Abe's revenge.

It didn't take long for me to find out who was spreading malicious rumours about my daughter, Pavel even got it from Rose herself. My daughter wasn't stupid, she knew that I would take action. The two idiots had single rooms next to each other, which made my plans so much easier. Pavel, Tad and I walked across campus to the male moroi dorms.

Pavel shook the hand of the dorm monitor, discreetly palming a couple hundred dollar bills. "We appreciate your discretion, this will not come back to you."

I maintained a hard look at the dorm monitor who shrank in response to my gaze and nodded their head. Pavel had expertise in human psychology and criminology, he was usually able to correctly identify those who would cause trouble and report us, and those who would look the other way.

These little shit royal moroi; Jesse Zeklos and Ralph what's-his-name had sullied my daughters reputation. I could not stand for that, they had to recant and pay for it.

Pavel had wanted to go old school, but I thought a decapitated animal head in their beds would be too messy. It would have been too difficult to clean up, I needed psychological torture without the evidence. So we settled for hog tying them with blindfolds, after all, they are a classic for a reason.

Jesse was a typical 'pretty boy' royal, who was used to getting his way. Ralph was related to the more prominent members of the Voda family but on his mothers side. Being a royal without the family name would make him the inferior party in this duo and from all reports he was practically Jesse's lackey.

We shot them up with propofol, an anaesthetic agent in their muscles. Enough to knock them out for about fifteen minutes but a low dose to maintain their breathing. I didn't want to kill them, just incapacitate them for a period. Propofol had the added bonus of a burning sensation in their muscles from injection.

We tied them to chairs, strapped a gag around their mouths and covered their heads with a hood. I started with Ralph and I slapped him awake while Pavel gave Jesse another shot to stay asleep. "Do you know who I am?"

Ralph looked terrified and nodded his head. "What is your name?"

"R- Ralph Sarcozy"

"Do you know who my daughter is?"

Again he nodded. He looked like he was going to pee himself.

"Have you had any sort of relationship with my daughter? Apparently you and this idiot violated my daughter." I said menacingly as I pointed to Jesse. Pavel backed me up by his stoic and intimidating presence, holding a large bag with tools… It was actually his toiletry kit. Rose and Lissa had bought it for him for Christmas, but they didn't know that.

Ralph's eyes went wide and he literally started to pee himself. "I- I've never touched your daughter. M- Mia asked us to tell the school that we did."

"What made you think that lying was a good idea?"

"She said that if we did, she would sleep with us." I gave him a filthy look and Tad knocked him out with an elbow to the head.

Ralph cracked like an egg, I would leave it up to my associate to deal with him. "Tad, I'll leave him to you. Show him the pictures of his family and find his illegal drugs under his bed."

Ralph moaned as he was dragged out of the room, leaving a trail of urine in his wake.

I gestured to Pavel to slap Jesse. He barely moved in response, the medication would take a little longer to move out of his system than I anticipated.

Pavel moved around the room to search this kid's belongings. He found some small tablets and marijuana in his bedside table. Under the mattress, he had adult magazines.

Pavel nudged me with a face of disgust. He had taken Rose's yearbook picture and stuck them on to the bodies of some of the models scantily clad women. I clenched my fist and punched the kid in the solar plexus. He jolted awake, gasping for breath.

"You little fucker." I used my most menacing tone for him. "What gives you the right to lie about my daughter?"

Pavel grabbed the back of his head by his hair, tilting his head back to look at him. He pulled a blade from his pocket and placed it on Jesse's neck.

"You will have to excuse Pavel here, he is very protective of my Rose. He doesn't take kindly to people who lie." Pavel made a quick motion with his knife hand, slicing the edge of Jesse's eyebrow. A few hairs dropped onto his cheek.

Jesse tried to move but the knife was placed back to his neck and Pavel moved his head to face me again.

"Have you touched my daughter?" I ask.

"She wanted me to." He said with a cocky attitude. Pavel growled and pressed the knife into his neck, drawing blood.

Jesse started screaming, "Owww, I can't believe you cut me. I'm royal!"

"You are a despicable little creep. Do you really think that being royal makes you beyond my reach? I have half the royal council in my pocket, not to mention that many prominent members of your family owe me."

"Have you touched my daughter?" I ask again. Pavel produces a second knife and stabs it between his legs. Jesse's eyes go huge and he starts to sweat.

"We made out twice. Once before she left and a couple of weeks ago."

My daughter kissing a few toads didn't concern me, but I suspected it wasn't the whole truth. They came up with quite an elaborate story about Rose and I wanted to know the specifics. I glanced at Pavel and he lifts the knife again and stabs closer to Jesse's privates. "What happened? She just kissed you and that was that?"

"I tried to make out with her, but she wasn't interested in me and she didn't kiss me back. My teeth got close to her neck, she froze and I deduced that she had done it before. Then her guardian jailor showed up, he put a stop to things before she could and he threw me out of the room."

"The alpha?" I asked.

Jesse nodded, "Yes, Guardian Belikov."

Very interesting.

"Then why make a claim that you and your perverted friend had sex with my daughter?"

"I was angry that she turned me down and Mia didn't. In return for Mia's affections, she wanted me to spread rumours, it was a quid pro quo. Besides, I was responsible for spreading the story about her parents, so I felt bad."

I stared at him. This little arsehole practically ruined my daughter's life because he felt bad for spreading rumours about another girl in exchange for sex.

"You don't know what bad feels like until I am done with you." I growled and nodded at Pavel. Pavel held his head still while I grabbed the tattoo gun and we marked his neck with my signature tattoo. He squealed like a little girl until I finished.

"I'm a royal, you can't do this to me." He whined.

I got up right in his face. "I have marked you for life, everyone will know that you have crossed Abe Mazur. If you ever take advantage of a girl, moroi or dhampir… Your parents won't be able to identify your body."

Jesse started crying and quietly pissed himself.

"Pathetic." Pavel said while rolling his eyes.

"You will recant the lies that you told about my daughter within the next 24 hours. If you ever so much as look in her direction, I will kill you myself." Jesse looked white as a ghost and nodded at me.

Jesse was almost disappointingly pathetic, he folded like a piece of origami paper. Neither he, nor Ralph stood up to the mildest amount of torture. What's the point of tying someone to a chair if they tell you everything you want to know without the use of thumb screws.

For our amusement, Pavel left bugs in their rooms to hear their conversation with their families. It never hurts to know how your adversaries will respond so that you can crush them again.

I had scared him now, but once he showered and got himself a change of clothes, his sense of privilege would return. Presumably he would call his father to complain and that would be when his father would explain the significance of his new tattoo. In short, this kid was fucked.

My mark meant to others that he had wronged Zmey, but he did not know the repercussions that were to follow. Royal families would know that he had crossed the snake and they would be wary about going into business with him. He would be prevented from a respectable royal marriage, no-one wanted someone who publicly crossed me to be associated with their family.

We left the boys dorms and Pavel and I looked towards the girls dorm. Truth be told, it was harder for me to threaten women and it felt wrong to intimidate a teenage girl. But Miss Rinaldi had been most adversarial to my girls and was high on the suspect list of leaving the deranged presents for Lissa, so she needed to be investigated.

Miss Rinaldi reminded me of my Rose. They were aggressive and the first to strike, both so desperate for the world to believe that they are invulnerable. Both of them would keep escalating this feud until they were both expelled. Another approach was required for Miss Rinaldi. Miss Rinaldi seemed to hate Lissa and Rose to the point that she was trading sexual favours. Threatening wouldn't make this girl back off as teenage girls are masters of psychological warfare, we had to get to the root cause of the problem.

We decided to investigate her room during the next morning classes. Pavel stood watch near the moroi dorms waiting for Mia and her roommate to leave for breakfast. I waited five minutes to enter the dorms while Tad gained access to the room.

We searched under her bed, other than a serious odd sock collection, there was nothing of particular interest. I went through her closet and drawers, no sign of weapons for animal carving etc. I was about to leave when I spotted a stack of yearbooks. I flipped through the year that Lissa and Rose left in their Sophomore year. Mia would have been a freshman at the time.

I spotted a page dedicated to the memory of Lissa's brother, Andre Dragomir. It was heavily graffitied, primarily with devil horns and a big cross on his face. Maybe she is taking it out on the sister, because she can't take it out on the brother.