Chapter 12 - Poison in the Bloodline
Caleb sidestepped her frantic lunge, bringing the heavy steel grip of the pistol down across Genevieve’s forearms. She stumbled, crashing into a towering display of antique porcelain urns, which shattered into a thousand jagged pieces across the marble floor. Genevieve scrambled backward into the conservatory ruins, her hands sliced by the sharp ceramic shards, sobbing in pure, unadulterated rage.
Suddenly, the heavy double doors behind them were kicked wide open. Arthur stumbled into the conservatory, his clothes blackened with soot, coughing up thick gray mucus, his eyes wild with delirium. In his right hand, he clutched a vintage emergency flare gun he had grabbed from the boathouse storage locker near the basement stairs.
“No one... leaves!” Arthur wheezed, his voice ragged from smoke inhalation. He raised the flare gun, pointing the glowing magnesium round directly toward the heavy velvet curtains lining the grand entrance. “If I lose the Montgomery name... if I lose the empire... neither of you get a single penny! We burn together, Clara! Just like you were supposed to eighteen months ago!”
“Daddy, please!” Chloe cried out, her tiny voice cutting through the storm.
Arthur’s gaze flickered to his youngest child for a fraction of a second, but his soul was entirely consumed by the rot of greed and narcissistic decay. “You aren't my children anymore,” Arthur whispered coldly. “You’re witnesses.”
He pulled the trigger.
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The flare rocketed across the room with a blinding white hiss, igniting the dry velvet draperies in a colossal sheet of roaring orange flame! The ancient, lacquered oak wood of the conservatory ignited like kindling, sending a wall of blistering heat racing toward the ceiling. Glass panels in the high dome began to shatter under the thermal shock, raining jagged crystal daggers down upon the marble floor.
“Caleb, Chloe, get behind me!” Clara screamed, dragging her children toward the shattered terrace doors as the fire tore through the grand hall, sealing off the manor’s interior.
