Chapter 5 - Point Blank
"Dad, NO!" I shrieked, throwing myself out of the chair.
Julian reacted on instinct, lunging forward to tackle Arthur just as a deafening shot echoed through the living room.
The bullet shattered the glass of the French doors behind Eleanor, sending a shower of sharp crystals cascading across the hardwood floor. Eleanor screamed, scrambling backward into the dining room, while Julian and Arthur tumbled to the carpet, wrestling for control of the gun.
"You ruined my life, you crazy bitch!" Arthur roared, his face contorted in rage as he tried to aim the barrel toward Eleanor. "I gave you everything! A house, money, my name!"
"You killed my brother!" Eleanor screamed back, clutching a brass candleholder from the sideboard.
"Julian, get the gun!" I yelled, looking around frantically for something to use as a weapon. Upstairs, I could hear Chloe screaming in terror, accompanied by Maya’s anxious shouts as she tried to keep my daughter in the bedroom.
Julian slammed Arthur's wrist against the hard oak coffee table. The revolver clattered across the floor, spinning toward the entryway.
Arthur kicked Julian squarely in the chest, knocking him backward, and scrambled toward the gun on his hands and knees. Seeing that he was closer, Eleanor rushed forward and brought the heavy brass candleholder down onto Arthur's shoulder with all her strength.
Arthur grunted in pain, collapsing sideways, but his hand closed around the grip of the revolver. He rolled onto his back, pointing the gun straight at Eleanor's chest.
"Goodbye, Eleanor," Arthur snarled, his finger tightening on the trigger.
BANG.
A second shot echoed through the house.
For a second, time stopped. I covered my mouth, waiting to see Eleanor fall. But it wasn't Eleanor who stumbled.
Arthur gasped, his eyes widening in shock as a dark stain spread across his right shoulder. The revolver slipped from his fingers, clattering uselessly onto the rug.
Behind him stood Julian, holding a heavy glass whiskey decanter he had grabbed from the bar cart, his arm still raised. He hadn't shot Arthur—he had struck him so hard in the shoulder muscle that Arthur's own finger had pulled the trigger prematurely, sending the bullet harmlessly into the ceiling plaster.
Julian kicked the gun away, pushing it under the sofa, and dropped onto Arthur's chest, pinning his arms to the floor.
"It's over, Arthur!" Julian panted, his chest heaving. "It's over!"
Sirens began to wail in the distance—the neighbours had undoubtedly called the police after hearing the gunshots.
Arthur lay on the floor, bleeding and sobbing, the pathetic remnants of a man who had traded his soul for greed. Eleanor slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she looked at the shattered glass and the blood on her husband's suit.
I stood in the center of the room, looking at the three people who had constructed a fortress of lies around my life. The illusion was completely gone.
"Clara..." Julian choked out, looking up at me with eyes full of desperate entreaty. "Please... I did it to protect you..."
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I looked down at him, my heart feeling as heavy as lead, yet strangely clear for the first time in years. "You didn't protect me, Julian. You trapped me."
I turned my back on them and walked up the stairs, leaving the wreckage behind me, to hold my daughter.
