Chapter 7 - The Unlocked Truth
The heavy oak door of the precinct interview room swung open, and David stepped inside, looking smaller and more defeated than ever. His grey polo shirt was rumpled, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He wouldn't look Elena in the eye as he slumped into the metal chair across from her.
"You lied to them," Elena hissed, keeping her voice low to avoid the observation glass. "You forged my signature on those medical forms, David. You let your mother torture our son, and now you’re trying to pin the basement on me?"
David rubbed his face with both hands, groaning softly before dropping his arms. "I didn't forge anything, Elena. My mother had power of attorney over both of us when we bought the house. We needed the inheritance from my father’s estate to pay off the mortgage, or we would have lost everything."
Elena stared at him in utter disbelief. "You sold our lives? You traded our son’s safety for a house?"
"You don't understand what my mother is!" David snapped, a flash of genuine terror crossing his features. "She doesn't just disown people, Elena. My older brother, Marcus—he didn't run away to college when we were teenagers. He found out about the family debts, about the people our grandfather borrowed money from during the syndicate days. He threatened to go to the FBI."
Elena felt the blood drain from her face. "And your mother put him in the basement?"
"She locked him in for his own protection," David whispered, his voice trembling as he glanced nervously toward the ceiling. "And after twenty years down there, he stopped being Marcus a long time ago. He’s something else now. And my mother made me promise that if I ever wanted to inherit the family wealth, I had to keep the bloodline pure—and keep the secret buried."
Elena stood up so violently her chair scraped loudly against the linoleum floor. "He’s a monster. Both of you are monsters."
Before David could answer, the door flew open again, and Detective Miller rushed back inside, holding a glowing tablet with an alert banner across the top.
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"We just got the warrant to breach the basement," Miller said grimly, his eyes locked on Elena. "And the tactical team just reported that the heavy steel door wasn't locked from the outside. It was locked from the inside."
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