I opened my mouth and spat out a wet piece of flesh. “I’ll commit suicide,” I said, voice low and hollow. “And, I’ll drag you all into hell with me.”
I moved like a man who had nothing left to lose. Two of them hit the floor beneath my hands, helpless and groaning.
From my pocket, I produced a small mechanical key and I slammed it into Henry’s eye. He screamed; blood poured hot and bright from the wound. He staggered, faltering, life draining fast.
“Don’t come any closer!” Shannon’s panic cut through the chaos, this time for real. She stumbled backward, terror flattening her features as she scrambled and fell. “I’m calling the police!” she yelled, phone already in hand.
I folded the car key away with slow, automatic motions, poured a glass of water as if nothing unusual had happened and sat down. Patient. Waiting.
They packed Henry and the others out between them. Henry was bleeding into his collar. A few minutes later, I heard her voice carrying through the door as she told the police about the incident.
Her version was neat, practiced: I had tried to assault her. She and her brother were house-hunting; relatives heard her screams and rushed in to save her. In her telling, I gouged Henry’s eyes and bit a man to death.
“Officer, Jerome is dangerous. You should shoot him. He’s armed,” Shannon lied smoothly.
“Jerome, come out with your hands up!” a voice outside called.
I walked out, hands on my head. The truth had no witness, no cameras in the room, only their coordinated testimony. One man dead, another blinded; the evidence pointed to me. I was taken away while Shannon and her clan were led off for questioning and then released, triumphant.
Hours later, I sat in a detention cell as a criminal suspect, while they went free. The next day, Shannon returned. If looks could kill, she would have sliced me where I sat.
“You killed my uncle and blinded my brother,” she said, voice cold as ice. “But I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself.”
She laid out her terms like a dealer: one billion dollars, transfer your company to mine, a signed apology and her uncle’s family’s sworn statement that they wouldn’t pursue the murder charge. “Do that,” she said, “and you won’t face execution.”
I rose without wasting breath or time. Her jaw tightened. “Jerome, this is your last chance,” she warned. “Refuse and I’ll make sure you die with a scandal that haunts your name forever. I’ll expose what happened back then and the staged assault yesterday. Think of your daughter. If she knew the truth about her father—”
My daughter. She used that word to threaten me. She was truly evil. She was the mother, too and now she used our child as a weapon. I laughed at the thought; let her play her theater for a few days. I left while she raged, letting her words hang worthless in the air.
She tried again the next day with a letter slipped to me through an outside party. The handwriting was neat, the message colder still.
[I will not forgive you. I almost forgot I am your daughter’s mother. She’s the legal heir to your estate; if you’re executed, custody falls to me. Before you die, I will fulfill my promise and I will make you a villain for the ages. By the time you read this, all your sins will be online. If your parents learn the truth again, they may not survive this time. You deserve it.]
I opened my phone. The internet was already alive with their version: [A heartless husband, consumed by his wife’s friend’s beauty, descends into criminality.]
The story had been written and the world was ready to read.
