Chapter 4 - The Mark of the Beast
The ballroom felt as if it had dropped below freezing.
I stared at the crescent scar on her wrist. The room began to spin. The faces of the guests, the glittering chandeliers, the white roses—everything dissolved into a horrific blur of memory.
I saw my little sister Lily. I saw her bald head, her sunken, hollow eyes, her frail little hand holding onto mine in that sterile hospital room, whispering, *“Julian, why did bad people take my medicine money?”*
For fourteen years, my family had carried that agonizing wound. It had broken my father. It had caused my mother to suffer two nervous breakdowns. It was the reason I had worked twenty hours a day through college, sleeping in my beat-up Honda, driven by a manic, desperate need to become wealthy so that my family would never, ever be vulnerable again.
And the girl who had stolen Lily’s life had grown up, changed her face, changed her name, and walked down the aisle to become my wife.
"It was you," I whispered. The words weren't loud, but they carried the weight of a lead coffin.
Clara Higgins lay on the floor, her eyes staring blankly at the marble. The hysterical tears had suddenly stopped. The helpless, trembling socialite act vanished.
A chilling, grotesque smile slowly crept across her face.
She pushed herself up off the floor, brushing the wet mud from her thousand-dollar gown with slow, deliberate movements. She tossed her head back, shaking the diamond-crusted veil away from her face. When she looked at me, there was no fear left in her eyes. There was only the dead, black, calculating gaze of a monster.
"You really are a pathetic family of peasants, aren't you?" she spoke. Her voice was completely different now—harsh, raspy, laced with the gutter-born malice of the Chicago slums.
The guests audibly gasped.
"Clara..." I breathed, my fists clenching so hard my fingernails broke through the skin of my palms.
"Oh, cry me a river, Julian!" she sneered, stepping closer, completely ignoring the horrified stares of the elites around us. "You think you're special because you coded some stupid algorithm and made a few million dollars? You think you're better than me?!"
She turned and spit a mouthful of blood and saliva onto the pristine white runner.
"I was sixteen years old!" she hissed. "My father was an abusive drunk who pimped me out for drug money! I needed out! I heard your stupid, self-righteous father bragging at the local diner about the cash he had hidden in his basement safe for his dying brat! Why should she get to live in some fancy private hospital while I was starving in a rat-infested basement?!"
*SLAP!*
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
It wasn't me who struck her. It was my mother.
Eleanor, despite her broken ribs, despite her bleeding feet, had stepped forward with the fury of a grieving mother and struck Clara across the face with everything she had left.
The force spun Clara around, stumbling into the ruined champagne table.
"Do not speak my daughter's name with your filthy mouth," Eleanor said, her voice shaking with righteous, absolute authority.
Clara wiped the trickle of blood from her lip, glaring at my mother with pure hatred. "Hit me all you want, you miserable old crone! You're too late! You think you won today? Look at the clock!"
She pointed a manicured finger toward the antique grandfather clock in the corner of the ballroom.
It was 2:15 PM.
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"You're too late, Julian," Clara laughed, a manic, hysterical sound that sent shivers down the spines of everyone in the room. "The wedding ceremony was just a formality for the public! The legal documents—the marriage license and the joint asset agreement—we signed them this morning in the VIP lounge with the city registrar! Legally, we are already husband and wife!"
***
