Chapter 10 - Shadows from the Past
The Evanston estate was quiet beneath the afternoon sun, the gentle lapping of lake water against the rocky shore providing a soothing counterpoint to the chaos Joshua had left behind in the city.
Clara sat on the shaded veranda, a sketchbook open on her lap as she sketched the delicate curve of a hydrangea blossom. Her health was rebounding remarkably; the sickly, translucent pallor of her skin had been replaced by a healthy, natural glow.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path leading around the side of the house.
Clara looked up, expecting to see Joshua returning early from his abbreviated meeting, or one of the girls running back from the garden hedge. Instead, a stranger stood at the edge of the patio.
He was a tall, disheveled man in his late forties, wearing a cheap, wind-battered leather jacket and scuffed work boots. His face was weathered, marked by deep lines of fatigue and hard living, and his eyes darted nervously around the pristine grounds as if expecting attack dogs to be released at any second.
Clara’s breath caught in her throat. The sketchbook slipped from her lap, sliding silently across the wooden deck.
"Marcus...?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
The man flinched, stepping forward onto the patio. It was Marcus Vance—Joshua’s older brother, a man who had vanished into the smoky, alcohol-soaked underbelly of the Ohio rust belt a decade before Joshua ever made his first million. He was the living ghost of the life they had both tried so desperately to escape.
"Hello, Clara," Marcus said, his voice rough and raspy like sandpaper on wood. "Damn. Look at this place. I heard Joshua made it big, but... sweet Jesus, I didn't think he owned a palace."
Clara stood up slowly, her hands gripping the back of her wicker chair. The protective maternal instinct that had kept her alive through years of starvation flared instantly to life.
"What are you doing here, Marcus?" she asked, her voice hardening. "How did you find us?"
"It wasn't hard," Marcus chuckled bitterly, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "His face is plastered across every financial magazine from here to New York. Joshua Carter: The Tech Titan Who Never Smiles. I recognized the wife and kids in the society columns. Fancy clothes, private schools. Must be nice."
"If you're here for money, Marcus, turn around and leave," Clara said, her tone sharp and unyielding. "Joshua has nothing to say to you. You made your choices when we were starving in that tenement, and he made his."
Marcus took a step closer, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, desperate edge. "I don't want his charity, Clara. I want what's owed. He walked out of Ohio with nothing, built an empire on the back of the logistics algorithms we both worked on back in the garage, and left me rot in the mud. He owes me my cut."
"You didn't work on anything except the bottom of a whiskey bottle!" a cold, lethal voice echoed from the edge of the gravel driveway.
May you like
Marcus spun around.
Joshua stood by the entrance of the courtyard, his car idling behind him. His car keys dangled loosely from one finger, but his body was coiled like a spring, his eyes fixed on his brother with a dark, terrifying intensity that made the surrounding air feel instantly sub-zero.
