Chapter 8 - The Confrontation on the Lake
Richard stepped in front of Joan and Betty, his hands raised empty. "Thomas, look at yourself. We’re brothers. Our mother didn't raise you to be a murderer."
"Our mother loved you more!" Thomas screamed, his hands shaking on the rifle. "Everything went to Richard! The company, the legacy, the family! I was always the spare! Victor Vance promised me fifty percent of the new energy conglomerate. I’m taking what’s mine!"
The helicopter was getting closer, its searchlight sweeping through the trees, cutting through the darkness like a giant, predatory eye.
"The patent codes are encrypted with my biometric data, Thomas," Richard said calmly, trying to draw his brother's attention away from Joan and Betty. "Even if you kill me, you get nothing. The system locks down permanently if my heart stops."
Thomas hesitated, his confidence wavering. That split second of hesitation was all Joan needed.
Drawing on her years of working high-stress shifts where balance and timing were everything, she grabbed a heavy, jagged piece of fallen pine wood from the ground and hurled it with perfect accuracy at Thomas's face.
The wood struck him square in the eye. Thomas shrieked in pain, his rifle firing blindly into the air.
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Richard lunged forward, tackling his brother into the cold, shallow water of the lake shore. They fought violently, but Richard’s strength, fueled by the desire to protect his daughter and the woman who had twice saved them, prevailed. He knocked the rifle away and delivered a decisive blow that left Thomas unconscious in the mud.
"The boat house, now!" Richard yelled, grabbing Thomas's discarded rifle.
