Page 71 of Twisted Empire

I shrugged. “It’s not a threat.”

“Then what the hell are you getting at? Are you still high?”

“It’s not a threat because it’s already been done.” I looked at the clock again. “That article I mentioned is real, and it’s been out for at least half an hour now.”

“What?”

“You know what the internet is like,” I went on. “Once something is out, it’s out forever. Even you can’t control it. Give it a few more minutes and your phone and email will start to blow up.” My smile grew wider. “You’ll see,” I added in a mocking tone, mimicking his earlier condescending words.

“This better be a sick joke.”

“It’s not. Your whole fucking empire is going down.” I smiled grimly. “And like I said before, I beat you to it. You can’t kill me for screwing you over if I kill you first.”

“Oh, you think you’re going to kill me, do you?” he snarled, picking up a sharp silver letter opener.

I stepped closer, unafraid. “Here’s the kicker, Dad. I already did it twenty minutes ago.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

I drew back and nodded to the scotch glasses. “Are you starting to feel strange? Stiff and short of breath? Or maybe your legs are feeling restless? You have been tapping that foot an awful lot.”

He glared. “You’re full of shit. You drank from the same bottle as me. There’s nothing in it,” he growled. But as he spoke, his arms and legs began to stiffen and then flail in jerky movements. He sat back in his chair and dropped the letter opener back on the desk, clutching at his throat with one hand as he tried his best to stop his limbs from moving with the other.

“I had Tatum put a fuck-ton of rat poison in every single bottle,” I explained. “Why do you think I let you pick which one we drank? It didn’t matter because they were all tainted, and it probably would’ve looked suspicious if I insisted on a particular one. It would’ve looked even more suspicious if I didn’t drink with you as well. Hence my glass.”

His face had turned bright red, and frothy saliva was pooling at the corners of his mouth. “You… you…”

“There’s no real cure for strychnine poisoning,” I went on. “But it can be treated effectively if you take the right steps. I took a ton of activated charcoal tablets before I drank anything, so that’ll absorb some of the poison. Also, I only had a few sips, and I have a doctor waiting just up the road. He’s got everything ready to start treating me as soon as I get the fuck out of here. But you... you had two whole glasses, and there’s hardly anything in your stomach to absorb it. You’re going to die slowly and painfully, and I’m going to watch very fucking happily, because you deserve every ounce of pain for all the pain and damage you’ve caused.” I cocked my head to the side. “It’s starting to hurt now, isn’t it? I can tell by the look on your face.”

His eyes bulged, and he managed to rasp out two complete sentences. “You’ve just cut off your nose to spite your face. You’ll be charged with murder and I won’t be there to bail you out and fix everything for you again.” He gasped and clutched at his stomach as soon as the words were out.

“I’m not worried. It’ll look like you committed suicide to escape justice, seeing as the whole world is currently finding out what you and your cronies have done over the years.” I smiled and took another step back. “As for me… well, it’ll look like you tried to poison me once you realized what was going on. After all, who else had access to your safe? Only me, as far as you knew. So you tried to murder me in retaliation for sending the contents of the hard drive to a friend to post online. Luckily, I survived to tell the tale.”

“You… you fucking bastard.” He winced and let out a hacking cough as he tried to stand up again. Blood came up from his throat and spattered around his mouth with the foamy saliva. “After everything I’ve done for you…”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said sarcastically. “But you made this monster. You made me think I was a killer my whole life so you could try and mold me into one, just like you.” I spread my arms wide. “So congratulations, you finally had your wish granted. I’m a killer. But we’re not the same. I don’t do it for fun. I do it when I have to. To protect the ones I love.”

“I should’ve known you were a fucking snake,” he muttered weakly before letting out another hacking cough.

I raised a scornful brow. “I can’t blame you for not knowing. I was always your major weakness, wasn’t I? You wanted so badly to have a son to carry on your legacy that you would do anything and everything to keep me around. You were even willing to give me one more chance after what I did the other week.” I shook my head and leaned in close to him again. “You should’ve listened to Davenport and Van der Veer. You shouldn’t have trusted me. Shouldn’t have given me that chance. But obviously you were never as smart as you liked to think. The only thing you ever really had over everyone else in the world was money.”

As I spoke, my father collapsed onto his knees and fell to the floor, gasping as he struggled to breathe. Every muscle began to spasm. He grunted in agony as more blood bubbled up around his mouth.

I watched without an ounce of remorse. “Don’t try to get up. You’ll only make it worse for yourself,” I said icily as he struggled to get to his feet again, one shaky hand reaching for the desk to balance himself.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and glanced at it. Tatum again. The article has already been shared by two hundred thousand people and it’s only been out for half an hour! I can’t believe we actually did it!

I began to tap out a response. A fiery pain in my side made me drop my phone midway through my first sentence.

I looked down to see a black flower of blood spreading over my lower abdomen. My father was hunched over near my feet, the silver letter opener dangling from one hand.

“If I die here, so do you,” he choked out. He reached up in an attempt to stab me again, but the letter opener fell out of his hand and he collapsed back onto the floor, gasping and wheezing.

I stumbled back, pressing my hands against my shirt as firmly as possible, trying to stem the flow of blood. It seeped through my fingers, hot and sticky. The rest of me felt cold. I swayed and sank to my knees.

The pain quickly faded to an icy numbness. Black filled the edges of my vision. My father’s guttural groans and hoarse dying breaths resounded throughout the room, and my own breaths came in shallow gasps as I fought the darkness and tried to get up again.

“Tatum…” I tried to grab my phone, patting the floor around me. It was slick with blood and I couldn’t find anything.

Minutes passed, or maybe it was only seconds. I couldn’t tell. I was tired. So tired. But I couldn’t lie down and go to sleep. Not until I saw Tatum again. Not until I told her I loved her one last time.

As I choked out breath after harsh breath, my eyes were drawn to the window on the other side of the room. The sky outside was black with multitudes of stars shining like shards of crushed ice. I kept my gaze on those stars, willing the glinting white lights to keep me awake for just a few seconds longer.

It didn’t work. My eyelids turned heavy and began to droop, and then all I saw was darkness.

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