Chapter 5 - Blood Brothers
Jack stood motionless in the pitch black, his eyes adjusting to the faint sliver of light bleeding under the steel reinforced door at the top of the stairs. He raised his flashlight, flicking it to low beam.
"Liam," Jack said, his voice ringing against the raw concrete walls. "They told me you were at the lake."
A low chuckle filtered through the intercom speaker. "Mother lies when she panics. I was in the private carriage house out back, waiting for Mercer to deliver Elena's final plasma transfusion. You ruined the schedule, Jack. You always had terrible timing."
Jack slowly climbed the stone steps, stopping two paces from the locked metal slab. "She is dying up there, Liam. She gave you your life. You took her marrow, you carved up her head, and you treated her like an animal in a slaughterhouse."
"She didn't give me anything," Liam answered, his tone smooth, devoid of any guilt. "I took it. There is a difference. In this world, the strong take what they need to survive, and the weak fulfill their purpose. Isn't that what they taught you in the infantry?"
"You used to be my brother," Jack muttered, feeling a sickening hollowness in his chest.
"I was a dying boy who wanted to live," Liam countered through the speaker. "Look at the medical charts on that desk, Jack. I didn't just take her marrow for the leukemia. My kidneys were failing too. Next month, she was scheduled for a unilateral nephrectomy. Mercer said her kidney would buy me another thirty years of perfect health. You can't stop that now. It’s an investment. The Vance legacy requires an heir who knows how to run an empire, not a broken soldier who smells of dirt and gunpowder."
Jack took a step back down the stairs, calculating the structural integrity of the door frame. "Where is Mercer?"
"Dr. Mercer is already upstairs in her room," Liam said, his voice dropping into a sinister, quiet cadence. "He’s preparing a lethal dose of potassium chloride. The official cause of death will be acute respiratory failure stemming from terminal glioblastoma. We even have the fake MRI scans ready for the coroner. By sunrise, Elena will be cremated at the family mortuary. No body. No evidence. And you... well, an unstable, PTSD-ridden veteran finding his wife dead in the family home? A tragic suicide will look very believable on the morning news."
A faint click came through the speaker as the intercom cut off.
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At the same instant, Jack heard the muffled, high-pitched scream of Elena from the floor directly above him.
The time for protocol was over. Jack drew his sidearm, took two steps back, and aimed directly at the heavy deadbolt mechanism embedded in the stone wall.
