n octave of pure hysterics. "Victor, she just threatened your daughter's life!

lease! Call the police! Put her in an asylum before she st

ous, mottled purple. His patriarch's pride,

into my house, looking like a whore from the docks, and you threaten my family? I don't care whose daughter you are! You will get down on your

y warlords with kinetic cannons had screamed louder threats into her face b

ictor... does this loving family include the part where your precious younger daug

w dare you invent such filth

s streaming down her contoured cheeks. "I was

y tribunals, rhetoric was useles

ss. She pulled out a small, black plastic cylinder-the cheap digi

e made Julissa's breat

two fingers, clicked the play butto

living room, followed by the wet, agonized sc

ugh the tiny speaker, high-pitche

aid to ruin you on camera, then throw you in the river! Said nobody

ic

essed the

It was the heavy, suffocating silence

th hung slightly open, his eyes darting from th

d, shattering against the Persian rug. "N-No... Daddy, that's not... that's a

ur bank statements from four o'clock this afternoon? The five-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal from the Chase branch on 5th Av

h had been drawn from Julissa's personal allowance ca

mmered, frantically gripping her husband's ar

oared, violently sh

ll. For years, he had protected his younger daughter's perfect reputatio

urder, tied directly to street scum, sitting on a digital

to a terrifying, guttural rasp. "Did you

-" Julissa broke down, burying her face in her ha

f he might strike her, his jaw tremb

ulders lightly, her joints popping with a crisp click. Sh

oward the grand staircase. "Do try to keep the nois

ce apart-Victor's thunderous curses, Julissa's desperate wailing,

ck. Phase one of the r