Chapter 4 - The Sister’s Betrayal
The floorboards behind me creaked.
I spun around, slamming the lid of the box shut. A shadow stood framed in the doorway, moonlight outlining a slender figure in high heels.
“I told Marcus you’d come here first,” Mara’s voice rang out, silky and cold.
She stepped into the beam of light, holding a heavy iron fireplace poker in her right hand. She didn't look like the indifferent sister-in-law who moved her lawn chair to avoid the mud. Her eyes were sharp, calculating, and full of hatred.
“You don't understand what you’ve stumbled into, Clara,” Mara said, taking a slow step toward me. “You think this was about a bad marriage? You think Marcus came up with this?”
“You knew,” I whispered, stepping back against the hearth, protecting my belly. “You knew Marcus and I shared a father.”
Mara laughed—a bitter, hollow sound that echoed through the empty house. “Evelyn knew. Old man Arthur abandoned our mother thirty years ago to build this farm and leave everything to your mother. Evelyn raised Marcus with one goal: take back every single cent that Arthur denied us.”
“So you married him off to me?” I asked, disgust choking my throat. “You let him touch me? You let him get me pregnant?”
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“Marcus didn't care. He does whatever Mother tells him to do,” Mara sneered, raising the iron poker. “And now that you’ve recorded his voice and brought the cops down on us, Mother decided we don't need a deed anymore. We just need an estate probate. And an estate probate is so much easier when the sole heir dies of 'complications' from her injuries.”
She lunged forward, swinging the poker straight for my head.
