Chapter 25 - The Brother He Never Knew
David’s grip faltered for a fraction of a second in sheer, paralyzing shock.
*Mother?*
Evelyn used that momentary lapse to drive the heel of her hand upward, smashing into David’s broken nose. Cartilage crunched. A burst of blinding white light exploded behind David’s eyes, and he fell backward against the nursery wall, choking on his own blood.
Evelyn scrambled across the floor, ignoring Leah, her crazed eyes fixed on Maya, who was trembling at the edge of the stairs. "Julian! Catch her!" Evelyn shrieked.
Before David could regain his vision, a massive shadow filled the top of the staircase.
The man who stepped onto the landing was easily six-foot-four, built like a brick wall, clad in tactical black cargo pants and a heavy canvas jacket. He looked to be in his late thirties, his jawline square, scarred, and set in a look of cold, calculating detachment. But it was his eyes that froze David’s blood.
They were David’s eyes.
The same pale, piercing blue iris. The same slightly arched left eyebrow. The same terrifying, unmistakable genetic imprint.
"Julian...?" David whispered through a mouth full of blood, unable to comprehend the nightmare unfolding before him. "What... who are you?"
The man didn't spare David a glance. He looked at Maya, crying on the floor, then reached down with massive, gloved hands and hoisted the three-year-old into the air by her jacket collar as casually as if she were a bag of groceries.
"Don't touch her!" Leah screamed from the floor, scrambling forward on hands and knees, grabbing the stranger’s boot. "Please, God, don't touch my baby! Take me! Take me instead!"
Julian looked down at Leah with absolute, chilling indifference. Without a word, he pulled back his steel-toed boot and kicked her squarely in the ribs. Leah folded with an agonizing shriek, collapsing flat against the floor, gasping for breath.
"You’re pathetic, little brother," Julian’s voice rumbled, deep and hollow, like gravel grinding in a drum. "Mother spent twenty-five years molding you into something worthy, and you ran away to play house with a stray dog."
"Julian... give her to me," Evelyn pleaded, crawling toward him on her knees, her hands outstretched like a pilgrim begging for salvation. "Give me my grand-daughter. We must perform the baptism before the dawn."
Julian looked at Evelyn, his expression dead. Then, to David’s absolute astonishment, Julian shoved the elderly woman backward with a single open palm, sending her crashing into the nursery banister.
"Shut up, old woman," Julian said calmly. "You’ve outlived your usefulness. The police are swarming the county line. You led them right to our perimeter."
"Julian!" Evelyn cried out, her voice cracking with the betrayal of a woman whose god had just struck her down. "I gave you life! I hid you in the orchard cellar when the state tried to tear our family apart! I made you who you are!"
"No," Julian replied, adjusting his grip on the screaming child, pinning Maya tightly against his chest. "You kept me in a hole while he slept in a feather bed. You gave him your name. You gave me your madness."
He turned on his heel and began walking down the stairs.
"JULIAN!" David roared.
May you like
The pain in his ribs, his broken nose, the blood blinding his left eye—everything vanished beneath a towering, incandescent wall of fatherly rage. David shoved himself off the wall, snatched the antique twelve-inch knitting needle from the crib mattress, and threw himself down the staircase after the giant.
***
