Chapter 4 - The Wolves BelowArthur didn't reach for the house phone. He didn't yell for Carmen.
Instead, he reached into the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk, pushing aside a stack of tax returns from 1994, and pulled out a heavy, matte-black Walther PPK in a worn leather holster. It was an old service piece from his days as a military attaché in Berlin—unregistered, clean, and loaded with six rounds of hollow-point ammunition.
He clicked the safety off with his thumb. The sound was like a dry bone snapping.
He wheeled himself out into the second-floor hallway, his tires silent on the thick wool runner. The house was pitch black except for the amber glow of the security system keypad near the grand staircase.
Clank.
There it was again. Coming from the service stairwell behind the pantry.
Arthur navigated the decline of the corridor with practiced ease, his arms doing the work his legs had abandoned. As he reached the top of the narrow wooden back stairs that led down to the kitchens and the coal cellars, a murmur of angry voices floated up from the dark well.
"—I'm telling you, Thomas, the old man’s mind is completely gone," a voice hissed. It was Richard, his older nephew, a corporate litigator whose suits always looked like they cost more than a family sedan. "I found a draft of a new will on his laptop last night. He’s cutting us out entirely. Everything goes to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and some obscure orphanage in Queens."
"He can't do that!" Thomas’s voice shot back, shrill and panicked. "The townhouse alone is worth twelve million! We've spent five years waiting for him to kick the bucket so we can pay off the mortgage on the Hamptons estate!"
"Keep your voice down, you idiot," Richard snapped. "Carmen is still in her quarters. Where is the key to the wall safe in his study? Did you find it?"
"I looked everywhere. The desk drawers are empty except for old letters. He must keep it on his person or in the wall behind the portrait."
Arthur sat in the shadows at the top of the stairwell, his finger resting lightly on the trigger of the Walther. A cold, flat anger—pure and unadulterated, the kind that had won him medals in the mud of the Ia Drang Valley—cleared the fog of grief from his brain entirely.
His nephews weren't just waiting for him to die. They were auditing his corpse before the heart had even stopped.
Suddenly, a third sound cut through the conspiratorial whispers in the stairwell.
It wasn't a voice. It was a sharp, clear whistle—the first two notes of Reveille.
Bong-bong.
From the bottom of the dark stairs, right outside the pantry door, a small flashlight beam cut upward, slicing through the dust motes.
May you like
Maya’s face appeared in the circle of white light, floating in the darkness like a mischievous cherub. She was sitting cross-legged on the top step of the basement flight, holding a stolen silver butter knife in one hand and tapping it rhythmically against the wooden balustrade.
"You guys are really bad at whispering," Maya said cheerfully to the two grown men standing frozen in the dark. "The general has a gun, by the way. And he’s really good at shooting things that move."
