Chapter 2 #2
An aunt let out a piercing scream before collapsing into tears.
The illusion of a perfect Flynn family dinner dissolved into terror.
Medved’s grief transformed into fury.
“How?”
He looked toward the entrance.
“How did the guards let this bastard inside?”
His voice thundered through the mansion.
“Guards!”
“Where are the bloody guards?”
Nobody answered.
No one came running. No footsteps echoed through the corridors.
Only silence.
Keegan smiled faintly. “They’re occupied.”
Medved slowly looked toward him.
“What?”
“Our men have already relieved your guards of their weapons.”
Bodgan clasped his hands behind his back, his expression calm, almost courteous.
“We came here with a battalion of soldiers. Your guards were wise enough to surrender before anyone had to die.”
He let his gaze travel around the table, meeting each pair of frightened eyes in turn.
“This estate is completely surrounded.”
His voice remained steady. “You are no longer protected.”
He looked back at Medved. “You are at Romeo’s mercy now.”
A heavy silence settled over the dining room.
No one was coming.
No one was breaking through the cordon outside.
No one was going to save them.
The realization swept across every face gathered around the table.
The Flynn family wasn’t surrounded.
They were trapped.
My second uncle suddenly shoved his chair backward.
His hand disappeared beneath his jacket.
I already knew what he was reaching for.
A pistol.
My voice cut through the room like ice.
“If you take one more step...”
Every eye turned toward me.
“...you’ll be the next man going straight to hell.”
He froze.
His fingers stopped halfway inside his jacket.
For several long seconds, neither of us moved.
Then...
Very slowly...
He withdrew his empty hand.
Sat back down.
Sweat glistened across his forehead.
Good.
Now they understood.
I wasn’t bluffing.
I looked around the table.
The expressions staring back at me were almost satisfying.
Ten years ago...
Those same faces had watched me dragged away in handcuffs.
Today...
Those smiles had vanished.
The laughter had died.
Confidence had been replaced by naked fear.
Let them feel the terror I’d carried every single day inside Ravencliff.
Medved slowly rose to his feet.
His hands were drenched in Sergei’s blood.
His face had twisted into something almost animal.
Without warning, he lunged across the table.
Before anyone could react, he seized Yarina by the arm and yanked her violently from her chair.
She cried out in surprise.
A silver dinner knife flashed into his hand.
He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pressed the blade tightly against her throat.
“Nobody move!”
The room froze.
Yarina stiffened but refused to scream.
Her breathing quickened, yet her chin remained lifted.
Those dark Russian eyes found mine across the table.
Medved’s grip tightened around Yarina.
The knife pressed deeper against the delicate skin of her throat.
A thin crimson line bloomed beneath the blade.
Then a single drop of blood escaped, tracing a slow path down the graceful curve of her neck.
Something inside me splintered.
My heartbeat became a deafening roar, pounding so violently in my ears that every other sound faded into nothingness.
Of course he knew.
I had never been able to hide what Yarina meant to me.
Not from my family.
Not from men who had spent years studying every weakness they could exploit.
Even after a decade...
They knew exactly where to sink the knife.
And this time, they hadn’t aimed for my body.
They had aimed for my heart.
Medved laughed bitterly.
“So...”
His eyes burned with hatred.
“Ye still can’t hide it.”
He pressed the blade harder. “I can see it plain as day.”
He looked directly into my eyes. “The way ye’re lookin’ at her.”
Another cruel smile spread across his face. “She’s still yer weakness.”
His voice became mocking.
“Tell me, Romeo...”
“Did ye spend ten years dreamin’ about her while rottin’ in prison?”
He leaned closer to Yarina. “Did she write ye little love letters?”
Yarina struggled against him.
“Every second you keep that knife on her throat adds another year to your suffering,” I said, my voice frighteningly calm. “When I kill you, death will be the merciful part.”
“Quiet!”
He jerked her backward.
“I’ll gut her before any of your men reach me. Tell your dogs to lower their bloody weapons.”
“Romeo,” Grandfather Flynn began, his voice measured despite the unmistakable tremor beneath it. “I know emotions are running high, but we don’t have to do this.”
He drew a careful breath, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Let’s talk. Whatever is troubling you, we’ll find a way through it. There’s no need for any more bloodshed.”
He tried to project the calm authority that had ruled the Flynn family for decades, but the strain in his voice betrayed him.
I took one slow step forward.
“Ye think I came here...”
Another step.
“...to talk?”
My fist slammed down onto the heavy oak dining table with explosive force.
The entire table shuddered.
Wine bottles toppled.
Silver cutlery scattered across the polished wood before crashing onto the marble floor.
Several members of the Flynn family flinched violently.
I leaned over the shattered table, never taking my eyes off Medved.
Every word left my mouth with terrifying calm, each one slow and heavy with restrained violence as I fixed him with a gaze that promised death.
“Take. That. Blade. Off. Her.”
Then my voice dropped into something barely above a whisper.
“And ye might live...”
I tilted my head slightly.
For the first time in my entire life...
I watched genuine fear enter my father’s eyes.
He finally understood.
The frightened boy he’d bullied no longer existed.
The knife slipped from his hand.
It clattered harmlessly across the marble.
Yarina stumbled free, quickly moving away from him.
Bodgan stepped forward immediately, placing himself between her and the rest of the Flynn family without taking his eyes off the room.
Medved slowly raised both hands.
Blood still coated his fingers.
He looked older than he had only moments before.
“Sit.”
I didn’t raise my voice.
He obeyed.
Like a beaten dog.
He lowered himself back into his chair, his face drained of all color.
The metallic scent of Sergei’s blood spread through the grand dining hall, thick enough to taste.
It overpowered the aroma of roasted meat and expensive wine, replacing the illusion of a perfect Flynn family gathering with the unmistakable smell of death.
My gaze drifted deliberately around the long dining table, settling on each face one by one.
No one escaped it.
My grandfather’s trembling hands. My uncles’ pale faces. My father’s blood-soaked shirt. My aunts who suddenly found their plates fascinating because they lacked the courage to meet my eyes.
For the first time, they were the ones afraid.
“In this house,” I began, my voice calm enough to make every word cut deeper, “my mother died after bein’ poisoned.”
I paused, letting the accusation settle over them.
“Whether it was one of ye or all of ye workin’ together... I still don’t know.”
My eyes hardened.
“But I know she didn’t die by accident. After all, every one of you made her life a living hell. You humiliated her. You called her a whore. You accused her of betraying my father and filling this family with another man’s blood.”
No one answered.
No one denied it.
I continued.
“In this same house, my little sister, Sarah, was thrown from the eighth-floor window like she meant nothin’.”
My jaw tightened.
“The moment she hit those stones, ye already had a story prepared.”
I looked directly at my father.
“Ye pointed at me.”
Then to my grandfather.
“Ye judged me.”
My gaze swept across the rest of the family.
“And every last one of ye helped bury the truth.”
I straightened slowly, never taking my eyes off them, then rounded the shattered edge of the table with deliberate, unhurried steps.
“Ye called me a murderer before the police even arrived.”
Another step.
“Ye watched them drag me away in chains.”
Another.
“And not one of ye had the courage to ask whether I was innocent.”
My voice remained steady, but years of pain lay beneath every syllable.
“For ten years, I rotted inside Ravencliff.”
“I woke every mornin’ wonderin’ if that’d be the day someone finally managed to kill me.”
“I slept with one eye open because men were paid to bury me inside those walls.”
“I bled. I starved. I fought.”
“And through every bloody day...”
I shook my head slowly.
“...not one Flynn came through those prison gates.”
“Not one letter. Not one visit. Not one Christmas card. Not one birthday. Not even a priest sent to ask if I still drew breath.
“Ye abandoned me because I wasn’t the son ye wanted.”
The words came quieter now.
“Because ye believed whispers about my mother’s blood.”
My scarred mouth curled into a cold smile.
Silence answered me once again.
I welcomed it.
Because silence often revealed guilt better than excuses ever could.
I stood over the shattered table like a judge about to pass sentence, my gaze moving slowly from one Flynn to the next.
The chandelier’s light fell across my face, illuminating every scar Ravencliff had carved into me.
“The frightened boy ye condemned died in prison.”
My voice carried through every corner of the hall.
“And while ye sat comfortably in this mansion enjoyin’ the empire ye stole... I built one of my own.”
A dangerous calm settled over me. “From behind prison walls.”
“And today...”
My gaze swept across every terrified face.
“...every last one of ye will answer.”
“For Sarah.”
I pressed a hand briefly against my own chest.
“And for me.”
The room remained frozen.
No one even seemed willing to breathe.
Across the room, my eyes found Yarina.
She hadn’t looked away from me once.
Shock still lingered on her beautiful face, but there was something else hidden beneath it.
Recognition.
She was seeing both versions of me at once.
The shy, broken nineteen-year-old who stumbled over every sentence while promising her a better future...
...and the scarred man standing before her now, capable of killing without hesitation.