Chapter 9 - MIDNIGHT AT THE SUBURBAN HOUSE
Arthur halted, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles in his cheeks bulged. A dry, manic laugh burst from his throat.
"That little brat isn't my daughter!" he spat, taking another menacing step forward. "She’s nothing! She’s just a biological anomaly standing between me and twenty million clean dollars!"
"She is a human being! She is your own blood!"
"She’s a liability!" Arthur screamed, raising the iron poker over his head, his face contorting into a mask of pure rage. "Thirty years! I built this empire out of nothing! I killed Julian, I fixed my face, I earned that money! I am not going to let a toddler and a bitter ex-wife strip it away from me!"
He lunged at me across the living room with terrifying, unnatural speed, swinging the iron poker aimed straight for my head.
I ducked beneath the heavy swing. The iron bar shattered a glass side table behind me into a thousand pieces.
As he overextended, I brought up the stun gun, slammed it directly against his exposed ribs, and pulled the trigger.
The twin prongs discharged with a deafening SNAP-CRACK.
50,000 volts of electricity surged through his torso. Arthur let out a wet, strangled roar, his entire body seizing violently as his muscles locked up. He dropped the poker and crashed heavily onto the oriental rug, thrashing in uncontrollable spasms.
But Arthur was a man fighting for his absolute survival.
Driven by pure, unadulterated madness, he reached up with a bleeding hand, grabbed the thick wires of the stun gun, and forcibly ripped the prongs out of his own flesh, tearing through his shirt and skin.
With a guttural, animalistic shriek, he launched himself off the floor, tackling me around the waist.
We smashed into the coffee table, tumbling hard onto the wooden floorboards. The stun gun flew from my grip, skidding across the room into the darkness.
Arthur scrambled on top of me, his knees pinning my arms to the floor. His large, calloused hands wrapped tightly around my throat, his fingers digging deep into my windpipe.
"You should have stayed in Chicago, Elena!" he hissed, his face inches from mine. Rain and sweat dripped from his forehead onto my cheek. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and dead. "I’ll kill you both right here, take the brat from your parents' house, and burn the lodge down! A tragic house fire! An electrical short! I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again!"
The room began to spin. Dark, red spots burst across my vision. My lungs screamed for oxygen. My airway collapsed under his crushing weight.
No.
The image of Maisie’s face flashed through my fading mind. I heard her tiny hands pounding against the glass. Bang. Bang. Bang. I heard her small, trembling voice echoing in my soul: “Daddy was outside.”
If I died on this floor, he would go to my parents' house. He would finish what he started in Room 02.
A sudden, primal surge of strength erupted within me. I stopped trying to pull his hands off my neck. Instead, I slid my right hand into my coat pocket, my fingers locking around the plastic handle of my multi-tool.
May you like
I snapped the four-inch serrated blade open.
With every ounce of life left in my body, I drove the steel blade straight up into Arthur's right thigh, twisting the serrated edge deep into the muscle.
