Dead silence filled the dinner table. The waiters serving us the dessert crept backwards into their holes to hide from the drama that was about to unfold.

My hand reached to my side, and I opened up a flap that led to the handle of a sharp knife coated in a poison. Depending on where I struck, I could do some serious damage or make it look like I did.

I glanced at Ash and his hands fidgeted beneath the table as well. Sweat was beading down his neck. He loosened his tie and collar.

Meanwhile, both of our fathers sat casually next to each other. My father picked up a fork and cut into the dessert, taking a bite.

"I have no idea what you're talking about Dex," he said after chewing. "Perhaps your position of power has made you paranoid."

The Mayor sat back in his chair amused. "I know how to read a room old friend. And while you are very adept at keeping your intentions down..." the Mayor looked to Ash and me. "Our children not so much."

My grip tightened around the handle. It was like watching a long fuse being lit and waiting for the spark to snake its way towards detonating the explosion of chaos that would ensue any second now.

My father took his napkin and wiped his mouth. "People want you dead Dex. That bill you passed targeting the wealthy...well they don't like to have their money stolen."

"Stolen?" Dex laughter was dripping with sarcasm. "Is that what they call it? You use our roads, our bridges, our hospitals, our police force, our electricity, our services, and you don't pay for it. I don't call it stealing. I call it collecting the debt you owe, something you are very fond of doing to those beneath you whenever you aren't hiding your money overseas to escape contributing your fair share to society."

"Dex don't do this," my father warned. "We keep society afloat. We hire the unskilled. We train citizens. We provide services where you lack coordination. Who owns the universities that teach your doctors in your hospitals and your construction workers who maintain your infrastructure? We do. We've invested more into society than your government."

The Mayor shook his head. He cut a piece of his dessert and took a bite. Then he wiped his mouth. "Remember the summer mansion?"

My father leaned back in his chair. "What's that have to do with anything?"

"Seems like you do," the Mayor took a sip of some dessert wine. "Every summer it was roasting hot. Yet the people inside the mansion were dressed in sweaters and enjoying great meals and parties while we watched on the outskirts of the property. They only came for the summers and locked down the mansion in the winter."

My father interrupted. "And your point?"

"Remember how we wanted to dismantle it? How frustrated we felt seeing them live in such luxury knowing they did half the labor we did. We produced more than they ever did that summer and yet they got to celebrate. While we worked on the farm harvesting the food they would serve their guests, they swam in their pools and enjoyed a life that we could never have."

"That's where you're wrong Dex," my father pointed at him. "I worked hard to get that life."

"And how many souls did you have to trample over to get it?" the Mayor asked.

My father was silenced by that question. I knew the amount of lives it took to get him where he was today...and I was an accomplice to his success.

"Wealth comes at a price the rich never have to pay," the Mayor concluded. He made a signal with his hand and appearing from all entryways were armed security detail in suits. "That was until I came into power."

My father took a sip of the dessert wine and wiped his lips. "Dex, don't make this harder than it already is."

The Mayor's face morphed into a face of fury that I had never seen before. "You come into my house with an intention to kill me, and you use our children to get here rather than owning it to our past to at least have the decency to confront me yourself. Are you that ashamed of what you are?"

The guards each pulled out their handguns and trained them on my father. I looked to Ash. Maybe we won't have to do anything after all. Perhaps the Mayor will handle this. But a part of me didn't want the Mayor to murder my father. After all, this was the man who raised me.

My father's life wasn't the Mayor's to take. It was mine.

"Order your guards to stand down Dex," my father said. "Don't let them get involved."

"Scared, huh? You now realize what's at stake. With you gone, the Reapers will be in turmoil."

My father scowled.

"Didn't think I would figure it out?" the Mayor taunted. "I've been tracking you guys down ever since your gang killed my wife!"

I looked to Ash and I could see his face red with anger. He was wirelessly downloading his father's anger and storing his rage to unleash on my father.

My father smiled. "Such a hypocrite coming from the Swarmmaster of the Locust himself."

The guards' handle on the guns seemed to sway like a flagpole atop a skyscraper at the sudden gust of a breeze.

"My daughter didn't seem to figure it out," he looked towards me with a disappointing look. "But I've never kept my eyes off of you myself. Now, call off your guards. This is your last chance."

Dex suddenly seemed saddened by my father's staunchness to kill him. "Pas, I'm sorry."

My father's shoulders relaxed for a split second. "Me too Dex."

Like a flash of lightning a knife from the table bounced from my father's hand to a guard's neck behind him. My father's body was right behind the knife, ending the life of the guard next to him with a simple twist of the neck.

The other guards opened fire. My father grabbed the body of a third guard and used it as a shield, plowing himself forward until he reached the long table and flipped it over, sending plates, glasses, bottles, and desserts spilling onto the floor. Ash and I got separated in the chaos. I ended up next to the Mayor, while Ash was with my father.

We all took cover as three guards fired at the table. The Mayor ordered them to stop since Ash was on the other side. The loud bangs ceased.

"Za-Za," my father called out. "End this now."

I looked to the Mayor. His face was difficult to read.

"Don't do it Zay," Ash called out from the other side. "Remember our mission."

One of the guards turned his gun towards me. I heard the screech of tires stop outside the house. Reinforcements had arrived. Whatever it was I was here to do, I had to make the decision now.

"Za-Za!"

"Zay!"

My mind was racing. Who do I kill? I didn't want to kill anyone. There must be another way.

I looked down at my knife coated in the poison. My hand shook on the handle. Then I felt a hand rest on mine. I looked and saw the Mayor. He was neither angry nor scared. He looked resigned to his fate. He whispered to me. "Whatever happens to me, please look after Ash."

My body froze. The same man who tortured his son to prove whether I cared enough for him was asking me to keep his son safe. Did he have that much faith in me, both back then when I rescued Ash, and now with his life on the line?

"Drop the knife," the guard pointing the gun at me ordered. I heard car doors slamming shut as reinforcements surrounded the house.

I took a deep breath. I had prepared for this. But first, I needed the guards gone.

I sheathed my knife. "Take it easy," I said pressing my middle finger to the bottom of my palm where a mechanism was hooked up to my sleeve, activating a small pellet to be released and clatter towards the ground.

Gray smoke filled the room. The guards lost visual. I couldn't see a thing, but I thought back to all the training my father put me through, and I didn't need sight to end the blind. Within a matter of seconds, I had knocked the remaining three guards unconscious.

It was at that moment that the front door broke down and multiple armed guards emerged into the place. With the door open, the smoke started to file out the dining room. When the cloud cleared, my father was standing against a window. Guards had stormed from his left. Guards outside the window had guns focused on his backside. From my right three more guards appeared to replace the ones I had dispatched.

We were outnumbered and outflanked. Half of the mission was a failure; the other half could still be salvaged.

That was until I noticed the guards hadn't unloaded a single shot yet when they had my father and I surrounded. My grip was around my knife again and I kept myself close to the Mayor for protection.

My father had a similar idea.

Except, as the smoke settled, he had his trademark golden scythe with a diamond blade curved around the edge of Ash's neck while Ash was inundated with horror.

The Mayor stood up from behind the table. He pulled out his own gun hidden beneath his shirt and aimed it at my father.

"Pas, you let go of my son now."

At this point all arms were trained on my father. The Mayor was open for an attack from behind. My body was itching to take the chance, but my mind was straining to reign in my natural instinct.

Remember the poison, I reminded myself.

Even that was a last resort. I preferred to get out of this with apologies and spiritual revivals than death and burial.

"How much do you love your boy Dex?" my father said drawing blood from Ash's neck. "You wanted a life together, yet you still love your son. Do you realize now how foolish you were?"

"Pascal," the Mayor gritted his teeth. "Let him go."

"Or what?" he laughed. "Your guards will kill me? I count fifteen bodies, sixteen if you include your son here."

"Dad," I stepped forward. "Leave Ash out of this."

"Then finish what we've started," he growled at me. Then he turned towards the Mayor. "If you love your boy so much, are you willing to trade your life for his?"

The Mayor didn't even hesitate. "Yes."

I hated the guy for having his son tortured, but I found it difficult to lean on his past evil to motivate me to kill him now.

Still, Ash was in trouble; and the Mayor requested I save Ash's life no matter what.

"Za-Za," my father motioned towards me.

I looked at all the guards, half of whom were training their guns on me now.

My father noticed and rolled his eyes. "Always afraid to kill a couple of bugs."

The next couple of scenes were by far unreal. My father was like a demon. He almost teleported around the room, swinging his scythe and harvesting their necks. The guards outside fired into the house. I duck behind cover. Ash clutched his neck and moved forward towards me.

All the while a dark storm cloud trailed my father. I watched as the guards outside fell to the seamless flow of my father's swings. In a matter of seconds guards collapsed, many without heads. It was gruesome.

Ash reached out for me. I extended as far as I could to grab his hand and pull him towards me. Our fingertips were eyelashes apart. I felt the static spark of his life interact with mine before he was forcibly yanked away from me as my father appeared suddenly in the room without breaking a sweat.

All the guards around us were dead. All the guards outside were dead. Ash was back in my father's clutches, and the Mayor and I stood mouths open at the scene.

The Mayor gulped as he drank the scene in. "I've clearly underestimated your skills." The Mayor looked at Ash. "If I give myself up. Will you spare his life?"

"Your son is of no importance to me," my father said with a straight face. "It's your name that's on the contract."

The Mayor nodded. He smiled at his son as tears gripped Ash's cheeks. "Be strong Ash. Stick with your Aunt."

Ash squeezed a word from his mouth. "Dad..."

"I'm sorry for being tough on you. I was just preparing you for the world you'll inherit."

The Mayor turned towards me. "Miss Mata," he nodded.

"Zay," Ash pleaded with tears down his face. "Please, don't kill my dad."

I gripped the knife so tight my hands turned red. It took everything to tune Ash's voice out. Then I plunged the knife into the Mayor's chest, missing the lungs and heart. I pulled the Mayor's body deeper into the knife until I heard a crack of a rib. "You'll live," I whispered into his ear.

My father sighed at the burden being lifted by one of his children. "Good job Za-Za."

The Mayor collapsed to the ground, not moving an inch.

"Dad!" Ash shouted with tears.

That was Ash's final word before my father added his body to the fallen guards around us.