Chapter 10 - The Ghost in the Woods
"Thomas?" Julian choked, the word barely making it out of his throat.
The man standing in the doorway was thin, weathered, and had a deep jagged scar running from his left temple down to his jawline. But the eyes—bright green, intense—were unmistakably Thomas Vance.
"Hey, little brother," Thomas said, his voice rough as gravel. He lowered the revolver slightly, leaning against the doorframe.
Julian stood up so fast his chair toppled backward. "You're dead. We buried you. I carried your casket!"
"You carried an empty box weighted with gravel, Julian," Thomas said, stepping into the cabin. "Margaret arranged the closed-casket funeral before you even arrived from college."
Evelyn didn't look shocked. She stood up slowly, her face pale. "Thomas... you weren't supposed to show yourself yet."
Julian looked wildly between his wife and his dead brother. "You knew? You knew he was alive?"
"I found him six months ago," Evelyn said, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "In a clinic across the border. He survived the crash, Julian. But he was in a coma for two years. When he woke up, Clara was dead."
Thomas walked over to the table, tossing the revolver onto the wood with a heavy thud. He looked at Julian with a mixture of pity and regret.
"Margaret sent Robert to finish me at the hospital four years ago," Thomas said quietly. "A nurse who used to work for our father smuggled me out into an unregistered ambulance. I’ve been hiding in Mexico, recovering, waiting for the right moment."
"Waiting for what?" Julian yelled, his voice breaking under the weight of sheer madness. "Why didn't you call me? Why didn't you tell me you were alive?!"
"Because you were her puppet, Julian!" Thomas snapped, his eyes flashing with sudden rage. "Every word you said went straight to her! If I contacted you, Robert would have come back with a bullet to finish the job!"
Julian stepped back, the betrayal cutting deeper than anything his mother had done. His brother thought he was an accomplice.
"I loved you, Thomas," Julian whispered. "I mourned you for four years. I broke down every single night in that damn mansion thinking about you."
Thomas’s expression softened, the anger draining from his face. "I know, Julian. Evelyn told me. She defended you every single time we met."
"Then why are you here now?" Julian asked, his voice trembling. "Margaret is in jail. Robert is locked up. It’s over."
"It’s not over," Thomas said, pulling a satellite phone from his jacket. "Margaret posted bail thirty minutes ago. Her high-priced legal team found a procedural error in Ross’s warrant."
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Julian froze. "She’s out?"
"She’s not just out," Thomas said, looking out the cabin window into the dense woods. "She knows about this place. And she’s coming to finish what she started."
