Chapter 8
The distant, rising wail of ambulance sirens began to cut through the quiet suburban neighborhood, growing louder with every passing second. The cinematic, bright afternoon light streaming through the windows illuminated the sweat on Jonas’s forehead. He was trapped, utterly paralyzed by his own cowardice and the overwhelming presence of the two military men.
"I panicked, Warren," Jonas pleaded, his hands trembling as he held them out in a pathetic gesture of surrender. "You have to understand, my dad has a temper! If I had tried to stop him, he would have turned on me next! I was just trying to de-escalate the situation!"
"De-escalate," Warren repeated, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. He stood up slowly from Maeve’s side, letting Sergeant Pierce take over monitoring her pulse. Warren walked across the kitchen, stopping mere inches from his son-in-law.
"You allowed a two-hundred-pound man to punch your thirty-eight-week pregnant wife in the stomach," Warren said, his voice dangerously quiet. "You call that de-escalation? I call it complicity."
"We just needed the money!" Pamela cried out from the wall, tears ruining her makeup. Her pearl earrings trembled as she sobbed. "The trust fund has two million dollars in it! Maeve’s grandmother didn't even like her! It should have gone to Jonas! We were just trying to secure our family's future!"
"By murdering my grandson?" Warren asked, turning his icy glare onto Pamela.
"It was an accident!" Rex yelled from the floor, struggling against the boot Sergeant Pierce kept firmly planted on his chest. "I just wanted to scare her into signing the papers! I didn't mean to hit her that hard!"
"The camera will tell the jury exactly how hard you hit her," Warren replied, pointing to the blinking evidence bag resting on the center island. "It will show the premeditation. It will show the assault. And it will show the three of you attempting to cover it up while my daughter bled on the floor."
Jonas slid slowly down the front of the refrigerator until he hit the floor, burying his face in his hands. He wept loudly, a pathetic, selfish sound that elicited zero sympathy from anyone in the room.
"I'm ruined," Jonas sobbed. "My business, my life... everything is gone."
"Your life is the least of your concerns, Jonas," Warren whispered, leaning down so only his son-in-law could hear. "If my daughter loses that baby today, the police are going to be the only thing protecting you from me. And they cannot protect you forever."
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The heavy, flashing red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles suddenly washed over the front windows, casting erratic, frantic colors across the pristine kitchen walls. Heavy footsteps pounded up the front porch.
"In here!" Sergeant Pierce shouted toward the hallway. "We have a critical trauma patient! Move, move, move!"
