Chapter 7 - The Uninvited Guest in the Rain
"You need to pack a bag," Arthur gasped, his voice cracking with a terrifying urgency. "Both of you. Right now."
Nathan didn't move an inch. He stood his ground, his shoulders squared, the protective anger that had flared up during Margaret's confrontation returning with a vengeance.
"Have you lost your mind, Arthur?" Nathan snapped, stepping forward so that his cousin was forced to look him in the eye. "You broke into my private floor in the middle of the night, dripping wet, demanding we pack? Explain yourself before I have security throw you out into the street."
"Security won't help us, Nathan," Arthur spat back, wiping a streak of rain and sweat from his forehead with the back of his trembling hand. He glared at me with a mixture of fear and pure venom. "She thinks she won. She thinks exposing the guardianship files and humiliating Margaret changes anything. But she has no idea what she’s stepped into."
I stepped out from behind Nathan’s shoulder, my chin held high. I refused to let anyone intimidate me in my own home, least of all a member of the family who had spent months trying to destroy me.
"If you have something to say, Arthur, say it clearly," I said, my voice cutting through his panic like cold glass. "Stop hiding behind dramatics."
Arthur let out a harsh, bitter laugh that sounded more like a choke. "Dramatics? You think the worst thing about the Carter name is my sister’s snobbery? You think money and real estate are the only things keeping this family afloat?"
He reached into his soaked coat pocket, pulling out a heavy, manila envelope tied with a thick black ribbon, and hurled it across the room. It landed with a dull thud right on the center of the silk bedspread, resting only inches from the court order and birth certificates we had been looking at moments before.
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"Open it," Arthur whispered, his eyes wide and unblinking. "That’s what your precious husband’s grandfather left behind in the family trust. And once you read it, you'll realize why Margaret wasn't trying to protect our social standing tonight... she was trying to keep you from digging your own graves."
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