Chapter 1 - THE VENOM IN THE SILK"Where is he, Patricia?"
My voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried the heavy weight of three years spent rotting in a concrete cage. I pushed past her threshold, the cheap canvas of my duffel bag scraping against the new, brutally expensive hardwood of the foyer.
Patricia didn't flinch. She didn't drop her glass. She simply turned her head, her lips curling into a smile so sharp it felt like a razor blade slicing across my retinas.
"He's not here, Julian," she said smoothly, taking a slow, calculated sip of her wine. "Your father is gone."
The words hit me like a physical blow, driving the breath straight out of my lungs. The world tilted violently on its axis.
"Gone?" I choked out, stumbling forward until I was standing inches from her face. I could smell the expensive vanilla of her perfume mixed with the sour stench of triumph. "What do you mean, gone? Is he at the hospital? Did he have another heart attack? Tell me!"
Patricia let out a cold, melodic laugh that sent ice water straight into my veins. She walked backward into the expansive living room—a space that used to echo with my father's booming laughter, now transformed into a sterile museum of minimalist wealth. She set her wine glass down on a slab of imported Italian marble.
Then, she reached for a thick, leather-bound folder resting on the edge of the desk.
With a deliberate, theatrical motion, she picked it up and slammed it onto the glass surface. The sharp crack echoed through the high ceilings like a gunshot.
"He died six months ago, you ungrateful parasite," Patricia spat, her eyes flashing with pure malice. "A massive stroke. He didn't even make it to the ambulance. And do you want to know the best part, Julian? It wasn't the police or the embezzlement scandal that killed him. It was the absolute, crushing shame of knowing his own flesh and blood had robbed him blind."
I stared at the folder, my vision blurring with hot, furious tears. "No... No, that's a lie. My father knew I was innocent. He promised me he would fight for me—"
"Your father signed every single document in this portfolio before his heart gave out," she interrupted, stepping closer, her voice dropping to a venomous hiss. "He signed over full power of attorney. He disowned you, Julian. Every share of Mendoza Enterprises, every piece of real estate, every cent in the accounts—it all belongs to me now."
She reached out and tapped a manicured fingernail against the cover of the folder.
"The company is mine. The house is mine. You are nothing. You are a convicted felon, a pariah, and a stranger. Security is already on their way to drag you off my property. Get out of my sight before I have you thrown back into a cell where you belong."
I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.
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Five years. One thousand and ninety-five days of holding onto a ghost, only to find out the ghost had abandoned me, too.
My knees buckled. The fight, the fire, the unexploded bomb inside my chest—it all collapsed into a heap of ash. I turned blindly away from her, stumbling out of the front door and collapsing onto the cold stone steps. The charcoal-grey walls of the house seemed to close in around me, suffocating me, burying me alive all over again.
