Best Served Cold

Revenge is the name of the game here - and Chuck has told us to play it any way we want to. Thought my story was going to be plain and simple... well, that's how it started out.

enjoy.

It was going to plan... everything was.

I was where I was supposed to be – on the roof waiting for back-up – and the rest of the group were going to ‘put to sleep’ the guards at the main gates and surrounding building.

This was until it all went wrong.

The plan?

Nah, you’ll think I’m being (jealous, childish, horrible...) ....

Revenge.

Yep, that’s it... it’s revenge.

My life was going well.

I had the house, the wife, the two children, the car... I was what my Mum and Dad wanted – and expected – of me.

I worked my arse off and got where I wanted to be – needed to be – in life to make a good life for us. I put my children into the right schools, lived in the right suburb, knew the right people, socialised in the right circles, attended a wine club, went to squash once a fortnight at my local gym, joined the country club and got into the right back pockets of all the right people to get a foothold into the job I wanted where I was... besides, my boss had made sure I got into the country club.

How was I to know that country club was owned by criminals? It looked like it was on the up-and-up – it really did, but then, most places which look like they’re legal, aren’t.

This is how revenge came into play.

I arrived home one evening to find my front door kicked in, my wife sitting at the kitchen table and my kids were gone. She looked as though the men who were standing around her had smacked her around.

“Honey?” I put down my bag in a nearby chair, which normally she’d yell at me about, but this time, she just cried, “What’s going on.”

“You’re the new one, right?” one of the beefier men asked from the fridge, poking around in it for something to eat or drink, “Dontcha have any beer?”

“We don’t drink alcohol.” I said, “What’s going on here?”

He turned from the fridge, slammed the door and opened a small bottle of Mountain Dew, and guzzled it down in one or two gulps, belched and left it on the counter, “Well, aren’t you demanding?”

“You’re in my house, beat up my wife, and ... where are the kids?” I looked around, straining to hear for the laughter from upstairs of my two children.

Her hand touched my arm, “They took them... sweetheart... oh god, they...”

I almost stopped breathing as I watched my beautiful wife crumble, tears streaking her face as she shook in the dining room chair. Touching her hand gently, she jumped and I knew they had done something horrible to her, and cast all three men a baleful look: “Tell me what you have done to my children. I have a fair idea what you’ve done to my wife.”

“One thing at a time, sport-o.” The beef-cake smirked, “Now, you’re kids are fine, so long you follow the rules.”

“Which are?”

“We make them and you’ll follow them as they happen.”

Well, the rules changed from day to day. My wife disappeared and the cops didn’t want to know about what was happening. So, I had to do the rescuing myself.

I quit my job, disappeared from the area I lived in, cashed everything I owned and joined a vigilante group and trained up to the point where I could get in and out of a building without attracting attention to myself. The guys were ready to help me after a few jobs were successful with me in the team – and they knew I was there for a reason.

We were all there for our own personal reasons – and each of us were mainly there to either rescue somebody, avenge a death, or needed a cause to make our dark lives meaningful. When they heard mine, they knew they had to help me get my wife and my children back – and if my family was gone? Well, at least I’d know and not be left in the dark.

Gunshots popped and people shouted.

A siren slowly started going off as lights swung around the compound.

I stayed put on the ruin of the building on the outskirts of the place, waiting for the signal – so far, this was not it.

Then I saw it!

The hot pink streak of a flare shot high and bright into the night and exploded into a single fireworks display!

I don’t remember exactly my movements – I normally don’t – as I fought my way towards the compound to find a vehicle, the guys I was in with and – finally – my family.

But this isn’t how it worked out.

“Your lawyer’s here.”

I turned around from the small window overlooking the grey day outside, “Okay.”

“Are you going to behave yourself or do we have to cuff you?” the screw asked.

“I’ll be okay.” I nodded.

The door unlocked, slid opened loudly and he let me out of my holding cell.

I wasn’t in prison, I was the compound’s holding cell.

He led me to a room where I saw my wife standing behind the lawyer without a scratch on her. The bruises she had on her a few months back would have left scars, but she didn’t have any.

I tried not to show that I noticed this, but it was hard.

“Sit.” The screw pushed me into a metal chair.

The lawyer who sat across from me was my boss, “What happened to you?”

“Everything went sideways. I had the perfect life, worked for you and joined that damned country club, and then suddenly everything screwed up and now you’re asking me what happened to me?” I glared at him.

He sat back smiling, “You don’t understand.”

“Where are my children?” I looked up at my wife, “And she was so beaten up, it would have left scars.”

“This is all a game. And the rules are complex, jack... so the sooner you catch on, the better.” He snapped.

“And the name of this game is?”

“Revenge... now, this is your wife... trust me, she’s been in hiding. But now, there’s a completely different lot of rules to finding your kids.”

I leaned across the table, “And the next lot of revenge?”

A grin spread across his face slowly, “... is best served ice bloody cold, my friend.”

“What?”

“They took my family too.”