolishness are you talking about?" Draco snapped, monstrously storming towards his son who inhaled a sharp breath, squeezing his fists tighter to prevent his entire body from quivering. "His blood doesn't share any of mine, nor any of yours."

Dante spoke up next, folding his arms and furrowing his brows. He was intimidated by his father, but the furrow helped him not be as frightened. "He was tricked by them, Draco."

"That has nothing to do with us," he growled even louder, practically belting from his diaphragm that the entire room had echoed from his voice. It was terribly loud that they all winced from his shout. "He was tricked on his own accord."

"His own accord?" Jake furrowed. "He was thirteen."

Reno raised an eyebrow. "How could he even know anything at thirteen?"

"Your grandfather was prepared to give me his throne at thirteen," he hissed, his sight only growing even more narrowed by each second. "Lucius was a prodigy at thirteen. If he decided to get manipulated at thirteen years old, and share his business with some random friend, then those are the consequences he must face."

"We only isolate a troop member when there's betrayal," Reno stated, repeating the words his father had expressed numerous times. He then motioned towards the Lori laying on the floor and shouted, "There was no betrayal!"

"He betrayed us the moment he decided not to tell us when they approached him the first time!" His father's eyes had sharpened, but his anger seemed to be directed towards Reno as he stomped his feet towards him menacingly. When he was close enough, Reno inhaled a sharp breath, Draco violently reached for Reno's collar with two fingers as he hissed, "And how dare you talk back to me in that tone, Moreno?"

"Alright, maybe we should all try to relax," Bronsted instantly stepped in, seeing the trembling throughout Reno's face. He also saw Reno's left cheek go inward, it was a trick he began to use whenever he felt frightened of his father. He would bite the inside of his cheek, and it would help him stay focused and withhold his gallantry.

It had successfully diverted his father's attention to all of them, instinctively releasing Reno who exhaled a sigh of relief. Immediately, Bronsted reached for the back of Reno's sweater and pulled him away from Draco.

"You all have become insolent brats," he screamed, shaking his head and walking in front of each of them. All of them avoided his gaze, except Nate, who kept his locked onto Draco's golden irises. "I didn't even bat an eye when Melissa died or when Lucius deserted us!" he growled ferociously, his long canines visible by his showing gritted teeth. "You've grown soft!"

Dante shook his head in disagreement. "We haven't grown soft—"

"You especially!" he criticized, stepping closer to Dante. "Ever since you grew closer to Nathan a year ago, you lost your ways to emotions!" Draco was in disbelief, never having imagined that his lost important lesson—his first lesson of all—had been overrides by a measly little high school brat. "Emotions, emotions...the worst enemy of us all that leads to our demise is emotion! I've taught you this! I've taught you ALL of this!" His eyes glanced at each of them as he spat, "Dante made you all become this way."

"All we want to do is take a chance and try to help—" Dante couldn't even finish his sentence.

In a split second, with his face turning crimson red, Draco's fist slammed against Dante's cheek. Draco's hands were humongous compared to other humans, meaning the size of his knuckles in a fist practically hit the entire side of Dante's face. The strength behind the punch caused Dante's entire body to be propelled sideways, rolling onto the ground before he came to a halt.

Every single one of his father's attacks had always been harsh to handle, hence his vision blurred and it took a few seconds before it slowly began to return to normal. Regardless, the sharp pain that snapped across his jaw made him shriek, cursing through every exhales without any notion of what was happening in the room. It felt as if his skull had been cracked as he grunted in pain.

He didn't realize that Nate had stormed towards Draco, a deadly look through his narrowed eye with a shadow covering it. He hadn't even hesitated to leap towards Draco, but Jake had been much quicker than him, reaching for Nate before he could attempt to brawl with Draco.

"Jake," Nate hissed, "If you don't let me go, I will start fighting you." The tone of his voice didn't even sound human; it was as if he had been possessed by a demon whose mere objective was to murder.

Jake only gripped him tighter. "Can't do that."

"Keep him held, Jake," Reno commented, glancing at Nate who had attempted to resist but to no avail. "Draco doesn't have mercy. He is much different than Lucius; if you try to fight him, he will kill you."

"I don't care!" Nate roared, still trying to rip Jake's grip apart but the task was difficult with only one arm. "He has no business hitting Dante that way!"

Draco raised his eyebrows challengingly, rolling up his sleeves as he broadened his shoulders. He was never one to back down from a challenge, no matter how weak his opponent was—if they asked for a brawl then he'd give them a death match. "Let him go Jake," he antagonized, raising his fist in a fighting stance. "I'll send him off to both his real and fake mother." Even Reno and Bronsted couldn't stop the sharp inhales from that harsh remark. It didn't stop there; the moment Draco saw Nate's entire body freeze and his eyes widen, in disbelief that those words had been said, it only made him burst in heat even more. "Maybe then that whore Judith can apologize to you, wouldn't you like that?"

Nate had never felt such a flaming rage bursting through his blood. He was planning to attack Jake and fight with him to be released in order to next go against Draco, but luckily before he had the chance, an arm appeared in front of him. Dante, with a huge red mark on his face that was definitely going to bruise, forced a reassuring smile as he breathed, "I'm fine, Nate. I'm fine, we're all used to this. You have to relax."

Nate's jaw tightened as he glanced passed Dante and towards the bright smirk on Draco's face. For a second, he was debating whether or not he should listen to Dante. He knew Draco was much stronger than him, but it wasn't fair that they all had to bear such atrocities from Draco without a fight. However, Dante reached for his chin, forcing Nate's eye to stare at him as he cooed, "Babe, I'm fine." The jitter that caused his heart to flutter, instantly calmed Nate.

Draco couldn't even begin to express how disappointed his entire family had been. First he had Lucius running off to save the one he loved and Dante getting himself into trouble with Wolf's men because of his love for Nate. All of a sudden, they want to help Lori, a member from the young crew who recently advanced to the older ones, without even knowing him for more than a year. Even Jake looked concern, staring at Lori with such intensity, as if he was attempting to find a solution but there weren't any.

He wanted to teach them another lesson—how far would they go to save him? If they wanted to act on emotions, then he should make them regret ever doing so.

Instantly, they knew something was off when Draco returned his eyes on them. There was a lengthy smirk on his lips, and he placed his palm on his hips. "Fine then," he boomed, his resonating voice causing them to flinch. "I'll let you try to save him."

No one beamed; instead, their eyes narrowed even more. Even Nate knew there was a bizarre aura behind Draco, somewhat eerie, as if he was hiding something grotesque.

"You have two choices," he declared, lifting one finger up as a time. "One, I kill Lori and this all goes away. Or two, you try to save him within a week."

Jake glanced towards the others, but they all still seemed hesitant. "That's an easy one, right guys?"

"No," Dante uttered, suspiciously eyeing the brightening smirk that kept lengthening by the second, on Draco's visage. He tried to figure out what he was planning in his head.

"It's Draco giving you an ultimatum," Reno grumbled, instinctively taking a step backwards away from his father.

Bronsted added, "There's always a catch."

"Even Wolf knows that," Reno added, remembering what Wolf had said to Draco when they were rescuing Nate.

Draco folded his arms.

His eyes were cold, as if he wasn't seeing anyone as his sons but as pawns. There was not a hint of emotion in them, blankly staring at all of them with no care, no love, not even joy. As cruel as Draco was, Nate realized why he was still standing and why he was feared. His tactics were inhumane, but his tactics worked. The only reason he got rescued was because Draco was willing to not only sacrifice himself, but sacrifice all his sons. The reason why he could keep his demeanour and remain composed in front of Wolf when he was being rescued even after Molly died, was because he didn't have any emotional attachment to Molly, neither does he have any to anyone in this room.

All they really were were pawns, ones that he became frustrated if they stepped out of line.

"One of you lose a body part every twenty-four hours that the money hasn't been paid." When they gasped, Draco revealed, "The body part is chosen at random from the torture spin the wheel."