Chapter 5 - Caught on Tape
Candice let out a dramatic, sorrowful sigh, shaking her head as she dabbed at the corner of her dry eyes with a manicured finger.
"Oh, Gabriel... I didn't want to ruin your delivery run with bad news," Candice whimpered, putting on her best voice of a long-suffering stepmother. "Lucas... he had another one of his episodes on Friday morning."
"An episode?" Gabriel asked, keeping his arms crossed over his chest.
"He threw a violent tantrum, honey!" Beverly chimed in from the hallway, stepping forward to support her daughter. "Candice simply asked him to help clean his room, and he completely lost his mind! He screamed at us, stole two hundred dollars out of Candice's purse, and ran out the front door!"
"He hit me, too, Uncle Gabe!" Wyatt added quickly, stepping up and rubbing his shoulder with a pathetic frown. "I tried to stop him from taking Aunt Candice's money, and he shoved me against the wall! He's completely unhinged. You really need to put him in a military academy or a state facility."
Gabriel stood motionless in the center of the living room. Every word, every fake tear, every fabricated lie was being picked up by the hidden directional microphones and transmitted straight to the police van down the street, where Detective Jenkins and a prosecutor were watching in real-time.
"Is that so?" Gabriel said softly. He pulled his smartphone from his pocket, tapped the screen, and turned the speaker volume to maximum.
A crisp, high-definition audio recording began to play through the room.
“Mom, there are little fish swimming in my tummy... and they're biting me...” Lucas's raspy, terrified voice echoed through the living room from Friday night. “They went to Miami... I'm not allowed to use the washing machine... They say using water for my clothes is a waste of money...”
Then came Candice's voice recorded from the bedroom smart speaker weeks prior: “Your son doesn't deserve to sit with us. He can eat standing up, like the freeloader he is.”
The room plunged into an absolute, suffocating silence.
Candice’s fake tears vanished instantly. Her face drained of all color, leaving her looking ash-gray beneath her heavy makeup. Evelyn gasped, taking a step back toward the front door, while Beverly’s jaw dropped in sheer terror.
"Where... where did you get that?" Candice stammered, her voice losing its polished sweetness, turning sharp and raspy. "Gabriel, that... that's edited! The boy is manipulating you! He recorded those things to frame me!"
"Lucas didn't record a thing, Candice," Gabriel said, taking two slow steps toward her. "I came home Friday night at eleven o'clock. I found my sixteen-year-old son kneeling in the dark, scrubbing your dirty clothes by hand in a bucket of freezing water because you told him he wasn't worth the electricity."
Gabriel pulled up his sleeve, revealing his own thick, muscular forearm.
"And then I made him roll up his sleeves," Gabriel continued, his voice dropping into a lethal, trembling whisper. "And I saw what you, your sister, and your nephew did to my boy."
Wyatt took a terrified step back, hiding behind his mother. "Aunt Evelyn... I didn't do anything! I just did what Aunt Candice told me to do!"
"Shut up, Wyatt!" Evelyn shrieked, spinning around to glare at her son.
Candice’s eyes darted frantically around the room, searching for an escape. When she realized Gabriel was standing between her and the front door, her expression transformed from caught fraudster to pure, unadulterated venom.
"So what?!" Candice spat, stepping forward and pointing a manicured finger directly at Gabriel’s chest. "So what if I put the little brat in his place?! You're away twenty days a month, Gabriel! You left me here to run this damn house! He's a sullen, useless loser who looks at me like I'm trash!"
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"He looks at you like trash because he knows what you are," Gabriel said coldly.
"I am your wife!" Candice screamed, her face contorting with rage. "Half this house belongs to me! Half your bank account belongs to me! You think a couple of bruises on a boy's arm are going to ruin me? I'll call the police right now and tell them you threatened me! I'll tell them you laid hands on my mother!"
