Chapter 9 - Caught in the Crossfire
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Julian grabbed his car keys off the hallway console table with trembling fingers.
“I don't have to stand here and be interrogated by you,” Julian sneered, glaring at my father. “Audrey, if you walk out that door with him today, don't bother coming back.”
“I have no intention of ever coming back,” I replied calmly.
Julian sneered, pulled open the heavy front door, and slammed it behind him with enough force to rattle the glass panels. Seconds later, the sound of his car tires screeching against the pavement echoed through the quiet neighborhood as he sped away.
Inside the living room, a heavy, exhausted silence descended upon us.
The expensive wine bottle sat abandoned on the sideboard. The pastry box remained unopened on the table. The grand lunch Eleanor had envisioned had transformed into the wreckage of her son’s ruin.
Eleanor sank slowly into the nearest armchair, burying her face in her hands.
“I didn't know,” she sobbed softly. “Audrey, I swear to you on my life... I had no idea he put his hands on you. I thought... I thought you two were just having financial disagreements.”
I stood near my father, watching her. The intense anger I had carried against Eleanor for months didn't instantly disappear, but seeing her crumpled in that chair, stripped of her pretentious aura, made the situation far more complex.
“You pushed me to sign over my deed, Eleanor,” I reminded her quietly. “You called me selfish when I hesitated.”
“Because he told me you were holding back out of malice!” she cried, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “He manipulated me just as much as he manipulated you!”
Dad looked down at Eleanor, his expression stern yet strangely compassionate.
“Julian learned those tricks somewhere, Eleanor,” Dad said quietly. “And we both know where he learned them.”
Eleanor went entirely still. She raised her head and stared at my father.
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“What are you saying, Tom?”
“I’m saying,” Dad replied, closing his briefcase with a loud snap, “that it’s time Audrey learned why you and I recognized the name Westbridge thirty years ago.”
