Chapter 6
Inside the grand estate, the heavy oak doors closing behind Bennett seemed to shatter the paralysis that had gripped the room.
"Silas! Oh my god, Silas!" Clara shrieked, her high heels crunching over the broken glass ornaments as she sprinted toward her brother. She grabbed the heavy pine branches of the fallen Christmas tree, her expensive jewelry snagging on the needles as she desperately tried to drag the massive evergreen off him.
Helen rushed forward, her hands shaking so violently she could barely grasp her son’s shoulder. Silas rolled onto his side, groaning in agony. His nose was visibly broken, swelling rapidly, and a thick flow of dark blood soaked the front of his tailored shirt. He spat a curse through crimson-stained teeth, clutching his face in agony.
"Call an ambulance!" Helen screamed at Clara, her usual pristine composure entirely eradicated. "Don't just stand there, call someone!"
Robert remained by his leather armchair, his chest heaving with furious breaths. His rosy face had deepened to an angry, mottled purple. He kicked a broken shard of the wooden rocking horse across the ivory carpet, his hands balling into tight fists.
"I’ll kill him," Robert snarled, his voice a low, gravelly vibration of pure hatred. "I will completely destroy him. He thinks he can walk into my house, eat my food, and assault my heir? I’ll have him arrested for battery before midnight, and by tomorrow morning, I’ll make sure he can’t even get a job scrubbing toilets in this city!"
Silas, leaning heavily against Clara as she dabbed his bleeding face with a linen napkin, let out a wet, mocking laugh that quickly turned into a wince of pain.
"He's a nobody, Dad," Silas gasped, coughing on his own blood. "He’s a twenty-six-year-old failure playing single father. He has nothing. No money, no power. Let the cops have him. He just threw his entire pathetic life away over a piece of garbage."
"He threatened us," Clara noted, her voice trembling as she looked at the heavy oak doors. The memory of Bennett’s icy eyes and devastatingly calm voice sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. "Did you hear what he said? Wait until tomorrow. What does he mean?"
"He means nothing!" Robert barked, cutting her off aggressively. "He’s an arrogant, disinherited punk trying to save face after throwing a temper tantrum. He has no leverage. He has no assets. We own the board, Clara. We own the company, the banks, the judges. He’s a gnat."
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Robert pulled his smartphone from his trousers, his thumb jabbing aggressively at the screen to dial his chief of security. "Tomorrow, Bennett finds out exactly what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you."
They were so secure in their wealth, so blinded by decades of absolute control, that none of them stopped to wonder why Bennett had been so calm. They simply could not fathom that the man they had relentlessly humiliated had not been living in their shadow at all. He had been quietly building the eclipse.
