Chapter 2 - The Mask Shatters
"Thane! Oh, thank God, Thane!" Corrine gasped, her instincts instantly kicking in as she released Alora’s hair and scrambled to her feet, wiping her hands frantically on her designer silk blouse. She forced a look of frantic, maternal relief onto her face, tears welling in her eyes with theatrical precision. "You're home! You came back! Thane, you don't understand—we came as soon as we could! Alora... Alora has lost her mind!"
I stayed motionless, my hands resting calmly inside my coat pockets. "Is that so?"
"Yes! Yes!" Corrine cried out, taking a frantic step toward me, reaching her hands out as if to embrace me. "She called Sloan at midnight, babbling incoherently! She was smashing your things! She opened the safe and was trying to pack your master property deeds into a suitcase to flee the country with another man! Sloan and I tried to stop her, but she attacked us! She fell on the floor herself to make it look like we hurt her! She’s mentally unstable, Thane! The pregnancy has made her psychotic!"
"She tried to attack Mom with a knife, Thane!" Sloan chimed in instantly, her voice high-pitched and breathless as she rushed to Corrine’s side, pointing a trembling finger at Alora. "We were only using the sledgehammer to break into the safe so we could secure your corporate documents before she destroyed them! We were protecting you! You have to believe us!"
I stood in the center of the room, listening to their frantic, grotesque lies. The sheer efficiency of their gaslighting was almost impressive—a testament to how many times in my life they must have pulled similar stunts on a smaller scale, turning relatives against each other to cover their tracks.
I didn't argue. I didn't raise my voice. I took off my dark suit jacket, walked over to where Alora lay on the floor, and gently draped the heavy wool over her trembling, bruised shoulders.
"Thane..." Alora sobbed into my chest as I picked her up gently in my arms, lifting her off the blood-stained rug and carrying her over to the plush velvet sofa near the balcony. "The deeds... I didn't touch them... I swear..."
"I know, my sweet girl," I whispered against her forehead, brushing the bloody strands of hair away from her face. "Don't say another word. You're safe now. I have everything."
Corrine watched me tend to Alora, her eyes narrowing as she realized her initial lie hadn't produced the immediate, furious reaction she anticipated. She stepped closer, her posture shifting from fragile mother to authoritative matriarch.
"Thane! Did you hear what your sister said?" Corrine demanded, her tone sharpening. "Put that lying girl down! Cancel that 911 call this instant! Do you have any idea how bad this will look for the Sterling family name if the police pull up to this estate? The press will be crawling over the gates within ten minutes! Think about your corporate shares! Think about your mother!"
"I am thinking about you, Corrine," I said quietly, turning around slowly. I used her first name—a cold, distant word that hit her like a slap.
Corrine flinched, her mouth opening in shock. "What did you just call me?"
"I called you by your name," I replied, pulling a silk handkerchief from my waistcoat and carefully wiping the blood from my wife's lip. "The name registered on the banking documents for the Napa estate. The name on the monthly allowance accounts. The name on the five-million-dollar trust fund I set up for Sloan’s business ventures."
"Thane, don't be ridiculous!" Sloan snapped, trying to take an authoritative step toward me. "We are your family! That girl is a nobody! A glorified secretary you married because you had a midlife crisis at thirty-three! We were trying to save your life's work from a gold-digger!"
"A gold-digger?" I let out a low, dark chuckle that sent a visible shiver down Sloan's spine. "Alora’s family founded the non-profit medical foundation that treated Dad when he was dying. She has never asked me for a single dollar. She drives a four-year-old sedan because she refuses to use my corporate accounts. Meanwhile, Sloan... you spent eighty thousand dollars of my money last month on a yacht party in Miami while claiming your tech startup was developing software."
Sloan's face turned beet red. "That... that was client entertainment!"
"And you, Corrine," I continued, turning my gaze back to my mother. "You spent two hundred thousand dollars at auction last week on a diamond necklace, charging it directly to my primary black card, claiming it was an investment for the family foundation."
"I am your mother!" Corrine yelled, dropping all pretense of gentleness. Her face hardened, her posture turning rigid and vicious. "I gave birth to you! I suffered through poverty with your useless father to raise you! Everything you have—this house, your empire, your billions—it all exists because I bled for you! You owe me every cent in that safe! You owe me this entire estate!"
"I paid my debt to you ten times over, Corrine," I said, my voice dropping into a register so dark, so heavy, that the entire room seemed to lose heat. "When I was twenty-two, I paid off your three-hundred-thousand-dollar gambling debt to prevent the cartels from taking your legs. When I was twenty-six, I bought you the Napa property so you wouldn't be evicted. When I was thirty, I set up a trust that pays you six hundred thousand dollars a year for doing absolutely nothing."
"That is the bare minimum a dutiful son does for his mother!" Corrine shrieked, her fists clenching at her sides. "And now you bring this... this peasant into our home? You put her name on the Sterling Family Trust documents? You give her the baby that will inherit everything while Sloan and I are left with table scraps?!"
"Table scraps?" I looked at the suitcase overflowing with emerald necklaces, custom watches, and physical property grant deeds. "You came into my house at two in the morning with a sledgehammer to steal deeds because you thought I was over the ocean. You beat a pregnant woman until her blood stained my floor. That isn't family, Corrine. That is a gang of low-level criminals committing home invasion."
"How dare you!" Corrine raised her hand, marching toward me with her palm raised, intent on slapping me just as she had slapped Alora. "I will teach you some respect, you ungrateful—"
Before her hand could descend, my arm shot out like a steel piston. My fingers wrapped around her wrist, clamping down with enough force to freeze her in her tracks.
Corrine gasped, her eyes widening in sudden, sharp shock as she tried to pull back, but my grip was absolute iron.
"Touch me, or touch my wife again," I whispered, leaning down until my breath brushed her ear, "and I will ensure you spend the rest of your natural life eating through a straw in a state penitentiary."
Down the long drive of the estate, distant, wailing sirens broke through the night air. Red and blue lights began flashing through the heavy floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the master suite, painting the blood-stained rug in hues of emergency.
Sloan panicked, grabbing Corrine’s arm. "Mom! The police! The police are actually coming! What do we do?!"
Corrine gritted her teeth, staring into my cold, dead eyes. "Let go of me, Thane. Right now. You're bluffed. You won't let the police arrest your own mother. You care too much about the Sterling name. The corporate stock will plummet tomorrow morning if the media finds out!"
I slowly released her wrist, stepping back beside the sofa where Alora lay.
"You're right, Corrine," I said, offering her a terrible, razor-sharp smile that offered no warmth. "The corporate stock might take a hit. But you forgot one thing."
May you like
"What?" she sneered, adjusting her bruised wrist.
"I don't just own Sterling Global," I whispered as heavy, tactical boots began thunderously echoing up the spiral staircase outside the hallway. "I own the legal firm that will prosecute you to the absolute limit of the law."
