Four. Not three. Four.
Upstairs, right on schedule, the floorboards of the guest suite creaked. It was exactly eight-fifteen. Julian and Evelyn were awake. A few moments later, I could hear Evelyn’s soft, smug laughter drifting down the wooden staircase—the distinct, grating sound of a woman who fully believed she had finally breached the fortress walls and claimed the kingdom for herself. I heard the shower turn on, water running over the bodies of two people who thought they had gotten away with the ultimate betrayal.
I poured the dark, steaming coffee into Thomas’s old, chipped ceramic mug and placed it carefully at the absolute head of the table. Then, I sat down at the opposite end. I smoothed my apron. I kept my back ramrod straight, my hands neatly folded over my lap. The faint, purplish-red bruise blooming on my left cheekbone was an undeniable, vivid testament to the violence of the night before.
Julian came downstairs first. He wore a designer charcoal cashmere sweater and tailored trousers, his hair casually but expensively styled, radiating the insufferable arrogance of a conquering king surveying his newly acquired lands.
He stopped short at the threshold of the dining room.
His eyes swept over the extravagant, lavish spread—the towering, glazed brioche, the perfectly poached eggs florentine sitting on toasted sourdough medallions, the gleaming silver catching the morning light. A slow, deeply triumphant smirk crawled across his face, altering his features into something unrecognizable to a mother.
“So,” he said, his voice dripping with heavy, unmistakable condescension. “You finally learned your place. I knew you’d see reason once you slept on it. We can get the notary over here by ten.”
He stepped fully into the room, reaching out to pull out a chair.
That was when he finally looked up. That was when he saw the two other people sitting in absolute, terrifying silence at the other end of the long mahogany table, nursing their coffee.
Julian froze. His hand stalled mid-air. The color drained from his face so fast he looked instantly, violently ill. The arrogant smirk shattered into a mask of pure confusion and rising panic.
“Good morning, Julian,” said Judge Margaret Sterling. She did not look up from her china plate, meticulously and calmly spreading fresh, deep-purple blackberry preserves onto a thick slice of rye.
Beside her sat Harrison Cole, my personal attorney and the most feared litigator in the tri-state area. He was wearing a navy, pinstriped suit that looked sharp enough to draw blood, his hands steepled under his chin, his eyes locked onto Julian with predatory stillness.
Julian’s mouth opened, forming words, but no sound came out. His brain was desperately trying to calculate the impossibility of this scene.