Chapter 12 - The Dinner of False Pretenses
The descent down the back servants' staircase was agonizingly slow. Every creak of the century-old timber sounded like a gunshot in the silent house. I slipped past Ethan's closed study door; beneath the threshold, a slice of blue monitor light spilled onto the hardwood, accompanied by the low, rapid murmur of his voice into a headset.
"...the baseline vitals are decaying on schedule," Ethan was saying through the wood. "The transfer documents will trigger automatically upon cessation of brain activity. Ensure the probate attorney has the primary signatures filed by dawn on Friday."
A cold tremor rippled through my veins. *Cessation of brain activity.* He wasn't just drugging me. He was preparing to euthanize me under the guise of an incurable neurodegenerative illness, claiming the multi-million-dollar estate my late father had bequeathed to me.
I pressed my back against the wall, clutching the flash drive until its metallic edges bit into my palm. I slipped through the kitchen, unlocked the back terrace door, and stepped into the torrential downpour.
The rain was freezing, plastering my hair to my forehead within seconds. I sprinted across the sodden lawn, dodging the perimeter motion sensors whose blind spots I had memorized over years of gardening. The greenhouse loomed out of the darkness like a skeletal iron cage, its broken panes rattling violently in the gale.
May you like
I reached the locked double doors, wedged a rusted crowbar from the garden shed between the chains, and threw my entire body weight against the lever. With a screech of tearing metal, the padlock gave way.
***
