My Mother Hurt My Wife—Then Our Baby Disappeared

Ethan dragged himself backward against a wooden support pillar, his breath rattling in his chest. Across the room, Claire was thrashing violently against her bonds, her muffled screams vibrating behind the duct tape, her eyes locked on Lily.

"Put her down, Julian," Ethan gasped, fighting through the blinding nausea of his dislocated shoulder. "She's an innocent child. Put her in the crib... put her on the crate with Claire."

"Innocent?" Julian tilted his head, looking down at Lily's tiny sleeping face with something resembling detached curiosity. "Nobody in this bloodline is innocent. Mother taught me that before she taught me how to write my own name."

"Evelyn lied to you!" Ethan shouted, his voice echoing off the corrugated iron walls. "She used you! She kept you locked away because she was afraid of you!"

"She didn't lock me away because she was afraid of me, brother," Julian sneered, the scarred side of his face twitching with sudden, vicious intensity. "She locked me away because I saw what she did to Richard."

The boathouse seemed to drop ten degrees.

Ethan froze, his pain momentarily eclipsed by cold shock. "What did you say?"

"You think our big brother ran away to California?" Julian stepped closer, his heavy work boots thudding against the floorboards. "You think Richard packed a bag in the middle of the night, left a note on the kitchen counter, and never called his little brother again?"

Julian laughed—a harsh, barking sound that sent a shiver straight down Ethan's spine.

"Richard found the ledger," Julian whispered. "Not the blue one you found in her desk last winter. The black one. The one where she documented every bribe, every judge she owned, every pharmaceutical company she blackmailed to fund her little suburban empire."

Julian pointed the steel pipe toward the black, murky water beneath the boat slip.

"Richard didn't run, Ethan. Richard is down there. Right beneath your feet. Under forty feet of silt and three hundred pounds of construction cement."

Ethan felt the world tilt on its axis. He stared at the oily, black surface of the water between the rotting docks.

"You're lying," Ethan whispered.

"I helped her mix the quicklime," Julian said, his eyes glittering with a madness so deep it looked like absolute clarity. "I was twelve years old, Ethan. She told me Richard was sick. She told me Richard was trying to destroy the family. She made me hold the flashlight while she rolled his body into the foundation trench before they built the slip."

Julian looked down at Ethan, his expression softening into something grotesque—pity.

"And while I was holding that flashlight in the freezing rain, with Richard's blood on my sneakers, you were in your bedroom four miles away, sleeping under a blue quilt, waiting for Mother to bring you warm milk and toast."

Julian hoisted Lily higher onto his shoulder.

"You didn't survive Evelyn Mercer, Ethan. You were her favorite pet. And when a pet outlives its owner, there’s only one thing left to do."