Chapter 7 - A Web of Deceit
"You're pathetic, Marcus," Brielle said, her voice dripping with venomous condescension as she walked toward us, completely disregarding the police sirens growing deafeningly loud outside the front doors. "I told you twenty minutes ago to take the car and get out of the county. I told you the little brat slipped past the gatekeeper. But you had to go back for your precious ledgers, didn't you? You greedy, incompetent pig."
"Shut your mouth, Brielle!" Marcus screamed from the floor, struggling against the guard's grip. "You're the one who lost control of her! You couldn't even keep an eight-year-old child locked in a room for three hours! You hit her so hard she ran straight to Ethan!"
"She bit me!" Brielle shrieked, holding up her left hand, where two small, bloody tooth marks were clearly visible near the base of her thumb. "The little animal bit my hand when I took the papers! I should have thrown her off that ridge two years ago along with her pathetic father!"
The entire foyer went dead silent.
Even the security guards looked at her with undisguised horror. The admission hung in the air like a noxious vapor.
The heavy glass doors burst open, and four uniformed police officers, led by Detective Morrison—a grizzled, gray-haired investigator who had handled Lucas's initial accident report—rushed into the grand foyer, their hands resting on their holstered firearms.
"Nobody move!" Morrison commanded, his authoritative voice instantly commanding the space. He assessed the scene with a practiced eye: Marcus pinned to the floor, Brielle standing disheveled in her torn wedding gown, and me kneeling in my shirt-sleeves, covered in champagne stains and broken glass dust.
"Detective Morrison," Julian said, stepping forward with his hands visible, holding out the manila envelope and his phone. "Thank God you're here. We have the confession on audio. Marcus Vance just admitted to running Lucas Vance's vehicle off Blackwood Ridge, and Brielle Sterling just admitted to complicity in the murder and child abuse."
Morrison looked at Brielle, his brow furrowing deeply. He remembered her from the memorial service two years ago—the grieving acquaintance who had brought flowers to Lucas’s grave and subsequently offered comfort to the surviving family.
"Is this true, Ms. Sterling?" Morrison asked, gesturing to his officers to handcuff Marcus.
Brielle didn't answer him. Instead, she fixed her gaze on me, her lips curling into a cruel, triumphant smirk that chilled me to the marrow.
"You want to know the funniest part, Ethan?" she whispered, taking a step toward me until an officer caught her by the shoulder. "Lucas didn't die immediately when the car went over the cliff. Did the coroner tell you that? Did they tell you he survived the fall?"
My heart stopped. The world narrowed to a pinprick of searing agony.
"He crawled out of the wreckage," Brielle continued, her eyes glittering with sadistic pleasure. "He was at the bottom of the gorge for three hours in the rain. Marcus was panicking at the top of the road, but I climbed down the rocks. Lucas was whispering your name, Ethan. He was begging me to call you. He told me he had a little girl, that her name was Lily, and that you would protect her."
"You monster," I choked out, my voice cracking under an ocean of grief and horror. "You left him there."
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"I took his phone, smashed it against a boulder, and took the keys to his private office safe from his pocket," she said softly, almost musically, reveling in the destruction of my world. "And then Marcus and I waited in the car until the sun came up and made sure he stopped breathing. You were so easy to manipulate after that, Ethan. You were so lonely, so desperate for someone to love you. You gave me your heart, your home, and almost your entire fortune. And you would have spent the rest of your life thanking me for it."
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