At Thanksgiving dinner, my son said his steak smelled strange and refused to eat it. My mother scolded him for being picky, but when my nephew reached over to take the steak for himself, my wife suddenly went pale and screamed, "No! Don’t eat that!"

Chris stared down at the massive amount of blood soaking through his favorite Thanksgiving sweater.

The stray bullet from my mother's revolver had hit him directly in the abdomen.

He let out a weak, confused gasp before his knees buckled completely beneath him.

Chris collapsed onto the hardwood floor, landing just inches away from the dead dog.

Chris, Megan screamed hysterically, scrambling across the dark room to reach her dying husband.

I kicked the revolver under the heavy oak table and rushed to my brother's side.

Lauren, bring me the kitchen towels, hurry, I yelled, pressing my bare hands firmly against the gunshot wound.

Warm blood rapidly spilled through my fingers, pooling quickly on the expensive rug.

Patricia lay on the floor near the china cabinet, laughing softly in the suffocating darkness.

Well, this is certainly a tragic turn of events for the police report, my mother mocked from the shadows.

Shut up, I roared at her, applying as much pressure as I could to Chris's stomach.

Lauren rushed back into the room with a stack of white dish towels and handed them to me.

I pressed the thick cloth against the wound, but the bleeding was far too severe to stop with mere pressure.

He is losing too much blood, Daniel, we have to get him to a hospital, Megan sobbed, clutching her husband's pale face.

The doors are padlocked, and Chris has the keys, I reminded her desperately.

I frantically searched my brother's blood-soaked pockets, looking for the brass keys to the front door.

I pulled out his wallet, a pack of gum, and his cell phone, but there were no keys anywhere.

Where are the keys, Chris, I begged, shaking his shoulder gently.

Chris coughed violently, a thin stream of blood trailing down his chin.

I threw them down the basement drain, Chris whispered weakly.

I didn't want the loan sharks to be able to force me to unlock the doors if they broke a window.

My heart sank entirely into my stomach.

The keys were completely irretrievable, and the front door was secured with solid steel deadbolts.

We have to break a window to get him out, Lauren suggested, grabbing a heavy wooden dining chair.

Lauren swung the heavy chair aggressively against the large bay window facing the front yard.

The wood hit the glass with a loud thud, but the window didn't even crack or splinter.

It is impact-resistant hurricane glass, Patricia informed us with a cruel, satisfied chuckle.

I had it installed last year to protect my beautiful antiques from severe storms.

We were entirely trapped inside a reinforced fortress while my brother bled to death on the floor.

Suddenly, a heavy, mechanical hum vibrated through the floorboards of the house.

The motion-sensor floodlights outside the house violently clicked on, flooding the front yard with blinding white light.

“Which daughter is yours?” should have been a harmless question

The first wineglass shattered at 8:07 p.m

The moment the mafia boss’s wife called me “an illiterate servant,”

I looked through the unbroken bay window and saw a dark, unmarked cargo van parked aggressively on my mother's lawn.

The side doors of the van slid open, and three massive men stepped out holding heavy steel crowbars and a shotgun.

Chapter 6 - The Bleeding Brother