Chapter 2 #5
His eyes searched mine. “And now you stand here claiming we’re the ones who deserve to die?”
A harsh laugh escaped me.
“Life?” The word dripped with contempt. “You call what you gave me life?”
I took another slow step forward.
“No. What you gave me was ten years in a living grave.”
“My sister was murdered. My name was buried beside her. My youth was stolen. My soul was left to rot behind the walls of Ravencliff. Death would’ve been an act of mercy.”
My voice was no longer raised.
It was calm and infinitely more dangerous.
“What you gave me was far crueler.”
Without another word, I grabbed him by the collar of his expensive suit.
The fabric bunched in my fist.
He stumbled as I yanked him out of the chair.
I dragged him across the polished floor without the slightest concern for his dignity.
His shoes scraped helplessly against the marble.
The dining room doors burst open as I hauled him into the freezing evening air.
The courtyard had become a scene straight out of hell.
Every surviving member of the Flynn family knelt on the cold stone, stripped of their expensive clothes, their wealth, and the pride they had hidden behind for decades.
Their pale skin trembled beneath the biting Irish wind.
Armed men surrounded them in a perfect circle, rifles lowered but ready.
Not a single one dared move.
The empire that had once terrified half the country had been reduced to frightened old men and weeping cowards.
I shoved my grandfather forward.
He crashed onto his knees several feet away from the others.
The impact echoed across the courtyard.
No one spoke.
Only the wind answered.
It carried desperate sobs, whispered prayers, and broken pleas for mercy through the ancient estate.
My father stared at me with naked hatred.
My uncles avoided my eyes.
Let them feel helpless.
Let them understand what it meant to have your fate placed in someone else’s hands.
That was the lesson they had taught me.
Now I was returning it.
Justice.
That was all this had ever been about.
Justice for Sarah.
Justice for my mother.
Justice for the broken, frightened boy they had beaten without mercy, starved without remorse, humiliated without shame, condemned without proof, abandoned without a second thought, and cast into a prison they believed would swallow him whole—never imagining that Ravencliff would forge him into a man they no longer recognized.
“Son... this won’t bring ye the peace ye’re searchin’ for,” my second uncle’s wife pleaded, her voice breaking as she knelt in the freezing courtyard, dirt clinging to her bare knees.
Her hands shook as she clasped them together, tears carving pale tracks through the grime on her face. “Killin’ yer own blood... yer own family... because we sent ye to prison for what we believed ye did... please, don’t do this. Think of yer soul before it’s too late.”
I stared at her without the slightest flicker of emotion.
Even now, standing at the edge of death, she still believed I had murdered Sarah.
“Romeo!” Declan cried, his voice cracking as tears streamed freely down his face.
Gone was the arrogant bully who had once laughed while I was beaten.
In his place knelt a frightened old man. “We were wrong! We were blinded by lies... by pride... by favoritism. We should’ve listened to ye. Please... forgive us. Ye’re still one of us. Ye’re still a Flynn.”
Another uncle lurched forward on his knees.
“Mercy, nephew!” he shouted desperately. “We can make this right. The family fortune—it’s yers. The businesses, the estates, every account we’ve got. Take it all. Just spare us. Don’t become the monster ye believe we turned ye into.”
My third aunt burst into sobs.
“We’ll disappear tonight. We’ll leave Florida forever. Ye’ll never see any of us again. Please... for the love of God... show us mercy.”
Her words stirred nothing inside me.
Not pity. Not regret.
Nothing.
Soon the entire courtyard dissolved into frantic pleading.
Promises. Bargains. Excuses.
Cowards always found their voices when death came knocking.
Only two men refused to beg.
My grandfather and my father...
Medved Flynn remained exactly as I remembered him.
Even stripped of his dignity, kneeling in the dirt with death hanging over him, hatred burned fiercely in his eyes.
He stared at me as though I disgusted him, as though I were still the unwanted bastard he had spent my entire childhood pretending didn’t exist.
He would rather die than acknowledge me as his son.
Strangely...
I respected that more than the pitiful groveling surrounding him.
At least his hatred was honest.
I looked toward Keegan and Bodgan.
Neither man asked questions.
They simply waited.
My voice came out cold enough to freeze the night itself.
“Leave the old man breathing.”
The order fell into the silence like a judge’s final verdict.
“The rest...”
My eyes never left the family before me.
“Kill them all.”
I turned away.
Not because I lacked the stomach to watch. Because I no longer needed to.
Their sentence had been passed ten years ago.
Tonight...
Justice had finally come to collect.
Behind me, screams ripped through the courtyard.
“Romeo, please!”
“God have mercy!”
“We’re sorry!”
“Please!”
“You bastard!”
“Ye’ll burn in hell for this!”
The cries echoed across Flynn Manor, swallowed by the cold Florida night.
I never looked back.
My boots continued forward at the same measured pace, each step steady against the polished stone leading back into Flynn Manor.
Behind me, another desperate cry rang out.
“Romeo... please...”
Another.
“We’re sorry!”
Then another.
“Mercy...”
The voices blurred together until they became nothing more than meaningless noise.
For ten years I had screamed my innocence.
For ten years I had begged someone—anyone—to believe me.
Not one of them had listened.
Their prayers reached me far too late.
The massive oak doors swung shut behind me with a thunderous boom, sealing the massacre outside.
The thick wood muffled the screams, but it could not silence them completely.
They lingered in the back of my mind, mixing with memories I had carried through every miserable day inside Ravencliff.
Justice.
I had dreamed of this moment almost every night.
Yet as the final cries faded into silence, victory did not feel the way I had imagined.
It tasted like iron and ash.
Like grief that had never truly healed.
I closed my eyes for the briefest moment.
“This was for ye,” I whispered so quietly only I could hear. “Every drop.”
When I opened my eyes again, Yarina was standing just inside the entrance hall.
She wasn’t afraid. She was heartbroken.
The sadness in her eyes told me she had already learned what my grandmother’s will demanded.
I was to marry her older sister before I could claim my inheritance.
It wasn’t merely about wealth.
It was the final wish of the only woman who had never abandoned me.
The woman whose sacrifice had saved my life.
Without my grandmother, I would still be rotting inside Ravencliff—or dead beneath its walls.
How could I dishonor the last promise she had ever made?
The thought alone felt like betrayal.
Yet so did the thought of losing Yarina.
I crossed the distance between us until only a single step remained.
My hand rose slowly, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I’m asking something I never thought I’d ask.”
The words scraped against my throat. “My grandmother’s last wish... and everything she sacrificed to save me... deserve to be honored.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s only for two years, Yarina.”
The words felt like shards of glass in my throat.
“I survived ten years because I believed I’d find my way back to you. I’m asking you to bear two more. I know I’m asking you to endure something no woman should ever have to. But can you wait for me?”
The question shattered something inside my own chest.
Because if there was one person in this world I never wanted to hurt...
It was the woman standing in front of me.