Chapter 5 - The Mastermind Revealed"Michael?" I whispered, stumbling backward until my legs hit the edge of the chair. My heart pounded like a jackhammer against my ribs. "What are you... what are you doing?"
Michael slipped the gloves onto his hands with slow, deliberate precision. He didn't look at me right away. Instead, his eyes remained fixed on my father, who was now thrashing weakly against the hospital bed, desperately trying to hit the emergency call button.
"I told you to stay out of it, Em," Michael said, his voice entirely devoid of the warmth and kindness I had fallen in love with. It was flat, chilling, and utterly foreign. "I told you we should have moved away months ago. But you just had to keep playing the good daughter."
"You... you knew?" The words felt heavy, impossible to push past my lips. "You knew about Kara?"
Michael chuckled softly, walking over to the heart monitor and casually flipping a small toggle switch. The frantic beeping slowed, then flatlined into a continuous, piercing tone.
"Kara is an amateur," Michael said calmly, stepping between me and the bed. "She thinks she’s a criminal mastermind because she watched too many true crime podcasts. She came to me three weeks ago, crying about her debts, begging for help. She wanted to poison your parents to get the house."
"And you helped her?!" I screamed, tears blinding my vision. "You watched her do it?"
"I didn't just watch, sweetie," Michael smiled, his eyes dead and empty. "I engineered it. I gave her the exact compound—something untoxicated in standard autopsies unless specifically tested for heavy metal degradation. I coached her on how to bypass the security system. I even left the memory card in the camera on purpose."
I stared at him, my mind shattering into a million jagged pieces. "On purpose? Why would you want them to find it?"
Michael stepped closer, cupping my cheek with a gloved hand that felt like a block of ice.
"Because Kara was always the fall guy," he whispered smoothly. "Once she was arrested, the police would close the case. They’d look at her debts, her confession, and the video, and they’d pat themselves on the back for solving a neat little family tragedy. No one would ever look at the quiet, devoted son-in-law."
"Why?" I sobbed, struggling against the paralyzing terror gripping my limbs. "What did they ever do to you?"
Michael’s expression hardened into pure malice. "They didn't do anything to me, Emily. But they own a multi-million-dollar land trust, and guess who the sole surviving beneficiary is once you and your sister are legally disqualified?"
May you like
He leaned in close to my ear, his breath hot and poisonous.
"And the best part? When the police interview you tomorrow about my tragic, sudden disappearance or your unfortunate accident, you’ll be too broken by grief to realize you were the final piece of the puzzle."
