Page 62 of Maddening Fixation

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!”