“Lavender is safe. She shares one quality with Mom. They are both warriors who survive no matter what.” I step forward and watch the gun in his hand while calculating the distance to make sure my knife hits the exact target. “You know why she died? She knew I could finally survive without her.” Anger crosses his face. “Mom didn’t give up. She delivered her final revenge to you because no matter what you did to her before, or after her death…she was never yours. And she took her daughter with her so you wouldn’t tarnish her soul.”
“No! She loved me! Me! You killed her!”
“She raised me long enough to teach me to never be a piece of shit like you because no one would ever love a man like you. You deserve to rot in hell, and even that would not be enough.”
He fires his gun, but I dodge to the side and throw my knife into his hand, making him cry out in pain as the gun falls on the ground. I lunge for him, swiftly taking Mom from him and moving her away before kicking him in the knees.
He falls, and memories play in my mind, one after another.
“Stop!” Mom begs as he drags her by the hair and then hits her in the face. “Not in front of him!”
I fist his hair, pulling my arm back and delivering a hard blow right on his face. A cracking sound fills the air.
Mom chokes on the blood in her mouth while he removse his belt and rushes toward me, pushing me to the bathroom and mustering up a smile before locking the door. “Cover your ears,moy lvenochek.” I don’t do it, though, and hear my mom whimper in pain when he starts beating her with a belt.
Removing my own belt, I wrap it around his throat and drag him farther away from her while he struggles in my grip, the coward that he is.
A man who never truly has any strength, and when he’s met with a more powerful force, he folds.
“All your power is a facade to hide a man who is afraid of his own shadow,” I say, loosening my grip as he gulps for breath, and then start to deliver blow by blow to his back with the belt. “You are a piece of shit who killed my mother!”
He tries to get away from me, but I kick him in the back before throwing away the belt and starting to hit him hard, all the while hearing my mom’s screams and seeing her bloody face in front of me.
Finally, I step back when another clap of thunder shakes the sky, and the rain becoming so intense that it soaks us all.
I grab his gun and point it at him as he lies on his back, breathing heavily, and watches me with so much hate filling his eyes.
One shot and I will end it all.
Mommy finishes telling me a story about the brave knight who saved a kingdom. “One day, Mama, I will save us,” I tell her and cup her face, rubbing my thumb over the bruises on her chin. “I will slay the monster with my sword.” I’m not sure where I’ll find it, but all these magical stories she tells me always have some kind of magical solution. “He won’t hurt you anymore.”
She smiles before wincing at her busted lip and hugs me close, kissing me on the top of my head. “Net moy lvenochek.”She rocks me in her arms. “You won’t do it. If you kill him…he wins. His dirt will be forever attached to you. He doesn’t get to have your soul.” I don’t understand her words. “Moy lvenochekwill win because it’s not your job to kill him. It’s mine.” Another kiss. “I’m the parent. Parents protect their children.”
My mom protected me as much as she could, but she isn’t here now.
It is my duty to protect her.
I aim the gun at him as the seconds trickle by, and still her voice outshines the rage and hatred in my heart. He smirks from the ground and erupts in full-on laughter. “You can’t do it. You’re weak.”
Before I can reply to his idiotic remark, I feel a presence behind me, and a hand lands above mine on the gun. I look at the man who became everything a father should be to me. I assume my uncles aren’t far off either. “I’m here, Levi,” he tells me, and slowly takes the gun away from me. “I’m here.”
The two desires fight within me: one wishes to keep my promise to my mom, and the other to exact his rightful revenge.
“Lavender needs you right now.”
My beautiful, brave woman who stood with me in my darkness and willingly stayed with me, knowing this fucking asshole would try to kidnap her to hurt me.
The warmth, obsession, and need following me whenever I think about her finally make sense.
I love her. She’s mine, and my love for her is far greater than any revenge could ever be. It tips the scale to the right direction, as only this can give me peace.
Life is meant to be lived in the present. Otherwise, the shadows of our past will kill us, and my mom didn’t suffer so much for her son to waste his life.
My greatest revenge will be to love and be loved by my woman.
“I want him to suffer.”
“And suffer he will. He hurt my son.”
