Chapter 3 - The Confrontation at the Glass
Marcus Kane swung the beam of his flashlight around the cavernous living room, his face contorted in a mixture of rage, pain, and drunken desperation. His jaw was covered in thick stubble, his eyes bloodshot and crazed.
“Nathan!” Marcus bellowed, his voice echoing off the glass walls above the storm. “I know you’re in here, you arrogant doctor bastard! Where are my kids?!”
Nathan stepped out from the shadows of the archway, stopping ten feet away. He did not raise the gun immediately; he held it low at his side, his body relaxed in the terrifyingly calm stance of a man who had made his peace with violence.
“You’re trespassing, Marcus,” Nathan said softly.
Marcus spun around, flashing the bright beam directly into Nathan’s eyes. He laughed—a wet, hysterical sound that sent chills down the hallway.
“Trespassing?” Marcus spat, taking a heavy step forward, wiping blood from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Those are my children, Pierce! Sarah ran out into the storm like a lunatic with my boys! I tracked her footprints all the way up the service road until the snow covered them. I know she sent the little brat here!”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits of blue ice. “Sarah didn't run out into the storm, Marcus. You struck her with a bottle. You left her dying on your kitchen floor while a five-year-old girl carried two infants six miles through a blizzard to escape you.”
Marcus flinched slightly, a flicker of panic crossing his features before his expression hardened back into wild defiance. “She fell! She tripped over the rug during an argument! It was an accident!”
“You’re a liar,” Nathan said, his voice dropping into a register so cold it cut through the roar of the wind outside. “Sarah wrote down everything. She left the paper in Lily’s coat.”
Marcus’s hand tightened around the heavy iron crowbar until his knuckles went white. “Give me the kids, Nathan. Give me the boys and the girl, and I’ll walk out of here and never come back. If you don't... I’ll burn this glass cage of yours to the ground with you inside it.”
“You took seven years of my sister’s life,” Nathan said, slowly lifting the Sig Sauer until the front sight was aligned directly between Marcus Kane’s bloodshot eyes. “You beat her, you isolated her, and you turned her life into a nightmare. You are not taking another step toward those stairs.”
Marcus sneered, taking an aggressive step forward, lifting the crowbar over his shoulder. “You won't shoot me, doc. You’re a surgeon. You save lives. You don't have the guts to pull that trigger—”
BANG!
A deafening report shattered the quiet of the mansion.
The bullet struck the marble floor two inches in front of Marcus’s left boot, sending a spray of stone chips biting into his skin.
Marcus stumbled back with a terrified shriek, falling onto his hands and knees on the shattered glass of the terrace door.
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“The next round goes through your kneecap, Marcus,” Nathan said smoothly, stepping over the bullet hole, his hand as steady as a mountain rock. “And the third goes through your throat. Try me.”
Before Marcus could answer, the bright red and blue strobe lights of three heavy-duty snow-cat police vehicles cut through the thick blizzard outside, their spotlights blinding the room through the glass patio doors.
