Chapter 6 - The Shadow of Raymond Mason
The room held no sound,
not the rustle of wool,
not the creak of damp floorboards,
only the harsh,
strained rattle of my own breath.
Megan looked down at Leo,
her fingers trembling so violently she nearly dropped the child’s yellow blanket.
She stepped back,
her boots sliding across the pine,
her face pale as bone.
“Your son?”
she whispered,
the words barely carrying across the narrow space between us.
“You told everyone Julian was your brother,
your younger brother who ran away.”
“It was the lie my father demanded,”
I said,
my hands gripping the armrests of my chair until my knuckles burned white.
“My father,
Arthur Mason,
could not tolerate a bastard grandson born to an eighteen-year-old heir.
He took Julian from his mother’s arms before the ink was dry on the birth certificate.
He raised him as his own son,
my supposed brother,
to preserve the clean,
respectable lineage of the family name.”
Megan’s chest rose and fell in ragged spasms.
“And Julian never knew?”
“Julian knew,”
I replied,
the memory tasting like ash and iron on my tongue.
“He found the adoption papers locked in my father’s wall safe when he turned sixteen.
He came to me with the papers in his shaking hands,
crying,
demanding to know why I had never claimed him.
Two days later,
the warehouse on Decatur Street burned to the bedrock.”
Leo gave a soft,
frightened cry,
burying his face into Megan’s shoulder.
She rocked him with fierce,
instinctive rhythm,
her eyes never leaving mine.
“And your father died in that fire,”
she said.
“My father died trapped inside the executive vault,”
I answered,
my voice flat,
hollow,
stripped of all remorse.
“Julian was reported missing,
presumed burned to cinder.
And I woke up in Piedmont Hospital with shattered vertebrae,
trapped to a Stryker frame,
told I would never walk again.”
A sudden,
sharp knock echoed from the outer front door of the cottage.
Nancy stepped into the entryway,
her apron missing,
her face drawn in stark,
terrified lines.
“Mr. Mason,”
Nancy said,
her hands clutched over her chest.
“He’s at the front gates.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
“Your uncle Raymond,”
Nancy whispered,
glancing at Megan with desperate apprehension.
“He has three black town cars parked across the driveway.
May you like
He brought two private attorneys,
and he told the gatekeeper that he’s here to take custody of Julian’s legal heir.”
