Chapter 13 - The Rules of the Game
The silence in the grand hall was suffocating. Outside, the wind howled against the reinforced glass windows like a pack of starving wolves, rattling the heavy timber frames.
"What kind of game?" Clara asked, her voice ringing out with defiant clarity, though her hands were still shaking violently beneath the table.
Marcus smiled, pulling out a polished mahogany chair and sitting down directly across from us. He looked less like a corporate raider and more like a high-stakes poker player holding a royal flush.
"Simple," Marcus said, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. "Three rounds of questions. For every question I ask, you must answer with absolute, unvarnished truth. If I suspect you're lying—or if you refuse to answer—one of you takes a bullet from the revolver on the table. And let's be clear: the gun only has one chamber loaded, but we'll play Russian roulette until the ledger is yours... or until nobody is left sitting at this table."
"You're out of your mind," I shouted, standing up so fast my chair fell backward onto the stone floor with a deafening crash. "You think I'm going to let you put a gun to my wife's head? I'll tear this place apart with my bare hands first!"
Before I could take two steps toward him, two massive men in tactical gear emerged from the shadows near the grand staircase, their assault rifles raised and leveled directly at my chest.
"Sit down, Thomas," Marcus said smoothly, his tone as casual as if we were discussing the weather. "Heroics died six months ago in your dining room. Right now, you are playing my game by my rules. Refuse, and my security detail will eliminate your children right out in the hallway before they even know what hit them."
I looked over at Noah and Sophie, who were huddled together in the corner of the room, clutching each other in absolute terror. The helpless fury burning inside my chest threatened to consume me whole, but I had no choice. I slowly bent down, picked up my chair, and sat back down.
"Fine," I whispered, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. "Ask your first question."
Marcus beamed, thoroughly enjoying every second of our psychological torture. "Round one. Let's talk about the night of the Christmas tragedy. When the police arrived, they found Julian's body riddled with internal toxicity, but forensic reports showed he didn't ingest the poison voluntarily. Someone held him down and forced it past his lips."
Marcus leaned forward, his dark eyes boring into mine. "Who held him down, Thomas? Was it you? Or was it your sweet, innocent wife?"
The air in the room froze. My mind raced backward through the smoke and terror of that night six months ago. I remembered the flashing red and blue lights of the police cruisers bouncing off the snow, the screams of the paramedics, the blinding chaos of the kitchen.
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The truth was a razor-edge. Julian hadn't been poisoned by an outsider; in the chaotic struggle after he drew a weapon on our family, the vial had broken during the physical scramble. But if we told the truth—that it was an act of desperate self-defense involving both of us—Marcus would twist the legal narrative, framing us for premeditated murder and locking us away for the rest of our lives.
"Well?" Marcus prompted, tapping a single finger impatiently against the obsidian table. "The clock is ticking, Thomas. Who killed my brother?"
