Chapter 20 - Blood in the Living Room
Isabella looked unrecognizable.
The woman who had strutted through the hospital corridors in four-inch Christian Louboutin heels, draped in cashmere and venom, was gone. Her hair hung in wet, tangled strands around her gaunt face. Her eyes were sunken, bloodshot, rimmed with deep purple bruises of exhaustion. Her expensive designer coat was torn at the shoulder, spattered with mud from the garden outside.
Yet, despite her ruined exterior, her jaw was set with a feral, manic ferocity.
"Isabella?" Catherine’s composure cracked for a fraction of a second, her eyebrows drawing together in disbelief. "How did you get here?"
"I put an AirTag in the lining of your trunk three weeks ago, you psychopathic bitch," Isabella hissed, stepping into the bedroom light. She raised the heavy brass fire iron with both hands. "You thought you broke me? You thought taking my boutique and freezing my accounts would make me crawl into a corner and die?"
"Put that down, Isabella," Catherine ordered, shifting her revolver slightly, caught in a deadly triangle between me and her sister. "You're embarrassing yourself. You always were pathetic when you tried to play the hero."
"I spent six months listening to Khloe hate me," Isabella said, her voice trembling with a mixture of rage and profound, suffocating grief. "I let her believe I pushed her. I let the police think I was the one who tried to steal those embryos. Because you told me that if I didn't take the blame, you would expose Dad's secret to the press. You said you would ruin our family name forever!"
"Dad ruined this family the day he brought Khloe home!" Catherine snapped, her voice finally losing its aristocratic control, rising into a shrill, venomous screech. "Look at her, Mark! Ask Evelyn! Ask the woman tied to the bed who Khloe really is!"
I took a half-step forward, using the distraction to close the distance between myself and Catherine's gun arm. "Shut up, Catherine."
"No, let her speak!" Isabella screamed, tears finally spilling over her mud-streaked cheeks. "Tell him, Catherine! Tell him so we can end this nightmare once and for all!"
Catherine’s eyes gleamed with sadistic delight. "Khloe isn't our sister, Mark. She isn't Anthony's daughter. Anthony’s wife died childless. Khloe was the daughter of the woman Anthony hit with his car on Route 9 thirty-two years ago. A hit-and-run that Dad covered up with millions in hush money. He took the victim’s surviving infant from the hospital nursery, paid off the corrupt state troopers, and brought her home to replace the child his wife could never bear!"
The words hit the room like a concussive blast.
Evelyn closed her eyes on the bed, weeping silently beneath the duct tape.
"He raised her out of guilt," Catherine snarled, her weapon wavering between Isabella and me. "He poured millions into her education, built trust funds for her, treated her like a princess, while Isabella and I—his real daughters, his legal heirs—were treated like business associates! And in that vault? The vault holds the original police files, the accident reconstruction reports, and thirty million dollars in bearer bonds meant exclusively for Khloe as an apology for murdering her mother!"
"That's enough!"
The roar came from behind us.
Before Catherine could pivot, Khloe appeared in the hallway. She wasn't holding a weapon. She wasn't running. She stood there, her coat soaked, Nathan strapped securely against her chest in a front-facing carrier, his tiny head tucked safely beneath her collar.
Her face was not the face of a victim. It was the face of a woman who had crossed an emotional desert and found nothing left to lose.
"Shoot me, Catherine," Khloe said, stepping directly into the bedroom. "Shoot me in front of the baby. Shoot the girl Dad loved more than you."
"Khloe, get back!" I shouted, lunging forward.
Catherine turned her gun toward Khloe.
In that split second, Isabella screamed—a primal, animal shriek—and swung the heavy brass fire iron with every ounce of strength remaining in her ruined body.
The solid metal slammed directly into Catherine's wrist with a sickening crack of splintering bone.
The revolver fired wild. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed bedroom, the bullet tearing into the plaster ceiling, raining white dust down upon us. Catherine shrieked in agony as her gun flew from her hand, skittering across the hardwood floor toward my feet.
I didn't hesitate. I kicked the weapon beneath the heavy dresser, grabbed Catherine by the lapels of her tailored coat, and slammed her backward against the wall, pinning her throat with my forearm.
"Don't move," I growled, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. "Don't you dare move."
Catherine slumped against the drywall, cradling her shattered wrist, her immaculate face twisted in grotesque pain. Blood dripped from her nose where Isabella's follow-through had caught her cheek.
In the center of the room, Isabella dropped the fire iron. It clattered loudly against the floor.
She turned to look at Khloe.
The two sisters—separated by years of manufactured hatred, legal warfare, and a hospital floor covered in shattered dignity—stared at each other across the narrow room.
Nathan began to wail, startled by the gunshot.
Khloe didn't look at Catherine. She didn't look at the gun. She walked past me, stopping inches from Isabella.
Without a single word, Khloe raised her right hand.
For a terrifying second, I thought she was going to strike her sister. Isabella didn't flinch; she simply closed her eyes, waiting for the blow she believed she deserved.
Instead, Khloe’s hand cupped the back of Isabella's wet, tangled neck, pulling her forward into an embrace so fierce it knocked the breath from both of them.
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Isabella collapsed against Khloe’s shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably, her tears soaking into the fabric of the baby carrier, while our son cried between them in the cold, rain-drenched dawn.
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