Chapter 6 - THE TEETH OF THE WOLFDavid rushed up the stairs, his arms opening wide in a grotesque parody of marital devotion. He reached out, his hands hovering just inches from my shoulders as if he were afraid I might shatter at the slightest touch.
"Look at you," David murmured, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "I told you those vitamins would be heavy on your system, but you refused to listen. You're pale, your hands are shaking... Oh, honey, let's get you back to bed."
I let out a weak, unsteady breath, leaning slightly against the mahogany banister to sell the illusion of dizziness.
"The... the capsules, David," I whispered, letting my eyelids flutter as if fighting off heavy exhaustion. "They made me feel... so strange. I kept hearing things... seeing things..."
Down in the foyer, Maggie stepped over the threshold, closing the front door with a sharp click that resonated through the silent house. She unbuttoned her wool coat slowly, her sharp eyes scanning the living room before locking onto the staircase.
"I told you so, David," Maggie said, her voice hard and devoid of any warmth as she climbed the stairs behind her son. "She was never strong enough to handle the pressures of your father's estate, let alone raise a special-needs child who couldn't even speak. It was always a burden far beyond her capacity."
David’s expression shifted subtly, the mask of a loving husband slipping for a fraction of a second to reveal the cold, calculating opportunist beneath.
"Mom, don't talk like that," David said, though his tone lacked any real defense. He turned back to me, his hand reaching out to firmly grip my arm. "Come on, Adrianna. Let's get you into the master bedroom. You need to sign some paperwork. Just a few routine asset transfers to protect you from yourself while you recover."
There it was. The mask was entirely gone.
"Paperwork?" I asked, my voice suddenly dropping its breathy tremor, hardening into something cold and razor-sharp.
David froze, his hand still clamped around my arm. He blinked, clearly thrown off by the sudden tonal shift in my voice.
"What... what did you say?" David asked, his brow furrowing.
"I asked what paperwork, David," I repeated, standing up straight, shaking off his grip with a sharp jerk of my arm. The dizzy, fragile housewife vanished in an instant, replaced by the woman who ran a multi-million-dollar real estate empire with an iron fist.
Maggie stopped on the landing below us, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "David, what is she doing?"
"I don't know," David muttered, taking a half-step back, his eyes darting across my face as panic began to flicker beneath his skin. "Adrianna, you're not making sense. The medication—"
"The medication?" I interrupted, cutting through the air like a knife. "You mean the slow-acting neurotoxin you and your mother brewed up to mimic a mental breakdown so you could institutionalize me and steal my father’s company?"
The color drained entirely from David’s face. He stumbled backward, his heel catching on the edge of the stair runner.
"You—what are you talking about?" David stammered, his voice pitching upward in sheer panic. "You're delusional! The pills are just standard health supplements!"
"Are they?" I asked calmly.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the plastic evidence bag containing the white capsules, and tossed them down at Maggie's feet. They scattered across the polished hardwood of the landing with a hollow clatter.
Maggie didn't look down at the pills. Instead, her eyes fixed on me with pure, unadulterated venom.
"You played us," Maggie hissed, stepping past the capsules, her voice dropping all pretense of maternal warmth. "You cunning little bitch. You knew all along."
"Not all along," a deep, authoritative voice boomed from the front hallway below.
May you like
David and Maggie both flinched, spinning around to look down.
From the shadow of the study archway, Marcus Vance stepped out into the light, flanked by two uniformed police officers and District Attorney Vance himself, whose expression was carved from granite.
