Page 56 of O'Mega's Revenge
He’d tried many times to break me. When he couldn’t, he had others hurt me, or the ones I loved, and then he pretended to save me, so I would willingly give my gratitude to him. The game worked well. Most of the women he directed had some weird attachment to him.
But not me.
All I saw was a horrible person who would cut up a child’s mother, sew her back up, and send the pieces to her estranged husband. All the while pretending to be a good man or a faithful servant to his mob bosses. I was young, but not naive. The Surgeon didn’t want to serve. He wanted to control. That was his number one motivation for any action he took. It was why he targeted a made man to cement his reputation as ruthless.
My father was a piece of shit. A low-level scrabbler for a piece of the mob’s favor with an addiction to gambling and hookers. He’d done someone a favor at one point. That earned him a modicum of respectability despite his flaws. The Surgeon exploited my father’s fall from grace to move into the inner circle. He embraced the adage, “it is better to be feared than loved,” on his path to power. He was obsessed with it.
Removing my father was a minor victory. Removing the whole family? A coup de grace.
He orchestrated the entire act like an artist. Setting my father up to die in prison, and killing my brother, who was almost as big of an asshole as my father, was probably too easy. But the way he tortured my mother? She didn’t deserve to die as she did. The mob thought her death was clean, but it was far from it. No, that little show was to affect his final victory. Making me his pawn. He used her to control me. And when it didn’t work, her usefulness was over.
The kicker was this man told me her death was my fault. My fault for running away, as was the damage his hired men inflicted on me.
His grab for power turned into the stuff that horrible legends are born from. Every time he paraded me in front of his mob bosses, they were reminded of what a monster could achieve. A monster who, he reminded them, could not be appeased by flattery or money.
Only power mattered. In the short time it took for my teenage years to end, he moved from obscurity into legendary status. His brutality and cunning had no equal. His climb was destined to be unparalleled in any modern time. He controlled the men who controlled the mob. His stable of willing women seduced and compromised men who had their fingers on half the world’s wealth. He befriended thugs and rapists, and employed killers, but never any who could match his thirst for blood. Instead, he trained the women in his brutal care for that role. We sat at his knee, soaking in the laws of power, using it to twist others to his will, and loved him for it. At least most of them did.
When I ran the second time, I vowed I’d die before getting used by him again. So, why was I here? Ah, yes, revenge. “You are acting like a petty thug. Pretending strength with your little show here. Why no witnesses? Were there no senators available tonight?” I looked around the room. Obviously, there were witnesses. But none that mattered. Every single person in this room was expendable to him. From lackey to guests.
“Perhaps I want to keep your little fit of disobedience quiet.”
“It’s been five years,” I reminded him.
“Timelines are irrelevant.”
“Weakness,” I pointed out.
“There is no weakness in revenge,” he hissed.
On the contrary, revenge made you very weak. The emotions evoked in the act were the downfall of many. Remembering that made me cold when I should be molten hot with anger.
“So, you waited. I wonder why?” Five years was a long time to nurse wounds. I looked at the man behind me. “Uncle? Did you tell him I was dead?”
“Quiet, child,” Nonno whispered.
If you could drop a pin in the room, it would have echoed. My mom may have been an innocent caught in the Surgeon’s web, but her stepbrother was a piece of shit. Nonno and I didn’t share blood, but family remembers family. It was always my plan to run to him. I knew he couldn’t kill me outright. But my presence had been a problem he couldn’t solve. Until Wolf showed up.
“I see now. Nonno, shame on you for keeping secrets.”
My uncle’s nostrils flared. The gentle scolding grated on his pride which was evident on his face.
Missile gaped at me like I’d grown two heads. Fell reverted to stoic Amazon mode. A sure sign she was readying for violence. Jackson smirked. “Light. Bulb.” He sing-songed and scratched his nose.
“Now you know,” Nonno stood his ground in front of the Surgeon and ignored Jackson.
The Surgeon shook his head. “I knew of your relation to her then. Do you think I pick my targets at random?”
“You know, it’s too bad Tits didn’t kill you. It would have saved us a night of fucking boredom.” Jackson broke off from our crowd to get a drink from the side bar.
The Surgeon snapped his fingers, and three goons drew weapons on Jackson. He carefully held the glass and kept both hands in plain view as he poured a couple of fingers worth of whiskey into a crystal tumbler.
“You fucking moron, you’re supposed to wait for the signal.” Missile talked with her hands, pulling on the hold her captors had on her.
“What signal?” Jackson filled his mouth with a canapé and chewed open-mouthed.
“You know, the bat signal.” Missile didn’t sound so sure now. “Right?”
Fell started giggling.
