At 5 a.m., my husband beat me with a wooden walking stick while I was six months pregnant, and his mother laughed, screaming,

The Sterling family estate, once a bastion of old-money arrogance and manicured perfection, had become a living tomb.

Outside the wrought-iron gates, news vans with satellite dishes were parked bumper-to-bumper alongside dozens of furious protestors chanting through megaphones. Flashbulbs went off every time a curtain twitched inside the three-story limestone mansion.

Inside the grand dining room, Helen was slumped over the mahogany table, an empty bottle of gin rolling across the polished surface. Her mascara was smeared down her pale cheeks in grotesque black streaks.

"My friends... they've blocked my number," she wept hysterically, pulling at her disheveled hair. "The Garden Club... the Symphony Gala board... they revoked my lifetime seat, Richard! They issued a press release calling me a 'reprehensible abuser'! How dare they?! How dare they speak to me like that?!"

Richard didn't answer. He sat in his leather wingback chair, his tie undone, staring blankly at the television screen mounted on the wall. A national cable news anchor was breaking down the leaked video second by second, showing high-definition freeze-frames of Helen cheering and Nicole grinning behind her phone.

"We have no cash, Helen," Richard whispered, his voice trembling with the fragile, broken realization of a ruined man. "Our bank accounts were frozen an hour ago by an emergency injunction from Clara’s attorneys. The mortgage payment on this house is due on Friday. We can't even pay the private security guards. They walked off the property thirty minutes ago."

Nicole burst into the room, her eyes wild with terror. "Mom! The internet... they found my personal address! They've posted my social security number, my university records, everything! People are calling my phone every ten seconds telling me I should rot in hell! We need to get on a plane to Europe right now!"

"With what money, you stupid girl?!" Richard suddenly roared, slamming his fists onto the armrests, his face turning an alarming shade of mottled purple. "We are bankrupt! We are disgraced! Your brother took out millions in fraudulent loans, and you—you brainless narcissist—you filmed the entire crime and handed it to the world on a silver platter!"

"Don't you yell at her!" Helen shrieked, lunging out of her chair. "Trent did what he had to do to save our family! It was that useless, pathetic orphan Clara who ruined us! If she had just obeyed him, if she had just signed the papers, none of this would have happened!"

Before Richard could scream back, the heavy glass French doors leading to the rear terrace were violently kicked open.

Cold, wet wind swept into the dining room, extinguishing the decorative candles.

Trent stepped into the room.

He looked like a phantom from a nightmare. His expensive clothes were mud-splattered and torn. The white bandages covering his broken nose were soaked through with fresh blood and dirt. In his sunken, bloodshot eyes burned an unhinged, homicidal madness. In his right hand, he carried a 12-gauge tactical pump shotgun he had broken out of the locked gun cabinet in the basement.

"Trent!" Helen gasped, stumbling toward him. "Baby, what did you do to your ankle monitor?! The police are going to—"

"Shut up, Mom," Trent snarled, his voice a hoarse, raspy rasp.

Richard recoiled, horror dawning in his eyes. "Trent... put the gun down. Son, think about what you're doing. The lawyers are working on a plea deal—"

"There is no plea deal, Dad!" Trent screamed, his voice cracking with manic fury. Spittle flew from his lips. "I talked to Cross before I cut the tracker! The DA is upgrading the charges to premeditated attempted murder! Cross said I'm looking at thirty-five years to life without parole! Do you know what they do to men like me in maximum security?! Do you?!"

Nicole began to sob, backing away against the wall. "Trent, please... you're scaring me..."

"Clara did this," Trent whispered, his knuckles turning dead white around the shotgun’s checkered grip. "She thinks her brother can protect her. She thinks she can hide behind his fences and take my child, my inheritance, and my freedom."

"Trent, don't," Richard pleaded, his voice breaking. "If you go there, they will kill you. Alex is a combat veteran. He isn't a civilian!"

Trent leveled the barrel of the shotgun directly at his father’s chest.

Richard froze, the words dying in his throat.

"Give me the keys to the unmarked Range Rover in the secondary garage," Trent commanded, his eyes wide and completely devoid of human reason. "Now, Dad. Or I will leave you on this floor just like I left her."

With trembling hands, Richard reached into his pocket and placed the key fob on the edge of the table.

Trent snatched the keys, racked the slide of the shotgun with a heavy, mechanical *clack-clack*, and turned on his heel.

"Trent!" Helen cried out, collapsing onto her knees on the Persian rug. "Where are you going?!"

Trent paused at the shattered terrace door, the cold rain lashing against his bruised, ruined face.