Chapter 10 - The Confrontation in the Kitchen
"Going somewhere, darling?"
The voice was sweet, dripping with a sickening, manic familiarity. It wasn't Julian.
The kitchen emergency light flickered on—a dull, amber glow casting long, distorted shadows across the countertops. Standing by the shattered back door was a woman in a designer trench coat, her perfectly styled blonde hair slightly disheveled.
Victoria.
She wasn't wearing her diamond tennis bracelet anymore, but in her right hand, she held a heavy brass candlestick she had swiped from our dining room sideboard. Behind her stepped Julian, his face bruised, his expensive suit wrinkled and ruined, a wild, manic grin plastered across his lips.
"You thought you could ruin me, Elena?" Julian laughed, his voice echoing hollowly in the dark kitchen. He stepped over the broken glass, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "You and your little brat thought you could hand me over to the feds and walk away into the sunset?"
Arthur lunged forward to shield me, but Victoria swung the heavy brass candlestick with surprising force, catching Arthur squarely across the temple. He collapsed to the floor with a groan, sliding against the cabinets into silence.
"Arthur!" I screamed, trying to break toward him, but Julian grabbed my shoulders, slamming me against the refrigerator door with brutal force.
"Shut up!" Julian snarled, his breath smelling of stale whiskey and cheap desperation. "Where is the master drive? The original encrypted drive that your son used to back up the files before he handed me that decoy box at the wedding?"
My breath came in ragged gasps. The pain in my shoulder was sharp, but my mind was racing. The real drive—the one containing the master encryption keys to the Cayman accounts—wasn't in the house. It was locked in a safety deposit box at downtown Dallas National Bank.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I spat, glaring straight into his terrified eyes.
Julian raised his hand, his fingers curling into a fist. "Don't lie to me, Elena! I know the kid is smart, but he's ten years old! He left a copy somewhere in this house!"
"Looking for this, Dad?"
The voice came from the darkness of the hallway entrance.
Julian and Victoria both froze, spinning around toward the sound.
May you like
Noah stood at the edge of the kitchen, bathed in the amber glow of the emergency light. He wasn't shaking. In his right hand, he held a small, black USB drive, dangling it casually by its lanyard.
Julian’s eyes locked onto the drive like a starving wolf spotting a rabbit. "You little bastard..."
