The door hadn't even clicked shut behind Kyle before the mask Alisha called a face began to rot. She turned on Lucius, her "motherly" grief leaking out like pus from an old wound—calculated, slimy, and as hollow as the diamonds choking her throat.
"How could you?" she hissed, the sound a jagged scrape against the silence. "He is your blood, Lucius. Your heir. You threw him into the dirt like a stray dog! Bring him back. Now, before this madness ruins us."
Lucius didn't flinch. He stood there like a tombstone—cold, heavy, and smelling of stagnant air. He wasn't seeing his wife; he was looking at a corpse that had forgotten to stop talking.
"Did you do it?" The question wasn't a shout. It was a flat, dead thud on the floor.
Alisha's breath hitched—a micro-second of guilt before her predatory instincts kicked back in. "What? Lucius, don't be a fool. Our son is throwing his life away, and you're—"
