My Life as Dad's Living Deterrent のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 1 - チャプター 10

The light above me vanished.A heavy engine roared to life overhead. Dad had started the car and driven it straight over the well cover. The tires groaned against the wood, showering my face with dust."Dad, what are you doing?" Isabelle yelled, her voice laced with panic.Dad remained completely unfazed. "Nobody is letting him out. Rip up that admission letter, or the car stays put.""Benjamin, you've lost your mind!" yelled Uncle Harrison."What's the matter with you?"Dad actually sounded amused as he explained, "The kidnapper is already behind bars. Before he even brought Gabriel to this hideout, I'd already had undercover cops stake out the perimeter. He's perfectly safe. You're all making a scene like he's actually dead."Huddled at the bottom of the dark well, I couldn't stop shaking as I listened to him.All Dad cared about was the sting operation and whether the bad guy was caught. But he had forgotten that we were in the middle of nowhere.It took a full 24 hours for

Finally, Uncle Harrison shoved Dad aside. "Move! The tow truck's already on its way. You're not stopping me!"Dad stumbled, slamming hard against the car door.An engine rumbled in the distance. A yellow truck rounded the corner, kicking up a massive cloud of dust. Uncle Harrison ran toward the road, waving his arms until the truck pulled up right next to the well. The driver jumped out of the truck and immediately started hooking up the steel towing cables.Isabelle knelt by the opening, frantically clawing away the loose gravel. Her voice had gone completely hoarse. "Gabriel, the truck's here! Just hang on a little longer!"The cables snapped taut, and the winch began to crank. The car frame shuddered before gradually shifting sideways.The wooden cover finally came into view.Uncle Harrison rushed over, tearing the heavy boards away. The well lay completely open, allowing the midday sun to pour down into the darkness.At the very bottom, my body floated face-up in the dilap

Isabelle stayed hunched over my body, completely frozen. She stared directly into my open mouth, paralyzed by what she saw. My tongue was gone, replaced by a jagged, mangled stump where the killer had sawed it back and forth with a dull blade.Thick, dark blood clots collected at the back of my throat, sending up a sickening stench."No!"Isabelle threw her head back and let out a blood-curdling scream.She collapsed onto the ground, tearing at her hair so violently that her scalp bled. "His tongue… Where is his tongue? What did they do to him?"Dad flinched at her reaction.He forced himself forward to look, but the second he saw the insides of my mouth, he gagged, clapped a hand over his face, and scrambled backward until he fell flat on his behind."N-No way…" he stammered, his face turning ashen. "The guy was caught. The undercover cop told me Gabriel was perfectly fine. How could they cut out his tongue? How could they do that to him?"Uncle Harrison finished climbing up

Every eye on the scene locked onto the tweezers."What is it?" Astrid asked, her voice dropping.The medical examiner dropped the fragment into an evidence bag. "Crushed bricks and wood chips," he explained. "The victim's fingernails are completely torn away on all ten fingers, and there are friction fractures on the phalanges. Even the bone is exposed. "Before he fell into the water, he was climbing the well wall with his bare hands, clawing at the bricks. The wood chips are from when he was desperately pounding on the wooden cover."The medical examiner paused before continuing, "He wanted to live. But whatever was resting on top of the opening cut off his only escape route."He turned toward the wooden cover the car tires had already ground into. It was covered in dark, reddish-brown handprints.Isabelle stared at the bloody prints until her legs gave out, and she collapsed heavily onto the ground.It finally hit her.Half an hour ago, while she was confronting Dad and be

It was a formal department transfer request, stamped with the blue ink of the state attorney's office. The bold heading across the top hit Dad like a bolt of lightning."Drug Enforcement Administration. Undercover Deployment Application."Dad's eyes went wide as he stared at the paper."W-What the hell is this?" he stammered, his voice trembling.Isabelle tapped her knuckle against the partition, right over the blue stamp. "Ms. Larson bypassed the review board to fast-track my application. I volunteered for the border task force as an undercover narcotics agent. It's a high-risk mission. There's a chance they may never find my body. It's just like what happened to Mom on her final mission. "This is exactly what kept you up at night, isn't it? Well, the more it terrifies you, the faster I'm going to run toward it. You traded Gabriel's life to make me drop out of the academy. Now, I'm using my own life to square the debt."Dad completely snapped. He went into a feral frenzy, thr