Chapter 4 - The Dark Secret
I had not spoken my maiden name aloud since the day I fled my hometown to start a completely new life.
The tall man aggressively grabbed my shoulder and shoved me forcefully into the living room.
He forced me to sit down heavily on the velvet sofa, standing over me with his weapon still drawn.
His partner dragged a weeping, terrified Tyler into the room and forced him to his knees on the carpet right beside me.
"Go let the boss out of the basement," the tall man ordered his partner with a quick nod toward the hallway.
The shorter man marched toward the locked door, inserting the stolen spare key and twisting the deadbolt open.
A few agonizing seconds later, Julian confidently walked into the living room, brushing a speck of dust off his expensive designer sweater.
He was no longer pretending to be the sweet, shy boy who had charmed my son for the past six months.
His posture was rigid, his eyes were cold and calculating, and he carried a suppressed pistol loosely in his right hand.
He walked slowly over to Tyler, looking down at my sobbing son with absolute, unfiltered disgust.
"You really are pathetic, Tyler," Julian sneered, kicking my son's legs casually out of the way.
Tyler looked up at him, his heart completely shattered into a million tiny pieces by the ultimate betrayal.
"Why are you doing this to us?" Tyler choked out, his voice practically entirely gone.
Julian completely ignored him, turning his cold, dead eyes directly toward me instead.
"It took me a very long time to track you down, Diane Walker," Julian said, taking a seat in my favorite armchair.
I stared back at him with pure hatred, refusing to let him see how badly my hands were shaking.
"I have absolutely no idea who you are, and I do not have any money to give you," I stated firmly.
Julian laughed loudly, an ugly, grating sound that bounced off the walls of my perfectly clean living room.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a faded, crinkled photograph printed on old glossy paper.
He tossed the picture onto the glass coffee table, letting it slide directly in front of my face.
It was an old newspaper clipping showing a massive house fire that had claimed the lives of an entire family.
"You burned my father's house to the ground twenty years ago, and you stole everything we had," Julian growled, dropping his playful demeanor.
I looked at the photograph, the horrible, buried memories of my abusive childhood suddenly rushing back to the surface.
I had set that fire to escape my violent, criminal stepfather, completely unaware that his biological son had survived the blaze.
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Julian leaned forward, pressing the cold, metallic barrel of his gun directly against Tyler's forehead.
"You took my family away from me, so now I am going to take yours," Julian whispered with a wicked, evil grin.
