Page 14 of Maddening Fixation

“Useless bastard,” Uncle Declan spat, looking down at me as though I were something he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe. “Always knew ye weren’t true Flynn blood.”

Another voice came from somewhere behind me.

“Yer mother spread her legs for some dock rat, and here ye are... stutterin’, illiterate, good-for-nothin’.”

A cruel laugh echoed through the room.

“Should’ve drowned ye the day she brought ye home.”

“Would’ve saved the family a lifetime of shame.”

Their words struck harder than the blows.

Every insult peeled open wounds far older than the cuts on my face.

I’d heard variations of them since I was old enough to understand language.

The Flynn family had never truly accepted that I was my father’s son.

To them, I wasn’t a Flynn.

I was the bastard.

The living proof of a shame they refused to acknowledge.

They spoke of my mother as though she had been nothing more than a whore who had clawed her way into my father’s bed.

They stripped her of every ounce of dignity until even her memory became something they spat on with contempt.

To the Flynn family, I wasn’t a son.

I was the boy who never should have been born.

I lowered my head, my hands trembling against the polished floor.

Blood dripped steadily from my face, splashing onto the marble beneath me.

Then my gaze found him.

My brother.

He stood at the edge of the gathering with his arms folded across his tailored suit, watching the spectacle unfold with infuriating calm.

Not once had he pretended to grieve.

Instead, the corner of his mouth lifted into the faintest smile.

Anyone else would have missed it.

I didn’t.

It wasn’t joy. It was satisfaction.

While I was treated as the unwanted son, Sergei was everything the Flynn family had ever wanted.

The golden child.

The irony was almost laughable.