It happened so fast that the sound registered before the image did.
There was a heavy, wet thud, followed by the lighter clatter of bone against stone. My father's head didn't roll; it just dropped, landing near the leg of the table. His body stood for a second longer before the knees buckled and the rest of him collapsed…into a heap of expensive fabric and dead weight.
I didn't scream. My throat felt like it had been packed with sawdust, and for a moment, I just stared at the rug. It was an antique Isfahan, something he'd spent months bidding on, and now I watched a dark, viscous stain spread across the intricate weave. My first coherent thought wasn't horror or grief. It was that the rug was ruined and we'd never get the stain out.
The room smelled different. Metallic. It cut right through the heavy scent of his cologne and the cedar logs in the fireplace.
"David."
The voice came from the other side of the room. It was normal. Terrifyingly normal.
I turned slowly. My legs felt heavy. Each step took effort. My mother was standing by the sideboard, her back to me. She was messing with the tea set, her movements efficient and practiced. The china clinked—a sharp, cheerful sound that had no business in a room with a headless body.
"Mom?" The word came out as a croak.
She turned around, holding a saucer. She looked tired—that was what struck me. Not manic, not triumphant. Just exhausted, like she'd finished a long shift. She glanced at the body on the floor with a flicker of distaste, the way one might look at a muddy pair of boots tracked through the hall, and then her eyes snapped to mine.
"Don't just stand there," she said, her voice steady. "You're pale. Sit down before you pass out and hit your head."
"You..." I couldn't finish the sentence. My brain couldn't bridge the gap between the woman offering me tea and the thing on the floor. "You killed him."
"I stopped him," she corrected. She set the tea down on the low table, careful not to look at the spreading pool of blood just a few feet away. "There's a difference."
She walked over to the window and adjusted the heavy velvet curtain, checking the driveway. "The cameras are on a loop. I sent the staff to the guest house for the night. I think they bought it. We have maybe twenty minutes before the shift change at the gate."
She wasn't speaking in riddles. She was speaking in logistics.
I sank onto the sofa because my knees finally gave up. I stared at her hands. They were clean. She must have worn gloves, or maybe she'd just been incredibly careful. The only sign that anything was wrong was a single, small smear of red on the cuff of her silk blouse.
"Why?" I whispered.
She paused, her hand still on the curtain. For a second, her mask slipped, and I saw something raw underneath—fear, maybe, or just years of accumulated resentment hardening into resolve.
"Because he was done with us, David. He was moving it all on Monday." She turned back to me, her face smoothing out again.
She picked up her cup and took a sip. It wasn't a power move. Her hand shook, just slightly. A tiny, human tremor that betrayed the adrenaline dumping into her system.
"We have work to do," she said, putting the cup down with a definitive click. "I need you to go into the study and open the safe. I'll handle the rest."
I looked at my father, or what was left of him, and then back at my mother. The silence in the house wasn't heavy or poetic. It was just there.
"Go," she said softy.
I stood up. And I went.