My Best Friend Was Tortured,But I'm the Goddess of Thunder

The Moon Goddess, who'd spent thousands of years guarding her lonely palace in the sky, finally got bored.

She insisted on dragging me down to the mortal world for a full-immersion experience of the twenty-first century.

She wore me down until I had no choice but to say yes.

The moment we crossed into the mortal realm, she was reborn as the long-lost true heiress of a wealthy elite family, and I became the precious baby girl of an underworld kingpin who'd gotten his miracle child late in life.

When the Harding family took Amy back, I warned her: if those people give you any trouble, we dust off our hands and head straight back to the Ninth Heaven.

She laughed and said no birth parents would ever mistreat their own child, and besides, the fake heiress had been nothing but sweet to her. She told me not to worry.

I couldn't talk her out of it, so I let it go.

Then came the day I was about to queue up for my next match, and I felt Amy's divine soul shatter.

"Double Kill!"

Kill effects blazed across my monitor.

I was reaching for the Enter key to trash-talk the enemy team when a bolt of white-hot agony ripped through my chest.

This pain didn't belong to a mortal body.

It struck straight through to my divine soul.

I shoved the keyboard away, one hand pressed to my chest, my face drained of all color.

Amy Harding.

My best friend, the Moon Goddess herself, the one who'd talked me into descending for this so-called trial of tribulation.

Before we left the Ninth Heaven, we'd exchanged Life Talismans. If either of us faced mortal danger, the other's divine soul would receive a distress signal.

Right now, the talisman bound to her was cracking apart, fracture after fracture, splitting faster than I could breathe.

Amy Harding, the girl who'd sworn up and down that "no birth parents would ever mistreat their own child," was dying.

I kicked the gaming chair out of my way, snatched the car keys off the desk, and bolted.

"Nat Driscoll! Brick Abbott!"

I stood in the hallway and roared.

The entire Dunn mansion erupted.

In under thirty seconds, dozens of thick-necked men in black suits poured down from every floor and lined up in front of me, shoulder to shoulder.

"Boss!"

My father, Nelson Dunn, was the most powerful crime lord in the city. He'd been going legit the past few years, but the ruthlessness in his bones kept every last person in line.

I clenched my jaw. Murder lived behind my eyes.

"Gear up. Every brother you can reach, get them here. Now."

"Tonight, we're tearing the Harding estate to the ground."

Brick hesitated. "Boss, the Hardings are old money. Top of the social ladder. If we roll up there guns blazing..."

"I said go!" My palm cracked against the doorframe so hard the solid wood splintered.

"Anything goes wrong, it's on me!"

Fifteen minutes later.

Ten black armored SUVs tore down the highway like a convoy of war machines, blowing through every red light, aimed straight at the Harding estate.

In the back seat, I white-knuckled my phone and dialed Amy's number.

Dead.

Still dead.

The tearing sensation in my divine soul grew worse by the second. Her life force was draining fast.

"Faster!" I screamed at the driver.

The Harding estate sat halfway up the hillside, its twin copper gates sealed shut, four uniformed guards standing post.

The driver slowed and reached for the horn.

I grabbed the wheel out of his hands and floored the gas.

"Ram it."

Metal shrieked against metal as the armored SUV smashed the copper gates wide open.

Alarms tore through the estate grounds.

The SUV drifted hard and skidded to a stop right in front of the main house.

I kicked the door open, jumped out with a solid-steel baseball bat in my fist.

Brick and Nat poured out behind me with over a hundred men, fanning out until the Harding mansion was surrounded on every side. Not a gap left.

"Smash it."

On my word, the ground-floor windows exploded under a hail of baseball bats, glass raining down like shrapnel.

The Harding servants and bodyguards scattered like rats, arms over their heads.

I followed the pull of my divine soul and strode toward the basement level of the Harding estate.

The iron door to the underground was sealed with a coded lock.

I stepped back.

Brick pulled out the hydraulic cutter he always carried. One clean snap, and the lock sheared apart.

I kicked the door open.

The smell hit me first. Blood, thick and metallic, layered over the sharp sting of disinfectant.

The moment I saw what was inside, my vision went red.

This wasn't a storage room. It was a fully equipped sterile operating theater.

Amy Harding. My best friend. The goddess who had once stood serene and untouchable in the Moonlit Palace.

She was strapped to a freezing surgical table.

Her face was the color of ash. Her eyes were shut, and her breathing was so faint it barely registered.

Her back had been cut open. A tube as thick as a grown man's forearm was jammed into her spine.

Dark red bone marrow was being siphoned out of her body, inch by inch, through that tube.

On a second bed beside her, plush and pristine like something out of a luxury recovery suite, lay the Harding family's fake heiress.

Lena Harding.

Lena's cheeks were rosy. She was propped against her pillows, watching a variety show on a tablet, giggling every few seconds.

Georgia Harding sat at the edge of Lena's bed, spooning bird's nest soup into her mouth one careful bite at a time.

"There's a good girl, eat up. Once they finish extracting your sister's marrow, you'll be completely cured."

The private doctor in a white coat frowned and spoke up. "Mrs. Harding, Miss Amy's vitals are dropping. The volume of marrow extracted has already far exceeded the safe limit. If you continue, she will die."

Georgia didn't even look up. Her voice dripped with impatience.

"Her worthless life, traded for my Lena's health? She should count herself lucky."

"Increase the dosage. As long as it cures Lena, even if she dies on that table, consider it her filial duty to the Harding family."

Filial duty?!

Something inside my skull snapped clean in two.

"Filial duty my ass!"

CRACK.

I brought the rod down on the extraction machine with everything I had.

Sparks exploded outward. The machine shrieked, shorted, and went dead.

The crash sent the bowl of soup flying from Georgia's hands. It shattered on the floor.

"Who are you?!" Georgia shrieked, scrambling to her feet, staring at me in terror.

Lena burrowed under her blankets like a frightened animal.

I didn't spare either of them a glance. I grabbed the doctor by the collar with one hand, lifted him clean off his feet, and slammed him into the wall.

"Who gave you the guts to extract her marrow?!"

He was shaking so hard his teeth chattered. He pointed a trembling finger at Georgia. "It was... it was Mrs. Harding's orders! I was just doing what I was paid to do!"

I drove my knee into his stomach.

He screamed, crumpled to the floor clutching his gut, and retched up bile.

Brick and Nat stormed in with the rest of the crew and locked down the operating room in seconds.

I rushed to the surgical table and fumbled with the restraints buckled around Amy's wrists.

Deep purple welts had been gouged into her skin where the straps had bitten in.

When my fingers touched her, she was cold. Not cool. Cold. The kind of cold that doesn't belong to the living.

"Amy! Amy, wake up!" I patted her cheek. My voice was shaking and I couldn't stop it.

Her eyelids fluttered open, barely. Her pupils were unfocused, drifting.

When she recognized me, her cracked lips pulled into the ghost of a bitter smile.

"Pansy... you came..."

"Mortals... are truly terrifying..."

My tears fell before I could hold them back.

I was the Storm Goddess. A deity with rank and reputation in the Ninth Heaven. And I'd let my best friend suffer like this in the mortal world.

"Don't be scared. I'm taking you home."

I eased the tubes from her back as carefully as I could, then pressed sterile gauze hard against the wound.

I'd barely gathered her into my arms when a stampede of footsteps erupted outside the door.

"Nobody move!"

Harold Harding, the eldest son of the Harding family, stood in the doorway flanked by a small army of bodyguards in full tactical gear.

He wore a tailored suit and gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes cold and imperious behind the lenses.

The moment he saw me holding Amy, his brows knotted into a vicious scowl.

"Pansy Dunn? A thug from the underworld, and you have the nerve to break into my family's home?"

"Do you have any idea what you've done? One phone call. That's all it takes to wipe every last one of your father's operations off the map."

I let out a cold laugh and passed Amy to Brick, who stood right behind me.

"Brick, get Amy to the car. There's a first-aid kit inside."

Brick took two steps toward the exit, Amy cradled against his chest, but Harold's bodyguards closed ranks and blocked him.

Harold slid his hands into his pockets, voice dripping with arrogance. "Put her down. She belongs to the Harding family. If she dies, she dies here."

"Pansy, I don't care what kind of stunt you think you're pulling. Take your little gang of lowlifes and get the hell out."

Before I could respond, Lena, lying on the hospital bed, suddenly burst into pitiful sobs.

She threw off the covers, didn't even bother with shoes, and ran barefoot to Harold's side, clutching his arm.

"Harold, please don't blame Pansy. This is all my fault!"

"I shouldn't have gotten sick. I shouldn't have needed Amy's bone marrow. If Pansy insists on taking her, then just let me die!"

Tears streamed down her face like rain on pear blossoms, her body swaying as if she might collapse at any second.

Harold immediately wrapped a protective arm around her, his glare sharpening to a razor's edge as it swung back to me.

"You hear that, Pansy? Lena is this kind and selfless, and your precious best friend is that selfish! It's just a little bone marrow, and she goes running to the mob to cause a scene!"

Georgia found her voice too, jabbing a finger at my face and shrieking.

"Where is that ungrateful little wretch? We searched for her for twenty years! Fed her, clothed her! All we're asking is that she repay us for raising her, and she plays dead!"

"Nobody takes her out of here until we've gotten every last drop of marrow we need!"

I looked at this shameless family and laughed. The kind of laugh that comes when rage circles all the way back around.

"Repay you for raising her?"

I stepped forward and raised my hand.

Crack!

One sharp, ringing slap landed square on Lena's sanctimonious face.

I put everything I had into it.

Lena flew back a full six feet, slammed into the hospital bed, and crumpled. Her lip split on impact, blood pouring down her chin.

"Ahhh! My face!" She clutched her cheek and screamed.

Dead silence.

Harold's eyes went wide, as if he couldn't process that someone had just struck a blow on his turf.

"Pansy! You're dead!" He lunged at me with a roar.

I drove my foot straight into his kneecap.

A clean, wet snap of bone, and the mighty Harding heir dropped to his knees in front of me.

"You want to talk rules with me?" I grabbed a fistful of his hair and wrenched his head back, forcing him to look up at my face.

"Let me teach you how we do things in the underworld."

I backhanded him across the mouth. Half a tooth skittered across the floor.

"Nat! Anyone gets in the way, break their legs!"

"Yes, Boss!"

The Dunn crew drew their weapons in unison, eyes sharp and merciless.

The Harding bodyguards were well-trained, but standing across from a pack of men who'd built their lives on the edge of a blade, their confidence crumbled in an instant.

I stepped over Harold's body, shielding Brick and Amy as we pushed toward the exit.

Georgia screamed behind us, hysterical: "Call the police! Call the police right now! Have these thugs arrested!"

I didn't even turn around.

The moment we cleared the Harding Estate, the SUV roared to life and tore out of there.

"Our private hospital! Now!" I shouted from the back seat.

Amy lay across my lap, her face white as paper, her breathing so faint I could barely feel it.

I'd already cast a Divine Sigil in secret, channeling a thin thread of divine energy into her body to protect her heart meridian.

But in the mortal world, a celestial's power was severely constrained.

If I overused my abilities, it wouldn't just invite heavenly punishment. It would accelerate the collapse of her mortal body.

By the time we reached the Dunn Group's private hospital, the top medical team was already waiting at the entrance.

Amy was rushed straight into the ICU.

I sat on the row of chairs in the corridor, both hands still covered in her blood.

A rapid set of footsteps echoed from the far end of the hallway.

My father, Nelson Dunn, strode toward me in a loose traditional jacket, flanked by several of his lieutenants.

The man who commanded fear across every corner of the city looked nothing but frantic.

"Pansy! Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

He grabbed my arms and looked me over head to toe.

I shook my head and pointed at the sealed ICU doors. "I'm fine. But Amy's barely hanging on."

Nelson's expression darkened.

"Those animals. Their own flesh and blood, and they'd go that far."

He squeezed my shoulder. "Relax. This hospital is ours. The doctors are the best money can buy. They'll bring her back."

But things were far worse than I'd imagined.

Two hours later, the attending physician emerged drenched in sweat, his face grim.

"Mr. Dunn, Miss Dunn... Miss Harding's condition is extremely critical."

"She's had an excessive amount of bone marrow forcibly extracted. Her hematopoietic stem cells have sustained catastrophic damage. She needs an immediate blood transfusion and emergency medication."

"However..." The doctor swallowed hard.

"However what? Spit it out!" I snapped.

The doctor's voice shook. "Ten minutes ago, every unit of compatible blood in our hospital's bank was requisitioned by the Health Department. And the supplier for the medication we need just called to unilaterally terminate our contract. They're refusing to deliver."

My head went blank, like a bomb had gone off inside my skull.

"Who did this?"

Nelson's phone rang.

He answered, listened for two seconds, and his face turned to iron.

He hurled the phone into the floor. It shattered into pieces.

"The Hardings."

Nelson's jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his neck stood out. "That old bastard Myron Harding gave the order. They've pulled every political and business string they have. They didn't just cut off our medical supplies. They've rallied several of the major families to launch a full-scale assault on every legitimate business we've been building."

The Hardings moved fast.

Less than half a day.

The internet was already on fire.

#CriminalGangInvadesPrivateHome#

#HeiressAndMobPrincessBeatTheirOwnParents#

#BoycottDunnGroup #ShutDownOrganizedCrime#

The posts were plastered with security camera stills of me and my crew smashing through the Harding Estate gates, alongside interview footage of Georgia and Lena sobbing in a hospital, faces wrapped in bandages.

In the video, Georgia wailed like her heart was being ripped from her chest: "We just wanted Amy to come home! But she blamed us for favoring Lena, and she brought gangsters to destroy our house! She tried to kill her own brother! Where is the justice?!"

Lena looked even more heartbreakingly fragile on camera. "As long as my sister is willing to come home, I'll give her back the position of eldest daughter. I don't want anything for myself..."

The comments section below was a cesspool of vicious abuse. The public had been whipped into a frenzy, demanding that the police launch a full investigation into the Dunn family.

The Hardings were using the media and their political clout to back us into a corner with no way out.

"Boss! We've got a problem!" Nat burst out of the elevator.

"Harold's here with police and Health Department officials! They're claiming we've been illegally holding Amy captive and they're demanding to search the hospital by force!"

"And there's more. There's a whole squad of mercenaries surrounding the building. Our guys can barely hold the line!"

I walked to the window and looked down.

The hospital courtyard was packed wall to wall with armed officers and black-clad bodyguards.

Harold sat in a wheelchair, bandages wrapped around his head, holding a megaphone aimed at the upper floors.

"Pansy Dunn! You're surrounded!"

"Hand over Amy Harding and come out with your hands up! Otherwise, today is the end of the Dunn family!"

Nelson grabbed my arm. "Pansy, don't go out there. Let me handle them. Worst case, we go back to the old ways and fight this out!"

I looked at the gray streaking my father's temples, and something twisted in my chest.

Mortals, even underworld bosses, were still impossibly fragile when pitted against the kind of power that came with real money and real connections.

But I wasn't mortal.

"Dad, stay here and watch over Amy."

I peeled off my blood-stained jacket and rolled up my sleeves.

"The Hardings want to destroy me? Today I'll show them who's really in charge."

I shoved open the corridor window and, before anyone could stop me, launched myself out.

Three stories straight down.

BOOM.

I landed square on the fountain sculpture in the hospital courtyard, the impact sending a shockwave through the stone.

But within seconds, over a dozen gun barrels swung toward me in unison, black and hollow.

Foreign mercenaries. Harold had paid top dollar for them.

Harold sat in his wheelchair, and the moment he saw me land, a flicker of manic satisfaction crossed his eyes.

"Pansy Dunn, I'll give you this much. You've got guts."

"Unlawful imprisonment. Assault with a deadly weapon. Grievous bodily harm. And let's not forget the Dunn family's lovely criminal history."

He sneered up at me. "You're going to rot in prison for the rest of your life."

Lena wheeled him forward, wearing a pristine white sundress, the picture of delicate innocence.

She stepped in front of him and let out a theatrical sigh in my direction.

"Pansy, why does it have to be like this?"

"Just hand Amy over to me. Let me take a tiny bit of bone marrow to treat my illness. I promise the Harding family will drop every single charge."

"You don't want your father, at his age, taking a bullet alongside you, do you?"

The words had barely left her mouth when the courtyard's iron gates groaned open.

Several officers dragged in a familiar figure.

Dad.

He must have come downstairs at some point. They had him pinned face-first against the ground.

"Get off me! You spineless dogs, licking the boots of the rich!" Nelson thrashed against their grip, but it was useless.

Harold looked down at him from his wheelchair and nudged my father's face with the toe of his shoe.

"Boss Dunn, times have changed. Money and power run the world now. That street thug code of yours? Take it to the gutter where it belongs."

"Go to hell!" Nelson spat a mouthful of bloody foam at him.

Harold's expression twisted. He raised his hand in a sharp gesture.

"Beat him."

A group of bodyguards closed in and laid into my father with fists and boots.

"Stop!" I roared, lunging forward.

Click.

Three submachine guns pressed against my temples, cold steel biting into skin.

The lead mercenary spoke in stilted English. "Miss Dunn. Don't move. Bullets don't have eyes."

Harold watched me pinned down and laughed, wild and unhinged.

"Pansy! Thought you were tough? Thought you could fight?"

"Go on, then. Hit me again. I dare you."

He hauled himself out of the wheelchair, limping toward me one agonizing step at a time, and raised his hand high.

"That slap from earlier? I'm paying it back tenfold."

His hand came down.

But the slap never landed.

Because I caught his wrist mid-swing.

Harold froze.

The mercenary beside me jammed his barrel harder against my skull. "Let go! On your knees!"

The Harding bodyguards, the police, every single person in that circle stared at me like they were watching a dead woman walk.

In their eyes, I was an ant at the end of the road, seconds from being crushed.

Power. Money. Firepower. Public opinion.

Every weapon the mortal world had to offer was stacked on top of me in that moment, layer after suffocating layer.

I looked at Harold's face, drunk on his own triumph, dripping with sanctimonious cruelty.

I looked at Lena, hand over her mouth in a performance of horror, eyes glittering with barely concealed excitement behind the act.

I looked at my father, pinned to the ground under boots and batons.

And I laughed.

Louder and louder.

In the dead silence of that armed circle, the sound was unnerving.

Harold yanked his wrist free, skin crawling. "Have you lost your mind? What the hell are you laughing at?"

I stopped laughing. Slowly raised my head.

Glanced at the overcast sky.

"I'm laughing because you're pathetic."

My voice was quiet.

"You throw around some dirty money, pull a few strings with the right people, and you think that makes you gods?"

"You're mortals. You're nothing."

"I am the Storm Goddess."