Chapter 4 - The Brother's Shadow
"Mark! Come on out, little brother!"
The voice belonged to Arthur Vance. He stepped out of the driver's side of the Navigator, clad in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit, adjusting his platinum cufflinks as if he were attending an evening gala instead of hunting down family members in the dark.
"I know you're in there, Mark," Arthur continued, walking casually toward the open studio doors. "Miller called me. He’s an old golf buddy of mine, you know. He told me Lily started talking nonsense at the hospital. I figured you’d rush straight to Clara’s little playhouse."
Mark slipped behind a heavy oak bookshelf near the rear exit. His pulse roared in his ears. His older brother wasn't just an accomplice; he was the mastermind.
"Arthur," Mark called out from the darkness, his voice dead and cold. "Did you really think you could keep her locked away forever?"
Arthur paused at the threshold, signaling his armed enforcer to sweep the room from the left flank.
"Locked away?" Arthur chuckled, a hollow, patrician laugh. "Mark, you're an architect. You design pretty facades. I run an empire. Clara stumbled into a multi-million-dollar government defense contract that didn't need civilian eyes on it. She threatened to blow the whistle. What was I supposed to do? Put a bullet in her head and have you hunt her killers for the rest of your life?"
"So you stole my wife? You stole Lily’s mother?!"
"I spared her life!" Arthur snapped, his facade slipping, revealing the venomous narcissism underneath. "I built her a sanctuary. She has doctors. She has food. She has books. She just doesn't have an exit door. I preserved your family's peace of mind, Mark. You mourned, you moved on, and Brenda was supposed to quietly fill the vacuum. But Brenda got careless. Brenda got jealous of a seven-year-old girl."
"Brenda tried to drown Lily today, Arthur!" Mark roared, the agony of the betrayal breaking through his composure.
Arthur grimaced, shaking his head. "Yes. That was an unfortunate error in judgment. Brenda has become... unstable. Which is why she won't be surviving her stay in county lockup tonight. An unfortunate suicide by hanging. Very tragic."
The armed enforcer was ten feet away, creeping around the bookshelf, his weapon raised.
Mark didn't wait. He drove his shoulder into the heavy oak bookcase with all the weight of his six-foot-two frame.
The heavy piece of furniture tipped, crashing down onto the guard with a thunderous splinter of wood and shattered glass. The guard cried out, his gun discharging with a muffled *phut*, burying a slug into the ceiling.
Mark lunged, grabbing an iron drafting stool, and swung it with feral ferocity across the guard's face. The man went limp instantly. Mark grabbed the fallen suppressed pistol and rolled behind the desk just as Arthur drew his own weapon.
"Mark, don't do this!" Arthur shouted, ducking behind the door frame. "You don't know where she is! If you shoot me, Clara dies of starvation in that glass vault! Nobody else has the entry access codes!"
"I have the audit files, Arthur!" Mark yelled back, racking the slide of the seized weapon. "And I have your Catskills research facility address!"
Arthur’s face morphed into sheer terror. He realized Clara had hidden everything.
Mark fired two rounds through the wooden door frame, driving Arthur back. Arthur scrambled toward the Lincoln, leaping inside and flooring the gas pedal. The SUV roared backward, spraying gravel and tearing into the darkness of the road.
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Mark didn't pursue him. He ran to his own truck parked near the trees. He had to get to the Catskills before Arthur gave the order to sanitize the facility—and Clara with it.
***
