Chapter 4 - The Return of the Parasites
Sunday evening arrived with a heavy,
gray sky that threatened rain,
the air thick with a tension that made Lucas jump at every sound.
Gabriel had his son sit in the basement,
away from the windows,
with a set of noise-canceling headphones and a direct line to his phone.
“Stay there until I call you,”
Gabriel instructed,
his voice as steady as the rumble of his truck engine.
At seven-thirty,
a luxury SUV pulled into the driveway,
the headlights sweeping across the front of the house like searchlights.
Laughter spilled out of the vehicle as the doors opened—Candice,
her mother,
her sister,
and Wyatt,
all tanned and carrying bags filled with high-end shopping.
Gabriel stood in the darkened kitchen,
watching them through the window,
his heart beating with a cold,
rhythmic fury.
They entered through the front door,
tossing their keys on the table and complaining about the humidity.
“Lucas!”
Candice yelled,
her voice sharp and commanding.
“Get up here and get these bags!
And I better not see a single wrinkle in my dresses!”
She didn't see Gabriel standing in the shadows of the hallway yet.
“He’s not coming,
Candice,”
Gabriel said,
stepping into the light of the foyer.
The silence that followed was absolute,
the laughter dying instantly on their lips.
Candice froze,
her hand clutching a shopping bag from a boutique in South Beach.
“Gabriel!”
she gasped,
her face morphing into a mask of faux-delight.
“You’re home early!
Why is the house so dark?
You gave us such a fright!”
“I’ve been home for three days,”
Gabriel said,
his eyes moving to Wyatt,
who was trying to hide a smirk behind his mother’s shoulder.
“Three days of watching my son wash your clothes by hand in the dark.”
Candice’s mother,
a woman with eyes like a bird of prey,
stepped forward.
“Now,
Gabriel,
don’t be dramatic,”
she said,
her voice dripping with poisoned honey.
“The boy needs discipline,
and the machine was acting up,
we didn't want him to break it.”
“The machine works fine,”
Gabriel replied,
pulling his tablet out of his pocket and turning the screen toward them.
He played the video of Lucas scrubbing the bucket,
the audio of his whispered confession about the birthday party,
and the images of the bruises.
“And the 'discipline' looks a lot like felony child abuse to me.”
Candice’s face went pale,
then flushed with an ugly,
dark anger.
“You’ve been spying on us in our own home?”
she hissed,
dropping the act of the loving wife.
“This is my home,
Candice,”
Gabriel reminded her,
his voice rising just enough to command the room.
“A home you tried to turn into a pawn shop for my dead wife’s things.”
He scrolled through the photos of the receipts and the silver cup.
“I found the folder,
too,”
he added,
watching as her mother’s hand flew to her throat.
“The one labeled ‘WIDOWS’.”
“My brother-in-law is a sergeant,
and he’s spent the last forty-eight hours running those names through the national database.”
“It turns out,
you and your sisters have quite a history of ‘unfortunate’ accidents involving husbands with large insurance policies.”
The sister,
who had remained silent,
turned to run back toward the door,
but she found it locked.
“The police are five minutes away,”
Gabriel said,
leaning against the wall,
his presence blocking the only other exit to the kitchen.
“And I’ve already contacted the bank to freeze the equity loan and the joint accounts.”
Wyatt,
emboldened by the tension,
tried to push past Gabriel.
“Get out of the way,
old man,”
the boy spat.
Gabriel didn’t move;
he simply grabbed Wyatt by the collar and pinned him against the wall with the strength of thirty years of manual labor.
“You’ll never lay another hand on my son,”
Gabriel whispered into the boy’s ear,
his voice a low growl.
Candice began to scream,
a high-pitched,
hysterical sound that filled the house,
accusing him of kidnapping and assault.
She didn't know that the cameras were recording every word,
every gesture,
and every reveal of their true nature.
The blue and red lights of the police cruisers began to flicker against the living room walls.
Gabriel let go of Wyatt,
who slumped to the floor,
his bravado vanished.
“The vacation is over,”
Gabriel said,
as the front door was kicked open by the authorities.
May you like
He didn't look back as they were handcuffed and led out into the rain.
He only had one thing left to do.
