酷视

\'Tough look,\' I summed things up in my mind before forgetting about it with a single sigh.

A sight that marked the moment I cast away my unnecessary thoughts. The moment Makary\'s face relaxed a little as he, just like me, judged we fought over who had the longer one for long enough.

But it was also a precise moment when my aunt finally had enough of everyone ignoring her.

"Who the hell are you?!" she suddenly screamed out, causing all the people on the scene but Makary, Fay, the higher-ranking policeman, and me to twitch.

Suddenly screaming out while everybody was just a single move away from pulling out and starting to blast everything into smitherness…

Well, it only served as yet another example of how mistaken I was when I actually considered this idiot to be a legitimate threat to anything, be it my peace, my inheritance, or my safety.

"Who gave you the fucking right to even talk with my son?!" Shaking her bowl-cut and red-painted hair, my aunt finally appeared to me for what she was.

Just a disgusting Karen who believed her standing allowed her to throw her weight around. And just like all the other Karens who continued to be as popular as the laughing target of the Internet as ever, she failed to realize just how much of a fish out of her pond she was right now.

"I\'m no son of yours, you damn bitch," I finally managed to get over my disgust and address this joke of an aunt of mine directly. Yet, for how much I wanted to bash her skull in… I actually couldn\'t help but use most of my willpower to hold back a wild bout of laughter.

Looking at her overconfident face, clearly oblivious to how little she meant here…

It was just too damn hilarious!

\'Be better…\'

Out of nowhere, my real mother\'s words came right back to me, once again threatening to subvert what I believed to be the right choice of action here.

And as much as it pained me to take even the slightest risk… How could I go against those words?

"You see, my actual mom told me to be better. So I will be better than you and offer you mercy you\'ve never shown me before," I proclaimed before taking a step towards this Karen of an aunt. And once I\'ve gotten close enough, I started to whisper right in that smug mug of hers.

"Listen, you little bitch," I started in a relatively mild and collected manner. "I\'m really going to climb the peak of my mercy here," I uttered right in her face while staring right into her dumb eyes with all the intensity my own eyes could offer. All the while…

\'There\'s no way she will do it,\' I thought, perfectly sure of my reasoning. \'She\'s too full of herself to ever consider conceding. Everything went too smoothly for her for way too far.\'

I took a step back, giving that insult of a woman some space to let her consider my proposition.

"You will return all the money and items you\'ve stolen from my mother\'s wealth. Every last trinket, every last damn cent. And of course," I smiled, somehow managing to actually make my expression look legit. "I\'m including that college fund of mine you stole in the list."

And then, as if anyone still had any doubts about whether or not she was an exceptional idiot or not, my aunt followed my request with…

"Or what?"

The look of confusion mixed with the expression of holy wrath.

I could almost read her thoughts.

\'How dare he speak to me like that!\' or \'How does he know all about it?\'

I slowly shook my head.

"You will return all of those back to my account and, when it comes to the items, to the front lawn of this shed," I spoke of my terms. "For money, I give you three days. For all the items, keepsakes, mementos, and other stuff you stole, I will be merciful and give you a week."

Ignoring the holier-than-thou rage written all over her face in response to my simple demands, I leaned over her face before uttering a tiny whisper, one that only this disgusting woman could hear.

"If you do so, without even the slightest delay, then your death will be swift and merciful. You will be spared several days if not weeks worth of begging for the bullet."

I\'ve had no plans of letting this whore go. Even though she, ultimately, turned out powerless, that didn\'t stop her from acting as she desired for the last few years. That didn\'t stop her from disrespecting my late mother in my presence, from bullying me, from destroying any hope and dream I dared to still keep from the happy years of my life…

She held nothing back when she ground my life to dust. And I was the better man just by offering her a quick way out if she committed the worst sin against her self-important personality and admitted to all her wrongdoings and returned what she stole.

But just like I thought, doing something like that went far beyond the ability of a person who knew not how to take a loss, for she was sly enough and bused that weird aura never to take any, to begin with.

And just like I both hoped and expected…

"ARREST THIS MAN RIGHT THIS MOMENT!" she screamed out, a mere second after my words sank into her ears. She retreated a step and raised her arm, more shaken than I\'d ever seen her before. "HE JUST THREATENED ME! ARREST HIM! ARREST THEM ALL!"

Soon, the target moved from just my head to everyone present on the scene. And hearing those freaked-out screams of hers, I wasn\'t the only one stunned.

The policemen didn\'t know whether to cry crocodile tears or outright laugh. Makary\'s men outright snickered, genuinely amused by the notion of some self-important civilian ordering police officers to arrest nearly twenty armed men, all on their lonesome and while deep within the gang\'s territory.

In this moment, something, someone had to give in first. And to my surprise, it wasn\'t Makary putting my aunt back in her place, too tired of her ridiculous shit to keep his promise of not getting himself directly involved.

The first one to act was actually the higher-ranking officer that I\'d spoken to before.

"Did he really?" he asked while stepping forth and then putting himself between me and my aunt. Then, he cast a quick look at his surroundings, his troubled smile growing even more troubled with every armed man he could see standing around.

Then, the officer slowly turned his face back to the aunt, no longer even pretending to give two shits about her crap.

"Did he really threaten you?" he asked, ostentatily taking a step back and crossing his arms on his chest. "Because I couldn\'t hear a single word."