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| A Father's Revenge |
He thought justice had failed. With his daughter gone and her killer walking free, David Rourke carried nothing but anger — and a plan for revenge. Yet at the edge of a choice he could never undo, God whispered a different word: peace. Let A Father’s Revenge speak to your heart — scroll down to begin.
No grass had yet taken root in the fresh dirt covering Isabella’s grave. David Rourke’s fingers trembled around the stems of flowers meant for his daughter’s graduation day. When the satin ribbon untied itself and fluttered down onto the soil, he couldn’t bring himself to retrieve it.
He had promised not to cry today. He failed, like he had failed every promise since the sirens, the phone call, the sterile hospital light that said too late.
The courtroom verdict replayed in his mind—the polished wood, the polished lawyers, the polished boy. Ethan Jacobs, eighteen, private school blazer, jaw trembling, parents flanking him with checkbooks and silence.
“First offense,” the defense attorney said smoothly. “Ethan is a young man who has shown genuine remorse. We recommend community service and supervised probation.”
The judge’s gavel fell, and David felt each word like a physical blow. His daughter was in the ground, and her killer would walk free with nothing but an apology and a slap on the wrist. He wouldn’t let it go. Ethan Jacobs would not escape what he had done to Isabella. Not while David was alive.
That night he lay awake while his wife, Susan, breathed softly beside him. He heard their twelve-year-old son, Robbie, tapping at his video games down the hall. In the dark, anger ticked like a clock he couldn’t stop. A plan began to form: watch Ethan Jacobs… and then make his move.
It wasn’t hard. The Jacobs family lived behind gates that recognized wealth more than people. David parked down the street and waited. He watched Ethan laugh too loudly with other boys. He watched him “serve” community service, dusting picture frames that already gleamed.
David’s chest tightened as he watched Ethan’s smug smile, his eyes gleaming with arrogance and privilege.
—
At dinner, Susan asked him to say grace. David stared at the untouched food on his plate. When she reached for his hand across the table, his fingers curled into a fist.
“I can’t thank God for anything anymore,” he muttered, pushing back his chair. The legs scraped against the floor as he left the table.
On Sunday Susan tucked a folded card into his pocket before church. Later, sitting alone in the back pew, he opened it. Romans 12:19, written in her careful script. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
“Then why didn’t You?” he whispered to the empty sanctuary.
—
Three weeks after the verdict, David’s plan finally took shape. He parked across from the charity shop and waited until dusk settled like ash. Through the windshield, he saw Ethan emerge, jingling keys as he locked the glass door.
Alone. No parents. No lawyers. Just the boy.
David’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. This was the moment. He eased the truck to the curb, rolled down the window, and spoke the words that sealed it:
“Get in.”
His grief had no blueprint, only a raw hunger for consequence. David eased the truck to the curb and rolled down the window. “Get in,” he said.
Ethan froze. “Mr. Rourke? What are you—”
“I said, get in.”
Ethan slid into the passenger seat, his fingers trembling against the door handle. “Mr. Rourke, I’ve been trying to find the right words since… I keep saying sorry but it gets hollower every time—”
“Don’t,” David snapped.
The truck rumbled past the edge of town to an old hunting shed, the door hanging on one hinge. Inside, dust floated like neglected prayers. David flipped on a bare bulb and pointed to a chair. Ethan sat, breathing too fast.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Which part didn’t you mean, Ethan?” David cut him off. “The vodka shots? The keys in your hand? The red light you blew at sixty?” His words fell sharp as broken glass.
David’s gaze caught on a rusted tire iron hanging from a nail on the wall. His fingers closed around the cold metal, testing its weight.
Ethan’s eyes filled with tears. “I never meant to kill her.”
David’s phone vibrated against his thigh. He pulled it out. His thumb hovered, then pressed his wife’s name.
She answered instantly. “David?”
“I’ve got Ethan Jacobs,” David said, his voice so low it barely carried through the phone.
The words hung in the air like a suspended breath.
“Where are you?” Susan asked.
“At the old hunting cabin. Off Miller Road.”
“David, listen to me. Whatever you’re thinking—don’t. I’m on my way. Just… wait for me.”
When he hung up, Ethan whispered, “I think about her every day. I pray for her. For you. I know that doesn’t fix it—I just… I can’t give her back to you.”
“Prayer?” David barked. “Don’t spend God like pocket change.”
The urge to lash out pulsed under his skin like a living thing. He tightened his grip on the tire iron.
“You think your prayers mean a damn thing to me?” His voice was low, dangerous. “You took everything from me. And all you have to offer are empty apologies and useless prayers.”
Twin beams of light sliced through the cabin window. Minutes later, the door creaked open, and Susan stepped inside. Her face was pale in the bulb’s glow, but her voice was steady. Without a word, she sank to her knees.
“David,” she said softly. “I know how you feel. I miss her too. I’ve been kneeling there in my heart for weeks. But this is the edge. One more step and you don’t come back.”
“This is justice.”
“This is revenge,” she replied. “And it doesn’t cure grief—it breeds it.”
David looked away.
Susan’s voice threaded through the silence: “Beloved, avenge not yourselves… for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” She didn’t shout. She laid it down like a bridge. “David, you are not the judge. You are the wounded. Let God be God.”
The mirror caught his reflection—a stranger gripping the tire iron. Jaw clenched. Eyes wild. He saw Isabella, too, in the kitchen doorway, the way she’d say Dad? like a question and an answer at once.
“Sir,” Ethan whispered, “I can’t fix what I broke. But don’t let this take you too.”
The tire iron slipped from David’s hand. It clattered to the floor like a confession.
Susan rose, dust on her knees, and placed her palm over his pounding chest. “Give it to God, David. This fury, this need for justice—it’s not yours to carry.”
A dam broke in David’s chest. He moved to Ethan, trembling, and untied him.
David pulled out his phone again. “There’s been a kidnapping incident at the old hunting cabin,” he told the dispatcher. “No one is hurt. Send officers.”
—
Several months later, David stood before the bench, hands clasped tightly at his waist. The judge leaned forward. “The court recognizes that grief can drive us beyond our own boundaries. Given that Mr. Jacobs has declined to press charges, I’m ordering two hundred hours of community service.”
David carried that sentence like a stone that grew lighter with time. He spoke at victims’ groups, not telling people what to do, only what had almost been done. About a cabin, a verse, and a God big enough to carry vengeance without becoming it.
One afternoon he visited Isabella’s grave. Grass had finally pushed through the soil, stubborn and green. He set wildflowers down and straightened the ribbon.
“Vengeance is His,” David said aloud, voice breaking into something like peace. “And by His grace, I choose to live.”
When he turned to leave, he thought he could almost hear Isabella’s voice again: "Be at peace, Dad."
