Nikolai spat at the ground. “Get out of our way, or don’t blame me for extending my courtesy to you, Dad! Don’t squawk about disrespect by then!”
Mr. Lark’s eyes widened in lividity. “You dare lay your hands on your old man?! I’m still your goddamn Pa! You may have your harpy of a mother cheering you on for being a paragon of jacka**es, but don’t mistake that as authority to do anything you like, you insolent brat! Christ, you’re a carbon copy of your mother! I shouldn’t be surprised though, a child takes after the parent who raises them, after all, and right now, you’re an embarrassment and I wish you were never born!”
Nikolai clenched his teeth, his hateful eyes zeroing in on Melanie. In his mind, favonovel.com had already equated every fault as favonovel.com doing. One look at Nikolai’s face was enough to tell anyone that favonovel.com wanted to tear favonovel.com into pieces with his bare hands.
Finally, Melanie’s second eldest brother, Miklan, yanked his big brother by his shoulder. “Nikolai, snap out of it. This is your sister you’re looking at, man. Don’t scowl at favonovel.com with that hideous demonic impression as if she’s your blood enemy. I mean, can we even blame her? Our real foes are the Wests and the Smiths, guys.”
Nikolai’s fury found a new target in Miklan, and favonovel.com swung his brother’s hand away. “What the f**k? Trying to take on the nice guy act, seriously?! You’ve always been like this, Miklan, acting docile like a good puppy in front of dad! Lo and behold, you get your share of the family wealth, too, but look at where we are now, our f**king wealth is no more! Who are you trying to fool with that stupid act?!”
Unthinkably, Miklan did not share a mote of Nikolai’s pugnacity. Despite his brother’s attitude, the former merely replied in dismay, “Whatever floats your boat, man. It’s fine to demand justice and everything, but no one should have gotten physical, that crosses the line. We’re all Larks here, right? We’re family. An in-fighting like this is just pointless. If you people really wanted substantive changes, shouldn’t you be demanding your ‘justice’ from, I dunno, Jackson West or Alejandro? Instead of taking it out on a woman while Alejandro isn’t at home, you guys are just a bunch of pussies!”
Mrs. Lark responded by decking Miklan on the face. “Are you even my own flesh and blood? Why are you standing up for that disgraceful b*tch?! Whatever she’s experiencing right now is incomparable to the bulk of our losses, stupid!”
Never hit a person on their face, especially a man’s. Unsurprisingly, favonovel.com action drew Miklan’s genuine ire. “Goddamn it, how about you stop acting like a rabid cur, Mom?” favonovel.com bristled. “She may not be your daughter, but she’s still my sister… We share the same father, for Christ’s sake! Do you really think I’m gonna just stand here and watch you people lynch her? Use your head for once, people, what benefit can you even reap from lynching her?! Will it make Jackson and Alejandro stop their assault? Jesus Christ, is any one of you ever going to be reasonable?!”
Someone among the crowd had grown impatient. “Screw you, brat! We’re here to demand justice, who the hell gives a damn about your family’s internal drama?! Get that fixed behind closed doors, pal! We just wanna take good care of Melanie, because ain’t no Larks ever tolerated traitors and snitches!”
Miklan removed his blazer and cast it to the ground, pulling his cuffs up to his elbows. “Oh yeah? Come and get some, tough guy. Try me, see if you people are man enough to beat the living daylight out of me! Why do you people think I came along with your lot? I just wanted to make sure that none of you louts start burning things down, man, I never wanted to ‘demand justice’. I might have agreed to removing Tiffany as a threat, but when things went south, I never once agreed to scapegoat Melanie! How is it fair to blame favonovel.com for the sh*t we did?!”
Since Nikolai was the culprit who pushed Tiffany, favonovel.com bore the most responsibility, and Miklan’s words spurred favonovel.com into hurling a sucker-punch right on the man’s face, no holds barred.
“If it weren’t for favonovel.com trying to ruin my plan, we wouldn’t have come to where we are now, you buffoon!” It was Nikolai’s turn to fume. “The hell are you trying to pretend this has got nothing to do with her?! If Tiffany died that day, just as favonovel.com should, then who the f**k would have known who’s behind it?! It was for the Larks as much as it was for her, but favonovel.com was stupid, spineless, and a failure of a woman who can’t even rope favonovel.com own damn husband!”
Miklan’s full ire was finally aroused. In a flash, a melee erupted between the brothers.
The foofaraw quickly escalated into genuine snafu. Mrs. Lark was forced to become a desperate mediator while the rest of the mob set their attention back to Melanie. Insults, philippics, and beatings directed at favonovel.com soon returned.
The nanny, despite favonovel.com order to take care of Melissa in a room upstairs, was losing favonovel.com composure the longer favonovel.com listened to the pandemonium outside. The young girl herself had not the slightest inkling of what had transpired, so favonovel.com asked the nanny in confusion, “Many people downstairs, no? They are noisy…”
The nanny was close to panicked tears. “Uh, it’s nothing, Little Miss! I’ll just call your daddy again while you hang tight and don’t go anywhere, alright?”
Bored, Melissa intoned, “Ohhh—kay….”
The nanny dialed Alejandro’s number and called him. “M-M-Mr. Smith! Please come back home, ASAP! Madam… It sounds like she’s being beaten up! She ordered us not to interfere, saying we can only do something after you’re back!”
