Chapter 7 - Burning the Legacy
While the staff frantically packed their essential belongings, Daniel left Elena sitting safely in the armored SUV with the baby and two armed guards. He had one final, necessary task to complete before he abandoned the estate forever.
He walked back into the silent mansion, his footsteps echoing ominously on the marble floor. He bypassed the grand dining room and walked straight into the opulent formal parlor.
Above the massive, carved stone fireplace hung a towering, priceless oil portrait.
It was a painting of his mother and Marcus, commissioned five years ago during the absolute height of their corporate reign. The artist had captured them perfectly. They sat in high-backed velvet chairs, looking down their noses at the viewer. They looked arrogant, untouchable, and utterly hollow.
Daniel stared at the painting for a long, heavy moment. This was the legacy he had been groomed to inherit. This was the empire of blood and fraud that he had almost lost his entire family to.
He didn't feel a shred of sorrow or nostalgia. He only felt an absolute, clinical disgust.
Daniel walked over to the hearth and picked up a heavy, solid iron fire poker.
He didn't call the staff to carefully remove the art. He didn't cover it with a sheet.
With a roar of unadulterated, primal anger, Daniel swung the heavy iron poker like a baseball bat.
The iron smashed violently through the center of the canvas, tearing directly through the painted face of his mother. The expensive fabric ripped with a loud, satisfying, chaotic sound.
Daniel swung again, ripping the canvas diagonally, destroying Marcus's arrogant smirk.
He dropped the poker, grabbed the heavy gilded frame with both hands, and ripped the entire painting off the wall, bringing a shower of plaster and dust down onto the floor.
He dragged the ruined portrait through the parlor, out the French doors, and onto the massive stone patio overlooking the dark, manicured gardens.
He threw the broken frame and the shredded canvas directly into the large outdoor fire pit.
Daniel walked over to the outdoor bar, grabbed a bottle of extremely expensive, high-proof scotch, and poured the entire contents over the shredded painting.
He pulled a silver lighter from his pocket, struck the match against the stone, and tossed it into the pit.
The fumes caught instantly. A massive, bright orange fireball roared into the night sky, illuminating the patio with a harsh, flickering light.
Daniel stood completely still, watching the flames aggressively consume the oil paint, watching the faces of the people who had tried to murder his wife turn into bubbling, blackened ash.
"Burn,"
May you like
Daniel whispered to the fire.
He turned his back on the flames, walking out of the mansion for the very last time, leaving the ashes of the Hayes empire to blow away in the cold night wind.
