Chapter 5 - THE WEIGHT OF THIRTY YEARSGraham didn’t raise the gun to shoot. He kept his eyes locked on Martha’s finger hovering over the red toggle of the detonator.
“Thirty years, Martha,” Graham said, his voice trembling with a mixture of grief and disbelief. “My father trusted you. I trusted you. You watched me grow up. You held Claire when she took her first steps. And you slaughtered my wife because she found out you were bleeding the family accounts dry?”
“Bleeding?” Martha let out a sharp, dry laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete. “This estate was built on my family’s labor, Graham. Your grandfather stole these lands from my ancestors during the depression, and I merely took back what was owed coin by coin, trust fund by trust fund. Caroline was simply too clever for her own good. She found the ledger in the false bottom of the library desk. She had to be pruned.”
Vanessa stepped back, her hands trembling as she looked at Martha.
“Wait... you said we were just going to scare them off! You said nobody had to die today!”
“Shut up, you pathetic little parasite,” Martha snarled without looking at her. “You did exactly what you were paid to do—befriend Caroline, monitor her movements, and report every private conversation straight to my ear. You think you were an independent employee? You were a pawn.”
Vanessa staggered backward, the color draining entirely from her face. The betrayal hit her harder than any physical blow. All her loyalty, all her quiet surveillance, all her complicity—traded for scraps by a woman who viewed her as nothing more than an expendable tool.
“You lied to me,” Vanessa whispered.
May you like
“I use people,” Martha corrected calmly. “Just like I’m about to use this detonator to bury all of us.”
Her thumb twitched downward.
