Chapter 317: The Molding of a Monster

Flashback: 23 Years Ago (End of the Flashback)

Author’s POV

The young Robert’s eyes widened in sweeping shock, and he stopped walking suddenly for mere seconds as if he were struck by lightning, uttering in a trembling, childish astonishment: "Mafia? Me?! I will be a mafia king?!"

Thomas moved his head in decisive agreement, and ground out firmly between his teeth: "Yes, exactly... and I will begin by granting and giving you ownership of this club in particular, so you can learn in it how matters are managed with cruelty."

The young Robert took a tight, confused breath, and moved the palms of his small hands with trembling and fear, saying: "But... but I do not want this, Father! I want, when I grow up, to study and be a chief executive officer."

A malicious, cunning smile twisted upon Thomas’s elderly lips as he said in a mocking tone: "You will indeed be so before society and the law for coverage... but you will also hold with an iron fist all the filthy and black businesses here in secrecy as well."

Robert walked with anxious, heavy steps and asked with a childish insistence filled with the desire to comprehend: "But what is this club exactly? What happens in its closed rooms?"

The movement of the wheelchair stopped suddenly by Thomas’s command, and the latter looked at his son with a piercing, burning gaze filled with the tyrannical majesty that terrifies men, saying: "This club, Robert, is your legitimate and sole door to being the greatest and most powerful man, and it is what grants you a majesty and authority that makes everyone tremble and kneel upon their knees at the mere mention of your name."

Robert shook his shoulders with weakness and lack of resourcefulness, the look in his eyes lost and scattered between the corridors of the place as he said: "I... still do not understand your words, Father."

Thomas cleared his throat to adjust his voice, neared his harsh, wrinkled face to his son’s face, and explained in a low, faint voice carrying in its folds the filthy and despicable truth of the place: "This club rents girls and women to the most influential, authoritative personalities and politicians in all parts of the world, and not only here in New York... you will present and provide them with a protected physical pleasure by your men and your secret, while they, in return, provide you with massive amounts of money, services, and influence, my son... this is the business."

The young Robert’s body stiffened in his place completely like an idol, and signs of total astonishment, shock, and extreme disgust sketched upon his childish face, with features summarizing the shock and brokenness of a child of only twelve years of age seeing his role model trading in humans. He uttered in a shaken, choked voice: "Rents girls? Are... are girls rented like commodities for money?!"

Thomas patted with a freezing coldness onto his son’s small hand, which was gripping with a convulsion onto the edge of the wheelchair armrest, and said with indifference: "You will grow up and understand everything in detail, my son... and there is no need for this fear, because you, in the end, are the one who will be my legitimate and sole heir to this throne."

At that critical, charged moment, the outer iron door of the club opened with a violence that produced a loud sound, and Morgan breached the darkness of the club with roaring, wide, and powerful steps like a lion, followed by a heavily armed squad of his men with machine guns. Thomas truly panicked, his entire body convulsing upon his chair with rage and sweeping dread at the sight of Morgan breaching his den, while on the contrary, with absolute innocence, the eyes of the young Robert shone with sweeping joy. With a quick, spontaneous movement, he ran at the top of his speed toward Morgan to cast himself between Morgan’s arms, hugging him tightly around his waist, and shouted with eagerness and a sweeping childish affection: "Uncle Morgan! Uncle Morgan! I have missed you so much and so intensely!"

Morgan used to visit Thomas’s house constantly in the past, and he had a strong, warm relationship filled with affection with the youngsters, Harold and Robert, even after their mother Elizabeth died. Despite his raging and powerful problems and disputes with Thomas because of his adoration for Violet, he made sure to visit Harold and Robert always in secrecy and stealth to reassure himself of them. However, he cut off his visits to them completely and suddenly after that ill-fated night in which Thomas found Violet and him together on the bed.

Morgan looked downward toward the young Robert, who was clinging to his clothes with rigid, cold facial features void of any emotional feelings. Robert raised his head to him, his eyes shining, and asked him with reproach: "Uncle Morgan, where did you disappear throughout these months? Why don’t you come to visit us and play with us like before?"

The young Robert always found in Morgan a tenderness, sympathy, and true fatherhood that he never found in his father Thomas at all. But Morgan surprised and shocked him with a dry, unexpected cruelty when he completely ignored his feelings, pushed the young one’s hands away from him with detachment and a light shove, and directed his burning, fierce, and hateful look directly toward his rival Thomas sitting on his chair, saying in a roaring hiss: "Thomas... I will take revenge on you with the worst of vengeance for what you did... but I am manly enough, and it does not satisfy or honor me to have an enemy who is helpless and crippled in a chair."

Thomas’s face convulsed with malice and evil, and he gripped with his fingers with brute force onto the armrests of his chair, shouting with irritation and a raised voice: "You arrogant, cursed man! Even while I am helpless and crippled, I can, with my men and influence, fight you and crush you completely!"

Morgan burst into a mocking, loud, and roaring laugh that shook the sides and corners of the dark club, and said with blatant sarcasm and belittlement: "You are helpless and finished already, Thomas... accept this bitter truth and enjoy your weakness!"

Then he turned his body with extreme slowness, and fixed the look of his piercing, harsh eyes filled with threat into the face of the young Robert, who was watching him with brokenness, and said in a stern, loud voice: "I see that your cursed father has already chosen you to be his legitimate heir and take his place... listen to it from me then: you, from this moment, will be my next enemy, Robert."

Robert’s eyes widened in sweeping astonishment and he felt a sharp constriction and pain in his chest. He looked in disbelief at the man whom he used to consider his role model and source of safety, and uttered with a shock that stabbed his heart: "What?! Uncle Morgan... me?! Your enemy?!"

Thomas shouted from behind him in a blind emotion and a burning rage while trying helplessly to move his chair forward: "Get away from my son, you lowlife! Do not involve the youngsters in settling our accounts!"

But Morgan did not listen to his shouting or give him any attention; rather, he continued fixing his eyes into the depths of Robert’s shaking eyes, saying in a cutting tone carrying the vow of the coming years and their darkness: "I will grant you sufficient time to grow up, for your bones to stiffen, and to learn cruelty... and when I see with my own eyes that you have indeed become a competent man worthy of being an enemy to Morgan, you will know that day very well, Robert."

Morgan turned his body with all the pride and arrogance possessed by mafia kings, and departed the club, leaving behind a shocked child whose innocence was completely crumbling and shattering before his eyes... a child who realized on that night that he was born to be a monster against his own will.