Above and Beyond by Riley Morgan

grander opportunity. Zeus was holding the deal together with his two giant hands.
    That morning, they had gone to finalize the arrangements of the deal.
    Things had not gone well. Zeus and the boys barely managed to escape with their lives, tensions had got so high. The threat against them had been credible, but primarily for the sake of argument, and Zeus had managed to renegotiate the terms of the deal in a way that saved face for the cooperating family.
    “I don’t understand what this has to do with us.” Lena said.
    Zeus looked at her with simmering rage.
    “I don’t suspect that you would,” he said. “You seldom seem to understand much of anything, like the consequences of assaulting the son of one of my business associates.”
    “That jackass deserved it!” Lena said.
    “You will not raise your voice to your father!” Zeus shouted. He settled back down in his chair and collected himself. “Deserve has nothing to do with it, girl. Even if it did, your foolish actions have spoiled a year of hard work, destroyed the plans that would keep our family strong for years to come. You fucked this up. You are going to be the one to make it right.”
    Lena glared at her step-father. Somehow Damien’s shitty excuse for humanity had become her problem. The whole thing was so unfair that it made her head spin. Not that her stepfather had ever cared much for fair.
    “And what do you expect me to do, father. ”
                  “You are going to marry Damien Acala.”
     

Ramon
                  Ramon had to grab Lena by the shoulders to keep her from scrambling over the table and attacking a man that was three times her size. He did not doubt for a moment that she could have killed him with her bare hands in that one moment of rage.
                  Her screams were of a primal nature. Even if they were intelligible as English, they were so loud as to render Ramon uncomprehending on account of deafness.
                  It took all his strength to restrain the tiny woman as she clawed at the table and the air in front of her, struggling to reach her step-father’s throat. Zeus remained impassive, looking down his nose at Lena and shaking his head with contempt.
                  “You will do right by your family and you will marry him next week in Cuba,” he said, and walked out of the room and the boys followed. Lena screamed after him, but he did not respond.
                  Things were already bad, and Ramon got the impression that if drastic action was not taken soon, they would get worse before they got better. He hauled Lena over his shoulder and carried her to her room kicking and screaming.
                  “Listen to me,” he said, setting her gently onto the bed.
                  But she would not. She thrashed and raged and screamed and would hear nothing that Ramon had to say. He stepped away, letting her have her space. It only took a few seconds for her to make her way to the door. Ramon stood in her way, not allowing her to pass.
                  She grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk and brandished them at Ramon.
                  “I’m going to kill that bastard, and if you try and stop me, I’ll kill you too.”
                  She stepped to the door again, and seeing that Ramon did not plan on moving, she raised the tips of the scissors threateningly.
                  Ramon disarmed her effortlessly, and making every conceivable effort not to harm her. She let out a cry as her arm twisted behind her back and Ramon pulled her tight against him, rendering her completely unable to move except to kick.
                  So she kicked. Her heels caught Ramon repeatedly in the shins, and he winced and cried out but did not let go. Ramon had not guessed how flexible Lena was, and he was caught entirely by surprise when her foot bent back and struck