Chapter 6 - The Ultimate Betrayal
I stared at Arthur in complete disbelief, unable to process the sight of my own lawyer waiting in the darkness.
He took a slow, deliberate sip of his scotch, entirely unfazed by the silver pistol Marcus aimed directly at his chest.
Arthur calmly explained that Richard had paid him ten million dollars to sabotage my divorce case from the very beginning.
It was Arthur who had secretly planted the forged financial documents in my files to trigger the federal investigation.
He had lured us to this estate because Richard was already on his way here to finish the job personally.
I felt a crushing wave of nausea, realizing every single person I had trusted was secretly working to destroy me.
Marcus stepped forward, his finger tightening dangerously on the trigger of his weapon.
He told Arthur that the money would be completely useless to a dead man.
Arthur simply laughed, pulling a small remote control from his tailored suit jacket and pressing the red button.
Heavy steel security shutters immediately slammed down over every window and door in the estate.
The electronic deadbolts clicked in unison, sealing us inside a massive, impenetrable fortress.
Arthur smiled and announced that the house was now completely locked down and heavily pumped with a lethal, odorless neurotoxin.
He had taken the antidote an hour ago, but Marcus and I only had about ten minutes before our lungs collapsed entirely.
Marcus lunged across the dining table, tackling Arthur to the floor and violently demanding the override codes for the security system.
I started coughing violently as the invisible, deadly gas began filling the airtight room.
My vision blurred, and my knees buckled under the immense, crushing pressure building in my chest.
I crawled toward the heavy mahogany desk where my father used to hide his emergency architectural blueprints.
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I fumbled for the secret latch beneath the center drawer, praying the hidden passage had not been discovered.
The wooden panel suddenly popped open, but an icy hand grabbed my ankle and dragged me violently backward.
