REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 67: Chapter 67

She was always with me now. In the twitch of my fingers, in the feral thrum of my heartbeat, in the tears I couldn’t explain, and the rage I no longer wanted to control. We weren’t separate anymore. Not truly. Her fury burned inside me like kerosene on a slow drip.
And now… now I wasn’t going to the gym to pretend I had control. I was going to kill the bastard who took our children.
The fog thickened the farther I drove up the winding path, curling around the SUV like smoke from a battlefield. The trees lined the road like soldiers standing at silent attention. The headlights cut swaths of light through the mist, illuminating patches of gravel, half-frozen puddles, the scattered claw marks of passing animals.
Above, the moon was a slit behind the clouds, pale and cold. Snow had begun to fall—light, scattered flakes that melted against the windshield but whispered promises of more to come.
The air was sharp, biting, laced with pine and something else. Something older. Something wrong.
Alec’s madness clung to this place now.
And I was mad, too.
But not in the way he thought.
He took Maya and Aliya. He took Ivy and MJ. He didn’t just provoke me—he awoke something inside me I had buried with Leon’s ashes.
A darkness.
A precision.
A hunger for vengeance that no amount of justice could satisfy. This wasn’t about money, or status, or empire anymore.
This wasn’t about the billion-dollar casino, or the art collection, or the underworld crown.
He took the only thing that mattered to me in this life.
And now I was bringing everything I had.
Few hours later, the road turned from asphalt to gravel and finally to ice-crusted mud. I killed the lights, letting the SUV roll into a quiet stop. Silence swallowed the forest. I stepped out, my boots crunching against snow-laced gravel. The cold slapped me in the face like a warning, but I didn’t flinch.
I threw the duffel over my shoulder, double-checked my weapons, and pulled the hood of my tactical jacket over my head. Wind howled between the trees—low and guttural, like the mountain itself was mourning what was about to come.
This was no longer a mountain. It was a tomb.
I moved through the trees like a shadow—silent, deliberate. The terrain here was familiar to me. The slope dropped into a ravine to the left, sharp rocks and ice lining the edge. To the right, a steep climb covered in pine and snowdrifts. I stuck to the old deer trail, now barely visible beneath the white, my boots sinking softly with each step.
Every creak of a branch. Every rustle of wind. Every crunch of snow.
All of it sharpened my senses, but none of it scared me. Only one thing scared me now—failing to bring them home.
I’d failed once before. I failed when Alec stole my empire. I failed when I died.
No more failures. I reached the clearing just past midnight.
The cabin stood at the center like a beast squatting in the dark.
Two stories. Log structure. Hidden cellar. Reinforced doors. Motion sensors—disabled now. Probably by Alec himself.
The snow around it was undisturbed. Too clean. Too perfect. A trap waiting to be sprung.
But he didn’t know I had eyes. I crouched low behind a tree, pulled out the drone, and launched it with a soft hum. It rose like a ghost above the clearing, its camera feeding into my phone.
Thermal signatures bloomed across the screen.
Two upstairs. Smaller. Children. Huddled together.
One downstairs. Alone. Alec.
Kitchen, probably. Where the whiskey was. Or the knives.
He was waiting. I watched him on the screen, pacing slowly. He was agitated. Moving like a cornered dog who thought he still had teeth.
I smiled. That bastard had no idea what was coming.
I slid the drone back into the bag, unslung the rifle from my back, and chambered a round.
You took the wrong kids, Alec.
I whispered one last thing to the wind. “I’m coming for you.”
Then I moved toward the cabin like the storm I had become.
And I brought death with me. The snow swallowed my footsteps as I circled the cabin’s perimeter, every breath crystallizing in the air like whispered ghosts. The wind howled above the treetops, slicing through the pines, carrying the weight of all the lives Alec and I had burned through.
The thermal map burned behind my eyes.
Two small signatures upstairs. The kids. Alive.
But cold. Still. Huddled. I could almost hear Maya’s tiny sobs. Aliya’s defiance. They were their mother’s daughters. They would hold on.
The cabin itself hadn't changed—same wood paneling, same rusted weather vane creaking on the roof, same back door that looked locked but always had a weakness under the hinge.
Alec never learned that trick. That was mine. I crouched in the snow by the north wall, exhaled once, and reached for my radio.
“Joe,” I whispered, voice a low growl.
A faint crackle answered.
“Boss.”
“Status?”
“Snipers are 300 meters south. No visual on hostiles outside. We’re blind beyond that.”
“Stay out of sight. No shots unless I say. He wants me alone. Let’s keep that illusion alive.”
“Understood.”
I clicked the radio off. This was personal. And I needed Alec to know that.
Inside the cabin I slipped in through the back like smoke, moving past the darkened pantry, across the cold stone tiles of the kitchen. The place reeked of old wood, blood, and brandy. A fireplace crackled in the main room. Shadows danced on the walls. One chair. One table. One bottle, half-empty.
Alec was there.
Sitting, back to me, sipping a glass of amber liquid. Not a care in the world.
“You’re late,” he said, without turning.