revenge tale

Writer’s Prompt: Tina Buffanti: A Hard-Boiled Tale of Murder and Premonitions

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Tina Buffanti inherited a PI business, a loaded gun, and a burning need to send her father’s killer to an early grave.

Writer’s Prompt

The rain in this city doesn’t wash anything away; it just turns the grit into a slick, black coat. I stood in front of “Buffanti Investigations,” the gold lettering on the door still peeling like a scab. My father, Mike, spent thirty years behind that glass before Dr. Mark Zilgar put two rounds in his chest.

The official report said it was a mugging gone wrong. My gut said otherwise. Mike had been tailing Zilgar for weeks, snapping long-range shots for the doctor’s “soon-to-be-ex.” He’d caught the good doctor doing more than reviewing charts with his head nurse—he’d caught the kind of intimacy that ruins reputations and loses licenses. Then, Mike ends up in the morgue, and the camera? Conveniently missing.

I don’t have the photos, and I don’t have a witness. What I have is a legacy of stubbornness and a Smith & Wesson that feels heavy in my purse.

My first order of business wasn’t filing paperwork or calling a lawyer. I walked into “Petals & Thorns” on 5th Street.

“Help you, Tina?” the florist asked, eyes darting to the black armband I was wearing.

“Lilies,” I said, my voice as cold as the marble in Zilgar’s lobby. “A massive spray. For Dr. Mark Zilgar’s visitation.”

The florist paused. “Zilgar? Tina, the man is still alive. I saw him on the news this morning.”

I leaned over the counter, the scent of damp earth filling my lungs. “He is for now. But I’ve always had a knack for premonitions, and I’m betting his schedule is about to clear up permanently.”

I walked out into the downpour. Across the street, Zilgar’s black sedan pulled up to his clinic. I reached into my bag, my fingers brushing the cold steel.

Finish the Story

The scent of lilies is already in the air, but the trigger hasn’t been pulled. Does Tina find the missing camera in Zilgar’s car, or does she become the very monster she’s hunting? How does the final confrontation end?

Writer’s Prompt: A Father’s Ashes, A Son’s Secret: A Story of Betrayal and Vengeance

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Writer’s Prompt

Frenchy Gamache never missed a day. Rain, illness, exhaustion — nothing kept him from visiting Charlie Evans at the assisted care living center at 4:00 p.m. Charlie, once a quick-witted storyteller, now drifted between worlds, his memories dissolving like fog retreating before the sun.

Most days, Charlie didn’t know his own name. But that day — that terrible day — clarity returned. His hands trembled as he gripped Frenchy’s sleeve and whispered, “He’s trying to kill me. My son… he wants me gone.”

Frenchy hesitated. Dementia was a thief of truths — replacing memories with ghosts. Was this another ghost… or the last honest message Charlie would ever speak?

Two days later, Charlie was dead.

Thirty-six hours later, he was ash.

No funeral. No goodbye. No dignity.

Frenchy stood outside the crematorium, fists clenched, heart burning with certainty: Charlie’s son hadn’t just wanted him gone — he made it so.

And Frenchy vowed, with cold resolve,

he would make him pay.

Writer’s Question

What moment in this story convinces you that Charlie’s death was murder — and how would you begin Frenchy’s revenge arc?

Flash Fiction Prompt: Christmas Justice: Two Misfits, One Dirty Job, and a Loan Shark’s Surprise

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When a grizzled ex-con and a street-smart teen team up to settle a debt, the holiday spirit takes a dark, dangerous turn.

Prompt

Harvey lit his last cigarette like a man lighting a fuse and said, “Kid, Christmas ain’t about giving—it’s about payback done with a bow.”

Eighteen-year-old Dante had been in trouble since he could crawl, but this time the trouble wore a Santa hat. His grandma’s life savings were gone—snatched by a loan shark who smiled while she cried. Harvey, a seventy-year-old relic from a different kind of crime, decided that was one sin too many. The kid reminded him of himself before life got heavy, before the bottle, before the regrets.

Now they sat in Harvey’s rusted Ford pickup outside the shark’s neon-lit “pawn shop,” the December wind howling through cracks in the door. The plan wasn’t perfect—it never was—but it had heart. A little misdirection, a fake police scanner, and a duffel bag full of IOUs written in blood and nerve.

Tonight wasn’t about revenge. It was about redemption—gift-wrapped, with Grandma’s name on the tag.

Question for Readers

If you were in Harvey and Dante’s place, would you go through with the plan—or find another way to deliver Christmas justice?

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