Chapter 4 - The Patriarch's Sentence
Julian stood up from the marble floor with excruciating slowness, towering over his wife like a judgment from above. The low-angle perspective made his broad-shouldered frame appear immense, blocking out the light of the grand chandelier, casting Victoria completely in his shadow.
Victoria remained on her knees, her white gown spread out on the dark tiles like a broken wing. Her face had drained of all color. The smug, manipulative confidence she had cultivated for two years as the mistress of Ravencrest Estate evaporated into thin air under the weight of Julian’s glare.
Julian clenched his jaw, his facial muscles tight as steel cables. His teeth ground together with a sound like crushing gravel. His eyes, veined with red lines of pure fury, bored into her soul.
"You dare..." Julian growled, his deep, baritone voice reverberating off the marble walls like a subterranean tremor. "...to lay a hand on my son?"
Victoria backed away on her hands and knees, her white dress dragging through the dust near the doorway. "Julian... please... listen to me! I'm your wife! You can't believe a servant over me!"
"Martha has served my family for thirty years," Julian hissed, stepping forward. His heavy leather shoe landed with a booming CRACK on the black tile right in front of her face. "She raised me in this house. She wiped my mother's blood from this floor when she died. You are a stranger I brought into my home two years ago."
"I love you, Julian!" Victoria cried, her voice cracking into a desperate, theatrical sob as she reached out to grab his trouser leg. "I love our family!"
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Julian looked down at her fingers touching his leg as if she were a venomous insect. He didn't kick her; he simply pulled his leg back, letting her hand drop uselessly onto the stone floor.
"Get up," Julian said flatly. "Get up before I forget who you are."
