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Seven days before New Year’s Eve, my thirty-four-year-old son sent me a message that made me leave everything behind. / Chapter 6 / 10

Chapter 6 - IRVING’S TRUE COLORSIrving reached behind his back and pulled a heavy, snub-nosed revolver from his waistband, pointing it straight at my chest.

The air in the basement instantly turned freezing cold.

"Dad!" Wyatt cried out from the dark corner, trying to drag himself forward despite his shattered knee. "Look out!"

"Shut up, you ungrateful piece of trash!" Irving snarled, never breaking eye contact with me, his finger resting dangerously close to the trigger. "You really thought you could outsmart us, old man? You think walking in here with some piece of paper changes anything? Papers can be burned. Witnesses... can have unfortunate accidents."

Sabrina scrambled backward up the stairs, her initial shock replaced by a vicious, desperate relief. "Kill him, Dad! Kill him and make it look like a break-in! If he owns everything, then once he's dead, the probate court will automatically pass his estate to Wyatt—and since Wyatt will be dead too, the entire inheritance goes straight to me as his grieving widow!"

It was a sick, twisted masterclass in greed. They had planned the entire sequence down to the last legal loophole.

"You're thorough, Irving," I said, my voice completely steady, refusing to look at the barrel of the gun. "I'll give you that. You and your corporate lawyer buddy Marcus cooked up a real masterpiece of fraud."

"Marcus is a professional," Irving grinned, cocking the hammer of the revolver with a sickening click. "And you are just an old relic standing in the way of a hundred-million-dollar empire. Any last words, Abraham? Make them quick. The New Year’s countdown is about to start upstairs."

I looked at Irving, then past him up the open stairwell toward the crowded living room where fifteen wealthy guests were still sitting in the dark, waiting for the power to return.

"You know, Irving," I said calmly, raising my voice just enough to carry up the empty stairwell. "You're right about one thing. It's almost midnight. Time for a new beginning."

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The heavy mahogany door of the dressing room seemed to close in on us, trapping the suffocating tension inside. Richard’s hands were shaking as he clutched the small, tarnished silver pendant. His knuckles were bone-white.

The heavy mahogany door of the dressing room seemed to close in on us, t...

The heavy silver fork slipped from my fingers, clattering sharply against the gold-rimmed porcelain of my dinner plate.

The heavy silver fork slipped from my fingers, clattering sharply agains...

The heavy mahogany door of the Fairmont Copley suite clicked shut with a muffled, expensive thud.

The heavy mahogany door of the Fairmont Copley suite clicked shut with a...

Irving frowned, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Smart-ass. Time to die."

Before he could pull the trigger, the front door upstairs blew wide open with a deafening crash that rattled the basement rafters.

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