Taming My Sugar Mommy
Chapter 78: Marcus’s Breaking Point

Chapter 78: Marcus’s Breaking Point

"Lower the weapon, Marcus." Richard’s voice was glacial, his momentary loss of composure already under control. "You’re making a very costly mistake."

Marcus stood motionless, the gun still trained on Richard’s chest. The guards remained at the door, weapons raised but awaiting orders, uncertain whether to intervene in what appeared to be a dispute between their superiors.

"Show me Sophia," Marcus demanded, his voice steady despite the slight tremor in his hands. "Not another recycled video. Not another edited phone call. I want proof that my daughter is alive and where you claim she is."

Richard’s lips curled into a contemptuous smile. "After this display of insubordination? I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands." He turned to one of the guards. "Contact the secondary facility. Have them prepare a live feed of the girl."

The guard nodded and stepped outside to relay the order. Richard turned back to Marcus, apparently unconcerned by the weapon still pointed at him.

"While we wait," Richard continued, "perhaps you’d care to explain to our guests why you’ve been so helpful these past three years. Tell them about the loving father who abandoned his own flesh and blood to addiction and then tried to buy her back with betrayal."

Marcus’s jaw tightened. "Don’t," he warned.

But Richard was not to be deterred. "Poor Marcus here lost custody of his daughter after his ex-wife proved he was an unfit parent. Alcohol, wasn’t it? Or was it the gambling? Either way, when Sophia was placed in foster care, he was desperate to get her back. So desperate that he agreed to help me in exchange for her safety and eventual return." His smile widened. "Touching, isn’t it? The lengths a parent will go to for their child."

Isabella’s eyes widened in surprise. She glanced at Marcus with newfound confusion. "Ex-wife?" she whispered, the revelation that Marcus had once been married catching her completely off-guard. There was so much about this man she didn’t know, despite how central he’d become to their lives.

Christina stepped forward, her eyes never leaving Marcus. "That’s not the whole story, is it?" she said quietly. "Tell them what I found, Richard. Tell them about the sale."

Isabella’s brow furrowed in confusion. "Sale? What sale?"

Richard’s expression hardened. "Ms. Christina appears to have an overactive imagination. Perhaps the stress of the situation—"

"I found the documents," Christina interrupted, her voice gaining strength. "Transaction records disguised as medical bills. A transfer of guardianship with Marcus’s forged signature. You never had Sophia. You sold her three years ago and have been using doctored footage to control Marcus ever since."

A heavy silence fell over the room. Liam, despite his injury, straightened as understanding dawned. Isabella’s eyes widened in horror. But it was Marcus whose reaction was most profound—a visible unraveling as the last threads of hope were stripped away.

"Is this true?" he asked Richard, his voice barely above a whisper. The gun in his hand began to shake more noticeably.

Richard’s face betrayed nothing. "The guard will return shortly with confirmation of your daughter’s well-being. These accusations are merely—"

"ANSWER ME!" Marcus roared, a vein pulsing at his temple as years of suppressed rage finally broke free. "Did you sell my daughter?"

For a moment, Richard seemed taken aback by the outburst. Then his expression settled into something colder, more calculating.

"You were never going to see her again anyway," he said with a dismissive shrug. "Child services had already terminated your parental rights. I simply found a more... profitable arrangement for all concerned."

The confirmation struck Marcus like a physical blow. He staggered slightly, as though the weight of the truth was too much to bear.

"Where is she?" he asked, his voice hollow. "Who has my daughter?"

Richard smiled thinly. "That information is worth considerably more than your current offer," he said, nodding toward the gun. "Perhaps we could negotiate a new arrangement."

It was the wrong response. Something fundamental changed in Marcus’s eyes—a light extinguishing, replaced by a terrible emptiness. The hand holding the gun stopped shaking.

"Marcus," Isabella said softly, recognizing the dangerous shift. "We’ll find her. Whatever it takes. But this isn’t the way."

Marcus didn’t seem to hear her. His focus had narrowed to Richard, everything else in the room fading to insignificance.

"Three years," he said, his voice eerily calm now. "Three years of following your orders. Three years of believing I was keeping her safe. Three years of hoping that one day I’d hold my daughter again."

Richard’s expression remained unmoved. "A father’s love is remarkably exploitable," he observed coldly. "But then, all love is weakness in the end. My brother discovered that truth too late."

The guard returned, interrupting the tense standoff. "Sir, there’s a problem with the feed from the secondary facility. They’re saying the systems are down."

Richard’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Tell them to fix it. Immediately."

"Of course there’s a problem," Christina said. "There is no feed because there is no facility. There never was."

Marcus took a step forward, the gun now perfectly steady in his hand. "One last chance," he said to Richard. "Tell me where my daughter is."

Richard stared back at him, unblinking. "You won’t pull that trigger," he said with quiet confidence. "You still need me to find her."

For a moment, it seemed he might be right. Then Richard made a fatal miscalculation.

"Besides," he added with a cruel smile, "after three years, she’s probably forgotten you even exist. Children are remarkably adaptable that way."

Something snapped inside Marcus. Three years of suppressed rage, grief, and betrayal exploded in a single moment of violent clarity. The gun in his hand barked once, twice, three times in rapid succession.

The first bullet tore through Richard’s shoulder, spinning him halfway around. The second caught him in the stomach, doubling him over with a shocked gasp. The third—fired with cold, deliberate precision—struck him squarely between the eyes, spraying crimson across the polished wall behind him.

Richard’s body crumpled to the floor like a marionette with severed strings, his expression frozen in permanent surprise, as if he couldn’t believe Marcus had finally broken his chains.

"That was for Sophia," Marcus snarled, his face contorted with a primal fury that made everyone in the room take an instinctive step back. "And for every minute of the three years you stole from us."

The room fell into shocked silence, the echo of the gunshots still ringing in everyone’s ears. Blood pooled beneath Richard’s body, spreading across the pristine floor in a crimson stain. The guards, witnessing the sudden and brutal execution of their employer, immediately backed away, hands raised in surrender.

As Richard’s lifeless body slumped to the floor, his hand fell against his watch, inadvertently pressing a small button on its side. A faint red light began blinking beneath his sleeve, unnoticed by the others in the stunned aftermath of violence.

Christina immediately swung her weapon toward Marcus, uncertain whether he was friend or foe in this shifting landscape. Her eyes were wide with shock at the savagery she had just witnessed.

"Don’t," Isabella said, placing a trembling hand on Christina’s arm. "He’s not our enemy. Not anymore."

Marcus stood over Richard’s body, the gun still clutched in his white-knuckled grip. The rage that had consumed him seconds before was already draining away, leaving behind only a hollow emptiness. The weapon slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers, clattering to the floor beside Richard’s body.

"I killed him," he whispered, staring at his own hands as if they belonged to a stranger. "And I still don’t know where she is."

Liam pushed himself up, grimacing through his pain. "There will be records," he managed, his voice strained. "He wouldn’t have given up that kind of leverage without documentation."

Isabella moved to Liam’s side, pressing her hands against his wound to stem the bleeding. "Stay with me," she murmured. "Just stay with me."

Liam managed a weak smile despite the horror they’d just witnessed. "Not... planning on going anywhere," he gasped.

Marcus stood frozen, his gaze still fixed on Richard’s body, on the three precise wounds that had ended the life of the man who had destroyed his own. The chest wound still oozed blood, but the head shot had left a perfect, terrible hole—evidence of a hatred so deep it had momentarily transformed Marcus into something unrecognizable.

"I’ve lost her," he whispered, his voice raw with despair. "Again."

Isabella looked up from Liam’s side, her expression set with determination despite the blood and chaos surrounding them. "No," she said firmly. "We’re going to find her. Together."

A heavy silence fell over the room, broken only by Liam’s labored breathing and the distant sound of alarms that had started during the commotion.

Christina was the first to recover her wits. "Those alarms mean reinforcements," she said urgently. "We need to move. Now."

Isabella nodded, helping Liam to his feet with Christina’s assistance. "Marcus," she called. "Are you coming with us?"

Marcus stood immobile, staring down at Richard’s body. The man who had stolen three years of his life. The man who had taken his daughter and dangled false hope before him like a cruel game. The man he had just executed with cold, calculated rage.

’What kind of father am I now?’ he thought, the question echoing hollowly in his mind. ’What kind of man?’

"Marcus," Isabella repeated, more gently this time. "We need to go."

Slowly, as if emerging from a trance, Marcus turned to face them. His eyes, once cold and calculating, now held only exhaustion and grief.

"Why would you help me?" he asked Isabella, genuine confusion in his voice. "After what I’ve done?"

Isabella’s gaze was steady. "Because I understand what it means to lose everything," she said simply. "And because right now, you’re Sophia’s only hope of being found."

Something stirred in Marcus’s eyes at the mention of his daughter’s name—a tiny spark rekindling in the darkness. He nodded once, decision made.

"Richard’s office," he said, suddenly purposeful. "Third floor. If there are records of the transaction, they’ll be there."

"Then that’s where we’re going," Christina said, already moving toward the door with Liam leaning heavily against her.

As they left the room, stepping over the body of the man whose obsession had nearly destroyed them all, Isabella cast one final glance back. In death, Richard looked smaller somehow, diminished without the force of his hatred to animate him.

’Whatever you felt for my father,’ she thought, ’I hope you find peace from it now.’

Then she turned away, following the others into the corridor and toward whatever uncertain future awaited them all.