Not What it Seems by Nicky James

Twenty-One

River

The kitchen was dark. Night had fallen, and the moon had yet to rise. The shadows inside were endless. Details were lost, and everything had a two-dimensional feel. I could see enough to make out the edges of furniture and the counters, but not enough to fully appreciate the space where Cyrus used to live.

Chrome pots on the stovetop reflected the faint glow of light coming from the hallway.

Music drifted on the air, something classical and upbeat.

A man whistled along with the clarinets as they punched out a staccato rhythm in a growing crescendo that I somehow knew would end with the whole orchestra coming together with a bang.

A sharp crack cut the air like a knife.

I froze, listening, unable to understand what the noise was.

The music played on. The man continued to whistle. Timpani boomed, and tubas added to the mounting tension with their steady baseline. The tempo increased.

I moved to the doorway off the kitchen and peeked into the hall toward the noise and light. “What’s down there?” I whispered.

“Game room.” Another crack rang through the air. “He’s playing pool.”

Ah, pool balls smashing together.

“You have a pool table? How cool is that? I always wanted a pool table.”

“Had. I don’t live here anymore, remember?”

I glanced back at Cyrus. He was holding himself together well, considering. I worried he was going to crash hard when this was over. His seams would unravel, and the doctor would need his own doctor just to deal with the mountain of bullshit that had accumulated in his life over the past few days.

It was taking me a minute to wrap my head around the idea that Cyrus’s ex was my brother and that somehow he’d drawn us both into this mess. I couldn’t imagine what Cyrus was feeling.

I found his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Stay here. If this goes south, call the police and get out.”

“No, I’m—”

I pressed a finger to his lips. “Please. For me.”

Worry crossed his face, but he nodded.

Before I could move away, he snagged the back of my shirt. “Wait. I should be closer. I’ll stay out of sight, but I can record it. For proof. Just in case. I don’t trust Grant. I know how vindictive he can be. In case he’s cooked up some scheme, we need to have evidence you’re innocent.”

I couldn’t fight the grin. “You’re not just a pretty face, Doc. That’s a good idea.”

“Be careful.”

“I will. You too.”

I went to turn, but he stopped me again. “River?”

I knew by the look on his face he was going to say something I wasn’t ready to hear. We had a lot to talk about. The confession I’d left on his voice mail still had my once stable world off-balance. My conviction was strong. I wanted to explore whatever it was between us, but this wasn’t the time for a heart-to-heart.

“Not now. After.”

“But—”

I kissed him, lingering on his mouth and breathing him in. “After. I promise.”

“But what if—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Did you mean it?”

He wasn’t going to let me go until he got some kind of reassurance. What could I say without muddling up my words? I was outside my comfort zone, but the worry plastered on his face gave me confidence.

“Every word, Doc. I swear. Will you be okay?”

He nodded, and with one last lingering kiss, he let me slip away. I followed the light and music to the other end of the house. Grant continued to whistle along, matching the trumpets when they joined the fray. I wasn’t up to snuff on classical music, and I couldn’t have named the composer if my life had depended on it, but the brass section had taken over, and the mounting tension was appropriate for the moment. It vibrated through my bones with the anticipation of the imminent peak to come.

Cyrus inched after me, staying back a few feet, his phone in hand. I assumed it was recording. I hoped it was able to pick up voices with the music playing so loud.

Another crack sounded, followed by an exclamation of disappointment.

“Well, fuck. You don’t mind if I take another crack at that shot, do you?” A pause. “Hey! No drifting off. Pay attention. Wake up, old man. We’re supposed to be bonding here.”

A different sound pierced the air. It was followed by a deep groan from a second person.

“That’s it. There you go. Wakey, wakey. Chin up. I thought you were watching me.”

There was no response.

The doorway to the game room was open halfway. I peered through the crack near the hinges but couldn’t make out enough of the room to get a clear picture. I saw the green felt of a pool table. A person moved in and out of view as they racked the balls. Grant hummed along to the music until he had them set for a new game.

“There we go. Now, what do you say we have a little family competition?”

I listened for the other person, anticipating they might respond.

Nothing.

A loud bang sent me stumbling back a few steps. It took me a second to register it was a billiard ball hitting the other side of the door.

“I said, how about a little family competition? I know you’re out there. Answer me when I speak to you, brother.”

I glanced back at Cyrus, whose eyes were so wide the whites glowed.

I held a finger to my lips, instructing him to stay quiet. Then I blew him a kiss. Better if Grant didn’t know Cyrus was out here too. If things went south, hopefully Cyrus could let the police know what happened in time.

“I’m coming in,” I called over the music.

Three steps took me into the room. Grant stood at the head of a pool table, leaning on a cue stick, a sinister smirk on his face. He was an older, more refined version of me. It was uncanny and made me wonder how Cyrus had missed the connection when we’d first met.

I took in the rest of the room. It was a decent size. A bar took up one end, gleaming dark wood that reflected the track lighting that ran in a panel overhead. A mosaic of mirrors lined the wall behind it where a row of expensive liquors sat on a glass shelf. The music filtered through built-in speakers in the ceiling. I’d missed the explosive instrumental peak. The mood had shifted to something quieter and softer, no longer suiting the atmosphere. Piccolos trilled, and violin players plinked at their strings. It reminded me of dancing fairies.

Aside from the pool table, there was a dartboard, a flat-screen TV that took up a large portion of the wall, and an L-shaped couch in front of it. It was a respectable man-cave, one I’d have admired under any other circumstance.

But when my gaze landed on the older man, bound and beaten to unconsciousness, propped up in a chair in the corner of the room by the pool table, my stomach curdled.

He appeared decades older than the man I’d seen in the handful of photographs back at the other house. It wasn’t that his hair carried more silver or that his face was more wrinkled. Call it a hunch, but I got the impression that under normal circumstances, Terrance Overton was an extraordinarily good-looking man for his age.

Grant’s abuse had sucked the life out of him.

“Oh, right.” Grant tossed his pool cue onto the table and spun on his heels. “How rude of me. Introductions first.” He kicked the man in the shin. “Wake up. Your offspring has arrived.”

The man groaned and stirred, muttering something I couldn’t understand. Grant took a fistful of his hair and yanked his head up, displaying a face full of bruises and small cuts covered with dried blood. “Open your eyes. Someone is here to see you.”

My heart cantered. My palms turned slick.

The man in the chair peeled his eyes open one at a time and surveyed the room in a daze. His lip was fat on one side and puffed out. His gaze shifted in and out of focus but eventually landed on me, and he blinked a few times. His mouth moved, and I made out the shape of my name, although he didn’t give it voice.

“That’s right. Get a good look.” Grant turned his attention to me. “My dearest brother, I’d like you to meet your father. I’m sorry, our father. The lying, cheating bastard who couldn’t keep his cock in his pants to save his life and spread his fertile seed to all the little whores in London.” To his father, he said, “He looks like you, doesn’t he? In fact, River here looks more like you than I do. Isn’t that a punch in the face?”

The man in the chair focused on me, squinting and blinking. I couldn’t look away. This wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined meeting my father for the first time. We didn’t have an emotional connection or bond, but I felt sorry for him nonetheless. No one deserved this kind of abuse. He was at the mercy of his psychotic son who’d gone out of his way to make him suffer for his actions. How long had Grant been holding him captive?

Did he know his wife was dead?

Was he aware of all the cruel things that had been done over the past few months?

More importantly, what was Grant’s endgame?

I pulled up my resolve and swallowed my apprehension as I met Grant’s eyes. “So, brother,” I mimicked. “I take it you’re not a big fan of my existence.”

Grant snorted and rolled his eyes. “Bravo. Give the man a prize. What gave me away? Was it the arrest? Because I framed you for murder? It was the arrest, wasn’t it?” He let his father’s head fall back as he approached the pool table again.

His mocking tone made me want to punch him.

“Well, the arrest was part of it, yes, but also the little bit where you made it look like I’d lost my fucking mind.”

Grant clapped his hands together, beaming. “Oh, that was so much fun. Wasn’t it fun? And it wasn’t even part of the original plan. My mother didn’t think I could pull it off, but I did, didn’t I? And it worked wonders.”

“You killed her.”

Grant shrugged. “Bah, she was of no use to me anymore. Besides, she’d acted horrified when I presented evidence of Daddy dearest’s infidelity, but let’s be honest. How can you spend years living with a cheating bastard who comes home smelling of whores on the regular and not put two and two together? How many more bastard siblings do you think I have out there? I don’t have a clue. Anyhow, she was weak. She wanted revenge, and I let her join me in having a bit of fun, but she got in the way, nattering on all the time.” He adopted a higher-pitched tone. “‘Grant, we shouldn’t. Grant, it’s wrong. Grant, let’s think about this.’ I had to put an end to that fast, you know? There is only so much negativity I can take. She was too soft. When I punished those whores, she got squeamish and begged me to stop. I made her watch them die. Deep down, I knew she wanted it. She hated them as much as I did.” His smirk gave me chills. “Do you know how amazing it is? Taking a life. Holding that kind of power in your hands. It’s practically orgasmic.”

“You’re sick.”

Grant laughed. “That’s ripe. Weren’t you the one locked in a mental hospital? That reminds me. Where is he?” Grant glanced at the door. “I assume he came with you. How else would you have known where I lived? Cyrus? Cyrus, baby, quit being a coward and get in here.”

My spine went rigid, and I wanted to scream No, don’t! Run! Call the police! Get out!

The words rose and got strangled in my throat when Grant pinned me with a warning glare. I didn’t know if he was armed, but I couldn’t trust him.

“Cyrus, if you don’t move your ass right now, my dear brother will be punished. You don’t want that, do you?”

There was a lull, a moment when nothing happened. I prayed Cyrus had read my mind and had turned around and run. He’d had a small window of time when he could have contacted the police, but had he followed through? When he appeared in the doorway, the defeat in his powder-blue eyes told me he hadn’t.

Grant’s sinister glare turned to his ex. His nose wrinkled like he tasted something awful. He scanned Cyrus up and down before holding out a hand. “Phone.”

Cyrus handed it over without hesitation.

Grant tsked as he studied the screen. He dropped it on the ground and used the end of a pool cue to smash it. “I never did like how I sounded in recordings. You should be ashamed.” He sighed and straightened, addressing me when he spoke. “So, what do you say to a friendly game of pool? Are you game, brother? Do you play?”

I didn’t answer. The man was certifiably insane. He’d killed several young women. He’d killed his mother and had his father tied to a chair like it was a normal day, and he wanted to have a casual game of pool.

To what end? Where was this going? What was his plan?

When I didn’t respond, Grant grabbed a spare pool cue from a stand on the wall. Holding it out, he said, “Don’t be shy. Let’s play. I won’t invite Cyrus to join us. He’s a sore loser. He gets sulky for hours when I show him up. It’s embarrassing.” Grant cocked his head, eyeing Cyrus. “Does my brother here know that about you? I couldn’t be sure how cozy the two of you were, but maybe it’s too soon for him to have seen all your unappealing flaws. You don’t mind sitting this one out, do you, baby?”

Cyrus didn’t respond. I didn’t like the vacant expression on his face. He’d crawled deep inside himself, and it made me want to go on the offense, beat my chest, and roar with anger.

Grant rolled his eyes and met my gaze. “Never mind him. Typical Cyrus. Here. Play me.”

I stared from the pool cue to my father to Grant. “What the fuck is wrong with you? What are you doing?”

Grant let out a long, drawn-out sigh and spun on his heels, fetching a tablet from the end of the bar. He studied the screen a moment, lips pursed, and flipped it around.

“Look. We have time. They’ve only just made the discovery. Lucky for me, the police are far stupider than I expected. I was sure they’d have dismissed you as a suspect by now and turned their attention elsewhere, but they haven’t. I guess you were an easy answer, and the police like puzzles that solve themselves. So we get to keep playing the game.” He studied the screen almost wistfully.

On the tablet was a grainy black and white image of the room we’d left behind fifteen or twenty minutes ago. Grant’s mother’s corpse was front and center. A handful of police officers moved in and out of the frame. No one was going near the body. They were all keeping a distance.

“This is how I knew you were coming. I saw you enter my parents’ house. I saw you discover my mother’s body. And…” He tapped the screen, and the video changed. It now showed a view of the street in front of the house we were in. I could make out Cyrus’s car in the distance. “This is how I knew you’d both arrived.

“Now, don’t start getting your hopes up.” Grant flipped back to the video of his dead mother and studied the screen. “Police procedure is achingly slow. They make it happen like magic in the movies, but they have so many rules and regulations to follow in real life. It can take ages for anything to happen. They’re all throwing around theories and waiting for forensics to show up. I’ve left questionable evidence that points back to you, my dear brother. And you’ve been gracious enough to leave fingerprints all over the place.” Grant chuckled. “So we have plenty of time for a quick game. I assure you. Come on. Let’s play. We can chat. Get to know one another.”

He propped the tablet on a shelf near the pool table. He switched the setting so it showed four different views, live recordings from four different cameras. Retrieving the pool cue, he held it out.

When I didn’t take it, he sighed and moved with lightning speed. Gripping the cue like a baseball bat, he swung it at the old man slumped in the chair, smacking him across the chest. The air left Terrance like a burst balloon, and he cried out in pain.

Grant glared daggers in my direction and offered me the cue once again. “I said, let’s have a game.”

I took the pool cue, my gaze flitting from Grant to our father, who whimpered and sobbed in the chair, a string of bloody drool falling from his parted lips to his dirty shirt.

Cyrus had lost ten shades of color and stood statue-like next to the wall, looking like he wanted to vanish inside it.

Grant adjusted the racked balls and set the triangle frame aside.

On alert, I moved to the opposite end of the pool table from Grant. Terrance—it was hard to think of him as my father—lifted his chin a fraction of an inch and met my gaze. The pleading look in his eyes cut deeper than I expected. Without words, he was begging for help.

It both pulled at my heartstrings and enraged me in equal measure.

“You don’t feel sorry for him, do you?” Grant asked, noticing my averted attention. “Good lord, the man pretended you didn’t exist for twenty-eight years. He paid your whore mother to keep her mouth shut while he continued to fuck every young girl he could get his hands on.” He glanced at Terrance over his shoulder. “But the truth came out, didn’t it? Oh! That reminds me. I should show you.”

Grant set his pool cue down again and retrieved something from a table beside where his dad was bound. It was a photograph, aged and worn on the edges. He held it up so I could see. The face of a toddler stared back at me. I didn’t have any pictures from when I was young. My various foster parents had taken a few, but I’d never been allowed to keep them. Despite the young age of the child, I knew it was me.

“Once upon a time, Daddy dearest refused to help his struggling son with some financial troubles. He liked to make me suffer. Said I didn’t value money. Knowing Daddy kept a checkbook somewhere in his office, I decided to help myself to his bank account. Did I find the checkbook, you ask? No, I did not, but I did find some very interesting evidence that Father here most definitely didn’t want discovered. It provoked more investigating, and lo and behold, I found this hidden away in his desk at home. Locked away like the dirty little secret you are. You were an adorable little thing, weren’t you? All chubby cheeks and goobery smiles. Imagine my surprise when I realized Daddy dearest here had another child after I was born. One he’d kept hidden from his wife. Reeks of daytime soap opera drama, doesn’t it?”

Grant stared at the photograph of me, a sneer curling his lip. “I didn’t want to believe it was true. I figured there was some other explanation. Maybe the date here on the back was wrong and you were instead older than me and from a previous relationship Dad had had before Mom came along. But no. That notion died an ugly death when I searched online and found you. River Justice Adam Jenkins. Named after your father.”

Grant snorted and turned to the older man who was slumped over, semi-conscious in the chair. “Pathetic. I approached Mother. She was understandably upset, but then she shared with me that she’d suspected infidelity for a long time and had turned a blind eye. She said there had been instances in the past that had made her wonder. She said thousands upon thousands of dollars would disappear from their accounts without explanation, and she had suspected he was paying off his mistresses to keep their mouths shut. But that wasn’t entirely it, was it? No, he was giving away money left and right to support the child born from infidelity. My money!” Grant yelled.

His temper was slipping. “Why should you get helped when he cut me off? Huh? Explain that to me?” Grant whipped around and faced Terrance, kicking him again to grab his attention. “How many thousands of dollars did you give his whore of a mother?”

“Hey,” I snapped, rage coiling my insides. It wasn’t that I held my mother in high esteem, but I didn’t want to hear this asshole disrespect her. She was still my mother.

Grant held up a hand and breathed audibly through his nose like he was trying to calm himself. “All right. All right. We’re cool. I’m chilling out. I get pretty enraged about this, though. Can you blame me? I don’t know the PC term for the street filth where my father likes to bury his cock on a weekly basis, so you’ll forgive me when I call your mother a whore.”

Grant tossed the picture of me onto Terrance’s lap. Without preamble, he moved to the pool table with fluid grace and took the opening shot. The white ball hit its mark with a loud crack, and the rest of the balls scattered across the table in all directions. A striped ball tumbled into a corner pocket, and Grant smirked. “Stripes for me. Solids for you. Lovely. Just lovely. Let’s play ball.”

All I could do was stare, dumbfounded. Grant was unpredictable and unstable. He flipped from one emotion to the next without warning, and I wasn’t sure how to act or what was happening.

He affected a lazy stroll in a circle around the table, examining the setup for his next shot. When he closed in on my location, I backed up, not comfortable in close proximity to a psycho. The whole ordeal was surreal.

I glanced at Cyrus, but I couldn’t read his thoughts. He too tracked Grant’s every move.

When Grant stopped in front of Cyrus and faced off with him, my blood boiled. The petrified look in Cyrus’s eyes was enough to put me on the defense.

“How are you doing, baby? You’re awfully quiet over there.” There was ripe condescension in Grant’s tone. “Long time no see. I’m utterly blown away by what you’ve done to help my dear brother. Like…” He made the sound of an explosion as he mimicked his brain splattering. “Amazing. I did not expect this from you. Did you know he was my brother? We look alike for the most part. Was that what drew you to him? Did you miss me and think, that guy right there is a pretty close match. He’ll do.”

“Get away from him. You wanted to play this game, so take your turn and leave him alone.”

Grant tossed me a glare. “Shh. Patience. I’m the older brother. You don’t tell me what to do. Cyrus and I are reconnecting. It’s been a while. We need to chat.” He faced Cyrus and smirked. “Are you letting him fuck you? Never mind, I know you are. I saw you, you know. At the Tool Shack a couple of months ago. I was hunting down my long-lost baby brother, ready to unleash this whole plan. Father was going to pay for his misdeeds, and his illegitimate offspring was going to take the fall. It seemed only fair. Don’t you agree?”

Cyrus didn’t answer. His whole body grew more taut the longer Grant invaded his space.

“I’d been doing all kinds of research. You know how I like research. Well, I discovered my father had a favorite app and a fake name he used to hunt down his whores. Gone are the days of picking them up on the street corner, I guess. I wouldn’t know. I don’t fuck whores. I have more self-respect. Anyhow, while doing some reconnaissance on River here, learning his patterns and following him around, guess who showed up at the Tool Shack one evening?”

Grant poked Cyrus’s chest. “You. Imagine my surprise when River latched right onto you the second you sat at the bar. Not going to lie, it left me staggered for a bit. In less than an hour, the pair of you left together.” His nose wrinkled. “Now who’s the whore, huh?”

Yeah, Grant was going to die. I was gearing up to grab him, no longer caring if he was armed or not, but he must have sensed my mounting hostility. Maybe it was my breathing.

He snapped his head around, pinning me with a look of venom. “Stay where you are, or so help me god, I will cut these new brass balls Cyrus has grown right off his body. How would you like that?”

The snick of a knife caught my attention, and I flicked my gaze to Grant’s hand. He held a switchblade to Cyrus’s groin, the tip pressing against the fabric.

A small whimper climbed Cyrus’s throat, but he clenched his jaw, stopping it.

I held up my hands, showing Grant I wasn’t a threat. “Relax.”

Grant stared at me a minute longer before turning back to Cyrus. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. When I saw you heading off to get plowed by my brother—not disturbing at all, by the way—I was gifted with a brilliant idea. I always hated how you thought you were so much smarter than me. Well, look at what I’ve accomplished. Isn’t it brilliant?”

“How?” It was the first time Cyrus had spoken. His voice was raw and thick.

“An excellent question. Let me take my turn before lover boy over there blows a gasket, then I’ll explain.”

Grant returned his focus to the pool table, examining the balls and moving around until he found a decent shot. Cyrus and I locked gazes, his apprehension clear. He shifted his focus to the tablet on the shelf, then to Grant, then to the tablet again. I spared a quick glance at the device as well. The street out front of Grant’s house was quiet. Still no police presence. How long until they figured out where to go? Would it be too late when they finally arrived?

Clearly, the video cameras were Grant’s first line of defense. If the police showed up, this casual game he was playing would end. But I didn’t know what would happen from there. Would he run? Would he stay? If he stayed, then what?

I didn’t like this. Something about the whole scheme unsettled me. Grant was too calm. Too chill.

He knocked the balls around, sinking one stripe after another. When the third in a row found a home in a corner pocket, he paused and leaned on his pool cue. “Do you know how many endless hours I endured of this one nattering on about his work?”

The question was directed at me, but his focus was on Cyrus. Neither of us spoke, but he wasn’t expecting an answer.

“I’ve taken all kinds of psychology classes, and I’ve learned the ins and outs of all kinds of mental health disorders, but I’m not an expert. Isn’t that right, Cy?”

“No. You aren’t, but you certainly thought you were sometimes. Maybe if you’d tried finishing what you started for once, you could have earned a degree, but you didn’t. The only thing you excel at is being a student.”

Grant flinched, and his face broke into a wide grin. “Wow. Did you hear that?” Grant asked me, thumbing at Cyrus. “There are those big brass balls again. You never used to talk back to me like that. Interesting. I can’t say I love it, but I’m impressed.”

Grant returned to the game. “Anyhow, after seeing my ex slink away to get fucked by my brother, I figured it was past time to prove my superior skills. I had already planned to ruin your life, River, but how much better would it be if I could somehow twist it all up and get Cyrus involved too? I considered it a challenge. I do love a good challenge. Alas, my plan was born. Cyrus thinks he’s the top expert in schizophrenia—”

“I don’t think it. I am. It’s my specialty, Grant. Why is that so hard to believe?” Cyrus’s hands turned to fists at his sides, and color rose to his cheeks.

Grant waved him off. “Hush, love. I’m talking.”

“I’m not your love or your baby, so stop calling me that.”

“Good lord. Should I chop those cocky balls off like I threatened, or will you let me finish telling my story?”

I gave Cyrus a warning glare, urging him to calm down.

His throat bobbed, and he nodded.

Grant glanced between us. “Thank you. What I was trying to say was, I had a new challenge on my hands. One that would take a little more planning, but I was up for it. I asked myself, how could I make someone believe they were losing their mind? How could I imitate the symptoms of schizophrenia so others would also believe that person was losing their mind? How could I, in turn, set the same person up to be the fall guy in a handful of expertly executed murders? And lastly, and this part is my favorite, how, after all was said and done, could I drag Cyrus into the middle of it all? Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?”

“None of it matters,” I snapped. “No one cares how you did it or why. Don’t flatter yourself. Your games are falling apart, asshole. The police know it wasn’t me.”

“Do they? Are you sure? Because as far as I can tell, they’re still hunting you down.” He flashed his attention to Cyrus. “And now they’re looking for you as well. What will Mommy and Daddy Irvine say when they hear about the destruction of your career? That you helped a killer escape his cage? For shame. Was he worth it?”

I was about to spit venom when Cyrus met my eyes. The vulnerability staring back at me was near crippling, but it was his words that undid me. “Yes. He was worth all of it. And I’d do it again.”

My heart skipped and hiccupped a few times like it had forgotten how to beat properly. All those feelings and emotions I’d been struggling with when it came to Cyrus roared to the forefront and bowled me over. If there had been any question, any doubt about how I felt toward this man, I knew for absolute certain now.

Cyrus glanced back at Grant. “What do you want, Grant? What are you trying to prove?”

Grant snorted and shook his head. “Simple.” He held up a finger. “One, I’m proving once and for all that I’m smarter than you.” He held up a second finger. “Two, I’m teaching that disgusting pig in the chair over there a lesson about the consequences of infidelity. He wasn’t only cheating on his wife, my mother, but on his whole family.” He lifted a third finger. “Three, I’m ensuring my brother here understands he isn’t worth the air he breathes and that I will stop at nothing to ensure he suffers for all he’s taken from me.”

“He hasn’t taken anything from you. None of this is River’s fault. He didn’t ask to be born.”

“It is all his fault!”

“Grant. Enough.”

The weak voice of my father resonated in the air like a cracked whip. It was followed by painful coughing. Speckles of blood dotted his shirt. His injuries were far worse than I thought. He glared at Grant. Even in a deteriorated state, Terrance Overton commanded enough presence to silence a room.

“Stop this madness. If you want to punish someone, punish me. I’m the one at fault.”

“I am punishing you, old man. Your punishment has been set out since the very beginning. Are you blind? All of this is your punishment. Your little whores are dead. Your fucking oblivious wife is dead. Soon, your would-be son will be dead. Do you want to know how it ends? Do you want to hear how the grand finale will play out? Because it’s lovely. Pure and utter genius. I’m very excited.”

Grant’s control had slipped. He’d gone from cool and composed to hysterical in a flash. His body vibrated with the intensity of his words—more signs of his instability. This was not going to end well.

With the switchblade in his hand, he marched around the pool table to Terrance. His father showed no fear, meeting his son’s manic gaze with unwavering steadiness. Terrance was prepared to die, and he wasn’t going to cower.

Grant tilted Terrance’s chin up with the tip of the blade, piercing his skin. A trickle of blood ran down his neck through his unshaven facial hair.

Grant’s chest heaved, and he spat venom at the defenseless old man. “This is how it will end, you miserable, lying piece of shit.”

From a drawer in the side table, Grant withdrew a gun. I didn’t know the make or model, but it was black and deadly. He aimed it at my head before returning his attention to Terrance.

“You are a black taint on this world. You spread your poisonous seed to the scum of the earth and think you are above consequence. Well, guess what? You aren’t. Do you think watching Mother die was the worst of it? Well…” Grant laughed. “You were wrong. Before this day is over, you will watch the life leave your bastard son’s eyes too. His brains will cover the walls and floor. It will be epic. You will see his lover perish beside him. And then, I will sink this knife deep into your bowels and open you from groin to sternum. I will gut you like the disgusting dirty animal you are. You will watch your organs fall from your body, and it will be a painful, agonizing death because that is what you deserve. The best part of all is that it will be reported as a classic family fatality. The newspapers will read, Illegitimate son of Destination Hotel owner and millionaire, Terrance Overton, goes on killing rampage that ends in a murder-suicide bloodbath.” Grant grinned. “Poetic. And poor innocent Grant will become the devastated forgotten child who watched his father die a gruesome death from the closet where he was hidden, too afraid to come out and help, knowing he would die too. He will go on to inherit his victim father’s millions. I will live a prosperous life once you’re gone.” He kissed his fingers, flicking them outward. “Perfection.”

“You’re not as brilliant as you think, Grant.” Cyrus’s unwavering voice cut through the vibrating tension in the room.

At the same moment, something whizzed by in my peripheral vision, and before Grant could turn all the way around to address Cyrus, his shrill cries filled the air.