Chapter 3 - The Iron and the Foyer**
Time seemed to fracture into excruciating slow motion. I barely had time to process the lethal intent blazing in Agnes's eyes before she reared back and hurled the heavy cast-iron skillet directly at my head.
I twisted my body sideways, biting back a scream as the violent motion ripped violently across my fresh internal stitches. The heavy iron pan smashed with deafening force into the wooden doorframe right beside my ear, showering the hallway with splinters before clattering loudly onto the hardwood floor.
Chloe shrieked in mock terror, instantly leaping to her feet and shouting, "Look what you made her do! You're trying to break our things!"
Agnes pointed a trembling, accusatory finger at me as though I were the violent aggressor. "Get out of my house right now, you ungrateful parasite, or I swear I'll have Leo throw you onto the street with nothing!"
Before I could summon the breath to answer, a cold, deep, terrifyingly unfamiliar voice echoed from the dark, unlit shadows of the front foyer directly behind me.
"Agnes."
Every single drop of color instantly vanished from my mother-in-law's face. The triumphant sneer froze on her lips, melting into an expression of sheer, unadulterated terror. Chloe dropped her phone, the plastic device shattering against the floorboards as her jaw dropped slack.
Stepping out from the deep shadows of the hallway was not Leo.
It was Leo’s older brother, Marcus Marche—a man whose existence Agnes and Chloe had spent years systematically erasing from polite society. Marcus was a billionaire venture capitalist and corporate restructuring titan based in New York, a man who possessed a reputation so ruthlessly efficient that corporate boards trembled at the mere mention of his name. He was estranged from Leo and Agnes because, years ago, he had uncovered the exact toxic, narcissistic financial extortion that Agnes was currently inflicting on our household.
Marcus wore an impeccably tailored charcoal suit, his broad shoulders filling the narrow hallway. His cold, piercing gray eyes—the exact same eyes Leo had, but hardened by unyielding granite—locked onto Agnes with a look that promised absolute annihilation.
"Marcus..." Agnes stammered, taking an involuntary step backward, her hands fluttering helplessly near her chest. "W-what are you doing here? How did you—"
"I flew in from New York on your son's private corporate jet, Agnes," Marcus interrupted, his voice frighteningly calm, dropping like blocks of ice onto the hardwood. "And I have spent the last twenty minutes standing in the dark, listening to every single word, watching you scream at a woman who was discharged from emergency abdominal surgery forty-eight hours ago... and watching you throw a lethal weapon directly at her head."
Chloe began to hyperventilate, pressing her back against the living room sofa. "M-Marcus, she started it! She wouldn't cook for us! She's lying—"
"Shut your mouth, Chloe," Marcus snapped, his voice cracking like a whip.
He stepped past me, his large hand gently resting on my shoulder to steady me, checking my pale face with an expression of deep, fierce concern. "Are you alright, sister?" he asked softly, using a term of endearment he had reserved for me since the day I married into this chaotic family.
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"I'm... I'm getting my bags, Marcus," I whispered, tears finally spilling over my lashes.
"Take your time," Marcus replied gently, before turning back toward the two women who had terrorized me for years. "Because by the time you walk down those stairs, everything these two parasites think they own is going to belong to history."
