Chapter 1 #4
A smile so slight no one else would have noticed it.
Cold. Satisfied. Victorious.
In that single look, I saw the truth.
He knew exactly what he had done.
He knew I had seen him.
And he knew no one would ever believe me.
The truth hung silently between us, invisible to everyone else in the room.
The officers dragged me through Flynn Manor while servants lowered their heads and guests whispered behind crystal glasses.
Not one person spoke in my defense.
When we reached the entrance hall, I saw him.
My father.
Medved Flynn.
The man whose approval I had spent my entire childhood chasing.
Hope flared inside me despite everything.
Surely he would listen. Surely he knew me better than the rest.
The officers shoved me forward.
My knees crashed into the polished marble with bone-jarring force, the impact splitting already battered skin.
Fresh blood seeped from the wounds, joining the steady stream running down my face before dripping onto the priceless Persian rug beneath me.
I didn’t care.
The pain no longer mattered.
Dragging myself across the marble, I crawled toward him, every movement fueled by the desperate hope that he would finally look at me—not as the family’s disgrace, not as the bastard they all despised, but as his son.
“Father...”
The word escaped me like a prayer.
My voice cracked. “F-Father...”
I reached for him with my cuffed hands.
“Ye know me.”
He didn’t move. “Ye know I could never hurt her.”
Nothing.
“I loved Sarah more than my own life.”
My breathing became ragged. “Please...”
I searched his face desperately. “Don’t let them take me.”
My voice rose with panic. “We have to find who really threw her from that window.”
My cuffed hands shook violently. “It wasn’t me. I swear on Mam’s grave.”
A muscle flickered beneath his cheek.
He looked down at me as though I were something foul that had crawled onto the marble at his feet.
“I have never called you my son,” he said, his voice calm enough to be cruel. “So don’t stand there calling me Father.”
The word struck harder than Uncle Seamus’s lamp.
“I don’t know whose blood runs through your veins, but it isn’t mine. Perhaps you carry the blood of the man your mother spread her legs for. Perhaps that’s why violence comes so naturally to you.”
My breath caught.
He didn’t stop.
“You expect me to believe your lies when you were found in Sarah’s room moments after she went through that window?”
His lip curled.
“I don’t know you well enough to say what you’re incapable of. Whatever mercy you came here begging for...” He took one slow step closer. “You won’t find it from me. If you murdered your sister, then you’ll answer for it.”
His voice was colder than the deepest winter.
“Take him away.”
For a long moment, I could only stare at him, feeling my heart splinter beneath the weight of his rejection until there was nothing left of the hope I’d carried all my life.
Medved Flynn had never truly been my father.
Not after my mother died giving birth to Sarah.
I’d heard the story countless times over the years, whispered behind closed doors by servants who thought I was too young to understand.
My mother’s labor had gone terribly wrong.
What should have been the happiest day of their lives became a race against death.
The doctors fought desperately to save them both, but in the end there was nothing more they could do.
They told my father the truth no husband ever wants to hear.
Only one life could be saved.
His wife...
Or the child she was carrying.
My father chose the baby.
He chose Sarah.
And so, my sister took her first breath at the exact moment my mother drew her last.
Sarah survived.
My mother never left the delivery room alive.
I never blamed Sarah.
She had been an innocent baby.
My father never struck me himself. He never had to. He watched in silence while my uncles beat me until I bled, never once telling them to stop, never once stepping between us.
He watched my aunts humiliate me without once telling them to stop.
He heard servants raise their voices at me—servants who should never have dared—and never corrected them.
He saw visitors treat me with open contempt and looked away as though it were nothing.
Not once...
Not in nineteen years...
Did he ever defend me.
Not once did he look at me the way he looked at Sergei.
With pride. With approval. With love.
No matter what I achieved... No matter how hard I tried...
I was never his son.
I was only the living reminder of the wife he believed had betrayed him.
He walked straight past me without so much as a glance.
“Let the little murderer rot where he belongs.”
The words echoed through the entrance hall long after his footsteps faded.
The officers tightened their grip on my arms and hauled me violently to my feet.
Pain shot through every bruise and broken bone.
The officers dragged me toward the enormous front doors.
This time...
I didn’t fight.
The screams died inside my throat. The tears stopped falling.
As the great oak doors opened, a cold wind rushed into the manor.
I looked back one final time.
The family portraits watched silently from the walls.
And somewhere upstairs...
The room where Sarah had taken her final breath stood empty.
Goodbye, little sister.
The thought came without words. Without sound.
I’m sorry. I failed ye.
The police cruiser door slammed shut with a deafening clang.
As the engine roared to life and Flynn Manor disappeared behind me, I realized I wasn’t just leaving my home.
I was leaving behind the last light I’d ever known.
Now, ten years had drifted past like a passing wind.
The memories were no less vivid than they had been that night.
Time hadn’t dulled them.
Every scream. Every accusation. Every blow. Every betrayal still lived inside me with the same merciless clarity, as though it had all happened yesterday.
But I was no longer nineteen.
The frightened, broken boy my family had framed never walked out of Ravencliff.
He died behind those walls.
The man who emerged in his place was forged by ten years of violence, betrayal, and survival.
Slowly, I lifted my gaze to the sea of men standing before me.
More than a hundred soldiers.
Every one of them stood ready to kill—or die—at a single command.
I curled my hand into a fist so tightly that my fingernails bit through my skin. Warm blood seeped between my fingers, but I welcomed the sting.
It was nothing compared to the fire burning inside me.
Revenge.
It burned hotter than any cigarette ever could.
For ten long years, it had been the only thing keeping me alive.
The only thing waiting for me beyond the prison walls.
Today...
The Flynn family would answer for everything they had done.
For Sarah.
For the childhood they stole from me.
For the ten years they stole behind steel bars.
Every lie. Every scar. Every tear. Every stolen year.
The debt would be paid.
Not tomorrow. Not someday.
Today.
The sound of approaching footsteps drew me from the memories threatening to drag me back into the past.
Two men emerged from the ranks, approaching from opposite directions before stopping a respectful distance away.
The first was older, his broad frame still imposing despite the years etched into his weathered face.
A neatly trimmed grey beard framed features hardened by decades of violence.
Time had silvered his hair, but it had done little to diminish the quiet authority he carried.
Bodgan.
My deputy.
A man old enough to have been my father, yet one who had chosen to follow me without question.
The second moved with the effortless silence of a born predator.
Young. Lean.
His sharp, watchful eyes swept across the prison grounds with the instinctive caution of a wolf stalking wounded prey.
Keegan.
My crew leader.
Fiercely loyal. Ruthlessly efficient.
The kind of man who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the world to ashes if I gave the order.
They came to a halt before me.
Without exchanging so much as a glance, both men lowered their heads in quiet respect.
“Congratulations on your freedom, Boss,” Keegan said, his thick Irish accent unable to conceal the satisfaction in his voice.
A grin spread across his face.
“The men have been counting the days,” he said. “They’ve waited ten years to welcome you home.”
Beside him, Bodgan smiled—a rare, understated expression that softened the weathered lines etched into his face.
“I’m glad you’re finally out, Romeo.”
His deep voice carried the quiet sincerity of a man who didn’t waste words.
“Florida hasn’t been the same without you.”
My gaze shifted from one to the other.
Neither of them looked at me with pity.
Keegan’s smile slowly disappeared as he searched my face, reading the thoughts I hadn’t spoken aloud.
After a long silence, Keegan finally spoke.
“So... what are your orders, Boss?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, I turned toward the waiting convoy, its line of black vehicles stretching beyond the prison gates like a promise of everything I’d built while the world believed I was forgotten.
A slow, merciless smile tugged at the scarred corner of my mouth.
“First...”
My voice was little more than a quiet murmur, yet it carried enough authority to make both men instinctively straighten.
“We find my sister.”
The smile vanished.
“Sarah.”
For the first time since walking out of Ravencliff, something flickered beneath the anger.
Grief.
“I want to know where she’s buried.”
My gaze remained fixed on the horizon. “I owe her an apology.”
The words were barely audible. “And after I pay my respects...
“We’ll begin collecting the debts the Flynn family has owed me for ten long years.”
I paused.
“And after that...”
A cold, murderous calm settled over me. “We burn the Flynn family to the bloody ground.”
Neither man questioned the order.
Neither flinched. Neither offered a word of caution.
They simply nodded.
“We’ve managed to gather every last member of the Flynn family under one roof.”
Keegan’s voice carried quiet satisfaction as he stepped closer, casting a glance over his shoulder at the sea of black suits stretching across the prison yard.
“They’re all there, Boss.”
A slow grin spread across his face.