Black Friday- retribution

Chapter seventeen-Romans revenge pt two

The war had begun and Roman was in his element. The suffering inflicted on a mass of innocent people made him feel unbelievable power. The control he had over those last few minutes of a persons life, while they begged to live was a delight to him.
Roman didn't care about people. He didn't care about his children, his followers or women that had fallen for his charm over the past four hundred years. He didn't care if he hurt those closest to him, and he demanded loyalty, without returning the favour.
Roman wasn't someone you could trust. And he had no limits to how far he would go.
It wasn't just because of the fact he was a vampire, he was a nasty piece of shit before that.
Roman grew up in Walia, Sierra Leone which was a small rural village in the Northern Province.
His mother and father were so poor that they often went days without eating, and his father would make him scrounge dead fish from the harbour once the tide had gone out. His three older sisters spent most of the time antagonising him by slapping him around the face, pushing him over and wiping animal shit on him until he exploded with rage.
As a child Roman was quiet and stared at people a lot. He was known as 'the weird boy' and his mother often told him he was a disappointment and wouldn't be much of a man, and his father would beat him daily often for no reason other than being in a bad mood.
Roman never knew why his family picked on him the way they did, and why they were nicer to his sisters, who he grew to detest very quickly.
When Roman had reached puberty and hormones began to surge, he would watch his now adult sisters undress and bathe in their one bedroom hut, while he pleasured himself.
His sisters found it hilarious and would wind him up, catching him out before he had the chance to ejaculate. They would then run to their parents who would beat him some more and leave him outside, sometimes for days with no food or water and in his own excrement and sexual frustration.
One day, while his parents were out forging for food, Roman attacked his oldest sister Asuma and raped her before beating her so badly, she was left with brain damage.
He then tied up his two other sisters and stripped them naked before sodomising them one after the other.
When his parents returned home, they threw him out onto the street and he never saw them again.
He was only fourteen years old.
Roman traveled around for the next ten years, working odd jobs and never staying in the same place for too long.
Finally he decided to give real life a try, and settled down with his wife Mariama and between them they had eight children over the span of twenty-one years.
Roman was physically, mentally and sexually abusive to Mariama and the children, and even though she tried to leave several times, he always dragged them back.
Until that fateful day in 1619 when vampires attacked, he could hear the screams of his children and wife as they lay dying. Roman should have felt anger, fear, sorrow or even guilt for the way he had treated them.
Instead he felt nothing.
                                    ***
Roman had returned to his mansion in France, after the London attack and had contacted his associates in panama who informed him their plan had gone exactly how it should have done and that they were on their way to England. The gangs had expanded and turned hundreds of people into the undead, training them in their new life style and told them to obey or die.
Roman headed to the children's nursery where Grace was watching over all five infants. As he walked into the room, Grace was gently rocking Hunter to sleep and singing a hauntingly beautiful song  called 'lullaby of woe'.
Roman slammed the door, startling Grace who immediately placed Hunter into his bed beside his siblings.
Walking towards Grace, he grabbed her hair from behind and threw her into the corner of the room on the opposite side to the children.
"Didn't I tell you not to mother them?" Roman growled at her.
Grace scowled furiously at her father.
"I'm not afraid of you." She said, calmly.
"You should be, Gracie."he hissed.
Grace got up from the floor and onto her feet. She held her head up and purses her lips together, looking directly into the eyes of her father.
"You do not scare me, father." She said, defiantly.
Roman stepped away from Grace and walked towards the sleeping children.
"Stop mothering them." He said, gently stroking Hunters head while he slept.
"Or I'll feed them to the starving soldiers downstairs. I'll make you watch while they tear them limb from limb. You understand?" He warned.
Grace knew better than to challenge her father. She turned around and walked out of the bedroom, rage ready to burst and tears ran down her face.
She wasn't like the rest. She didn't feel any desire to harm others or fight people just for a bit of power. The babies were her only concern at that point in time.
She thought about her birth mother a lot. She wondered what she was like, what she looked like and even what her name was.
Knowing that her father had put her mother through hell before killing her, made Grace hate him even more.
Grace headed into the kitchen downstairs and began to slam cutlery about on the side, as she tidied up to take her mind of the altercation she had just had.
The kitchen was a state, and with no housemaid around because the vampires kept killing the help, it was left for Grace to clean.
Mateo sneaked into the kitchen and quietly closed the sliding doors that lead to a room full of vampires, who still had human blood fresh on their lips from London.
"What's happened?" Mateo whispered. His soft face etched with worry.
Grace smiled gently, exhausted from feeling nothing but anger towards someone who should be loving towards her.
"The usual, 'don't mother the babies Gracie, they are soldiers. NOT your children'" she mocked, mimicking her fathers deep and monotonous voice.
"I can't wait to just get them away from here, to give them a tiny bit of something good. To get them away from him.." she whispered.
Grace was sure to be cautious of being overheard by one of her fathers many snitches, who had orders to have all eyes on her.
Except Mateo. No, he was different. He hated Roman Black just as much as she did.
"We'll be away soon. Once his troops come in from the far lands, we can slip away quietly." He reassured, wrapping his arms around Grace, he gently kissed the top of her nose. He rested his chin on her head and she cuddled into him, taking a deep breath and exhaling loudly.
"What would I do without you?" She said.
Mateo gently stroked her back and tenderly kissing the top of her head. Her hair smelt of oranges, and it reminded him of a time in his life before he transitioned. Being with her made him feel comfort, as his memories from his previous life flashed in his mind.
"I will do anything for you. And for those babies." He whispered.
"I know, as will I."
                                  ***
Roman headed into the back bedroom on the first floor, his other daughter Nila was silently standing by the open window. Curtains slightly ajar, the room almost dark from the sun setting.
Roman stood behind Nila and ran his long forefinger nail down her arm. He felt her tense up but still she hadn't moved.
"My dear sweet Nila. You are my favourite one." He slurred, turning her to face him.
"You are not like that stupid sister of yours. You're loyalty hasn't gone unrecognised." He said.
Nila nodded before turning away from her father and walking out of the room. She had learned to switch off from her fathers advances many years ago. She buried any humanity she ever had, along with every disgusting memory she had with him.
Killing people helped ease the pain. And obeying her father kept him sweet, sometimes enough for him to stay out of her bedroom at night. Sometimes it meant she could pretend she was somewhere else, living a different life.
Nila would do whatever it took to look after herself, even if that meant switching off from the war, or ignoring her fathers filthy hands all over her.
Nila went into the staff room and locked the door. She knew her father kept a little stash of every drug known to man in there. And he wouldn't notice a bit going missing anyway.
Opening the bag with white powder in, she put together five large lines and one by one snorted the lot.
She'd save the rest for later, just in case.
Reality disappeared and Nila leaned back in the chair. She closed her eyes and let wave after wave of euphoria sweep over her and the world drifted away.
This was her escape. The one place her father couldn't hurt her.
                                  ***