Dan put his tie around his neck and proceeded to fasten it when a hand grabbed it and tightened it around his neck till Dan fell to the floor, unconscious. The figure dragged the comatose man to the other side of the room.

Hours later, Dan found himself face-to-face with his would-be killer. It was Lucas, his own son.

Dan was pinned to the wall by enlargened nails stuck cruelly into his wrists and ankles.

The pain was extreme and Dan pleaded Lucas for mercy.

"Lucas, your own father. Please, let me go…"

"Brookeno. You were my friend. Don't let one silly little break-up break up our whole friendship."

"How dare you!" Brooke stormed up to Lucas. "I gave you everything in the little relationship we had. To me, it meant something. Until you crawled into bed with my best friend! I never forgave you for that, Lucas. And I never will. And it's just too bad you're completely alone in this. You gave your mother's name to the police, Haley moved abroad. And I hate you!"

"Peyton." Lucas said confidently. "Peyton's on my side."

"Peyton," Brooke sneered. "Peyton's the reason we're onto you."

"What are you talking about?"

"Peyton told us you killed your father. Nate here already suspected you so she's not entirely to blame but we can definitely confirm that she's so not on your side."

"What?" Lucas's blood ran cold.

"Yup." Nathan stepped in. "But I won't get into it. It's not important. What's more important is how long they're gonna keep you in jail for. If me 'n' Brooke are lucky, it could be a life sentence."

"Or a death sentence," added Brooke.

"Brooke!" Lucas yelled, frustrated. "How long do you need to get over me cheating on you with Peyton? How can you want me to die just because I broke your heart?"

"I didn't say that!" Brooke said. "Well, not exactly."

"Lucas." Nathan said. "We're gonna leave you to prepare your lame-ass testimony now. Buh-bye."

"But don't bother," Brooke said. "You're gonna lose. And they're gonna put you away for the freaking monster that you are."

With that dramatic note, they left the house and got into Nathan's car.

"My father?" Lucas screamed, outraged that Dan was trying to imply that his life should be spared simply because he was his father. "You abandoned me at birth. You chose Nathan, you chose Deb, you chose this life and you never let us forget it. You made our life the hellish nightmare it was."

"You're going to murder your own blood?" Dan choked out. "Luke, how could you?"

"Yes, Dan, I am going to murder my own blood. After all, I am your son." Lucas said cuttingly. "What about Keith? When you held that gun to him and he was begging you for mercy, did you let him go? No, you did not. And I won't let you go either."

He plunged the dagger into his father's heart, enjoying every scream of agony he got.

Brooke sat in the passenger seat, reliving memories of Lucas and herself in her mind, unconsciously crying. At a signal Nathan looked over at her and noticed.

"Brooke, what's up?"

"I can't do this to him. Nate, he isn't a bad person. I don't think he would deliberately hurt me or Dan. I think he's just a misguided human being who gets carried away and when we talked to him today, he looked remorseful. Hell, he looked sorry for killing his father. It almost looked like he was willing to suffer the consequences of the crime in order to justify what he did. Not to us or anyone else. To himself."

When Nathan simply stared at her, she asked indignantly, "What?"

"Whoa, Brooke. Coming from you, that's deep. That's real deep."

"Shut up!" she laughed between her tears. "I'm having a sentimental moment here!"

"I ain't gonna force you to accompany me." Nathan told her matter-of-factly. "And if you don't wanna, it's OK. But I'm gonna advise you to do something. Go see him. Talk to him. Than come back and tell me what side you've decided to be on."

"Okay, Nathan, thank you." She reached over her seat and kissed him lightly on the cheek. She noticed his cheek went very red after that.

"Could you…?"

"Drop you off at Lucas's? Yeah, sure, why not?" he reached his brother's house and opened the passenger door. She got out.

"I'll be right back." She went up the three steps to Lucas's room and banged on the door. When nobody answered, she gathered that he was not home.

"He's out." She told Nathan as she got back in the car. "But if you don't mind, I'd like to go see Peyton. I wanna check up on how she's doing."

"Yeah maybe I should come with you. She has been pretty down lately."

"And who could she possibly wanna see more? Her ex-best friend and her ex-boyfriend?"

Nathan cracked up.

"C'mon, let's go before you laugh so hard you wet yourself."

He ignored her laugh-so-hard-you-wet-yourself comment and started the engine. He drove to Peyton's house.

Lucas gathered a whole lot of large screws and pinned Dan to the wall, holding him upright so he could see the damage done.

Did he feel remorse? None at all.

He gathered his things when he heard a car stop outside and went out through the back window.

Lucas rung Peyton's doorbell. She answered it. When she saw who it was, she hastily begun shutting the door.

Lucas put a hand out and stopped her. "Peyton, talk to me!"

Peyton stopped trying to close the door. "What's there to talk about? You're a lying murderer."

"Okay maybe I'm a murderer but I didn't lie. In fact, as far as I know, I did you no harm."

"Still. It's hard being in the room with someone who can do that to a man, father or no father."

"Peyton, you know me. If it were anyone but Dan, I would not even consider homicide. You can't imagine the kind of things he's done to my family."

He begun to cry, a little bit at first, then a lot, his head resting on Peyton's shoulder for support. She hugged him and gently comforted him and whispered that it would be alright.

He looked up at her. He couldn't resist her. He kissed her.

Brooke got out of the car when they reached Peyton's house.

"I'll go check if she's home." She stopped short when she saw Lucas and Peyton kissing. She stood still on the spot for a second, her mind reeling with anger and betrayal. She went back to the car with a new vengeance.

"What happened? Was she home?" Nathan inquired.

Brooke said simply, "We've got a bastard to bring down."