An Old Family Friend

Brian let out sharp labored breaths as he stared at the man. The almond eyes were familiar but the black ski mask was leaving him in a shroud of mystery. "No? Rachel, what about you darling?" The man asked, his smile revealing a set of shiny white teeth with a single gold incisor,

"Don't you fucking call her darling asshole," Brian spat out while his older sister merely turned her head away in disgust,

"You always were a little slugger, Bry," The man chuckled while reaching up and slowly tugging off his mask revealing his face, "How about now?"

Like a torrent, memories began to flood Rachel's mind from years ago, back before her father made it big and they were living in a small two-bedroom house. Brian was only five and her eight, their father was always having friends or clients over talking about their start-up company and this man was one of the main two, his best friend even, Quentin Frost. "Q-Quentin, you're my dad's friend," Rachel stammered out,

Another left let Quentin's lips as he stood back up and slowly shook his head, "You ought to remind your dad of that sometime, seeing as it's been over ten years since I've heard from the man," Quentin replied,

"What the fuck do you want Quentin?! What are you doing here?!" Brian screamed out,

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up." Quentin slowly and firmly said while glaring over to Brian, "What we're gonna do is wait until the rest of your friends are down here and then we'll talk about everything,"

The group slowly turned silent and Quentin crossed his arms watching the stairs while the other teens made their way to the couch or the floor right next to it. Kenny felt his heart beating a mile a minute as he feared for Eric, Nicole, and most of all Zoey. JJ in turn was focusing on the second pair of men that kept guns trained on them, it wasn't hard to see one was far younger than the other, even with the masks on. An unlikely duo if someone was buying a couple of guards or hitmen.

"That guy's hand is shaking," Mindy whispered to JJ who quickly caught sight of the older man's free hand slightly shaking by his side,

"Quiet, quit fucking talking!" The younger of the two sharply shouted silencing the pair before they could say another word.

Another long few minutes passed before the group heard the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs and moments later Nicole, Eric, and Zoey were marched into the room by the fourth gunman. "Q, where's your mask?" The man instantly asked with a bewildered look,

"Well our dear old niece and nephew didn't remember me, so I needed to remind them who I am," Quentin replied, "You two remember Terry at least, don't you?"

"Damn it, Quentin!" Terry exclaimed as he too yanked off his mask, "We were supposed to stay undercover, no one was going to see our faces!" Rachel gulped as she looked the tall slim black man over, his face once more an unmistakable

"Relax," Quentin retorted as he looked back at the group, "Now, that's better, a full crowd. Now I'm sure the rest of you are so confused, I mean, what exactly did Brian and Rachel get you into, eh? Well, try not to be too hard on them, it's their father who really put you all here,"

"Fuck off, don't you talk about my father!" Brian began to shout as he jumped to his feet only for Quentin to slam the butt of his pistol into his head knocking him back down,

"Brian!" Rachel screamed as she caught her brother once more,

"Everyone keep that in mind before they think of trying anything funny alright," Quentin snapped out to the others, "Henry, take their phones. John, go around break the rest of the landlines. We don't need anyone else joining our party do we?"

"On it," The younger of the two men replied while rushing towards the teens, jutting his gun out aggressively, "Alright, you heard him, hand them over," The teens reluctantly pulled out their phones and handed them to Henry who was quick to drop and stomp on each one of them. John, meanwhile, hesitated for a few moments before exiting the room and searching the lodge for remaining phones.

"Quentin, Terry, you know my father, you know my mother, you used to come to my birthday parties. Please, why are you doing this?" Rachel asked while wiping away a fearful tear,

"Because Rachel, despite what you two believe, your father is a very evil man!" Quentin exclaimed, "Do you honestly think that he succeeded so well in his life without stepping on people to get there? Screwing people over without a second thought? Never once considering that someone beyond money matter?!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Brian growled back,

"You know your father's company name, LQT.Inc? That was our idea, the first letter of all our names, three owners, three partners, that was the design we came up with right out of high school," Terry replied, "We were smart guys, working with new tech for the military, trying to hit it big but year after year, nothing was hitting. Sure we made money, but we were barely making it and your dad knew it,"

"What are you getting at?" Brian muttered out,

"What he's getting out, Brian, is your dad fucked us over! Behind our fucking backs he was working his way into a deal to become a government contractor. He didn't tell us about that, instead, he sat us down over the course of a few weeks and told us how awful things were going. He pretended to care about our struggles and then, lone behold, he gives us an out. Our best friend says he'll take the bullet for us and buy us out, twenty grand apiece, something to hold us over while we found new work because LQT was doomed." Quentin continued, each sentence dripping with sarcasm,

"And like a couple of chumps, we fucking took the deal, thinking Leonard was being straight with us," Terry grunted, "A month later, it's all over the news, LQT.Inc new contractor for the government, sole owner Leonard White set to make millions," Terry said with a low bitter tone,

"And do you think your dad called us, asked us to come back, maybe even offered to give us some of that money that we rightly were deserved as we did over half the fucking work? No...not a fucking penny, not a phone call, we were shit to him, and he already stepped right over us," Quentin finished, "As shitty as that is, we let it go until we met John, and his son Henry" Quentin continued, "John owned the mines on these mountains and just like us, your dad screwed him over. He paid him nothing for those mines, misled him and now he's set to make millions while poor John was getting pennies. Enough's enough, Leonard needs to be brought down into the mud, and that's exactly what we intend on doing,"

"You own the truck down at the base of the mountain," Kailyn whispered,

"And you were the guys on the snowmobiles Eric and I saw earlier this week," Anna added,

"Ding ding, good job," Quentin chuckled,

"What are you guys doing in the mountains, destroying them?" Kenny asked as he thought back to the morning Zoey and he awoke in the cave shaking and a distant boom filling there ears,

"That was the plan, bury those mines, everything Leonard was planning is destroyed and he gets a taste of what it's like to be screwed, but now...well after we found out exactly who was up here, things changed," Quentin smiled,

"W-What do you mean?" Rachel whispered while tightening her grip on Brian

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Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you all for over one million views on the story! That's honestly incredible to me and as I reach the end of this thread I can't wait to move onto a new take of this story after! I hope you've all been enjoying all the threads and chapters so far and I look forward to hitting two million one day!