Chapter 4: The Sound of the Heartbeat
Beatrice stood up, her composure cracking, revealing the panicked animal beneath the tailored wool coat. "What have you done?" she spat, her voice trembling.
Julian pulled a small tablet from his jacket, tapping the screen. Suddenly, the massive wall-mounted television in the hall flickered to life. It didn't show news; it showed the feed from the cellar. It showed the coffin—the same lace dress, the same haunting scene. But then, a sound came through the speakers: a thud, then a muffled, rhythmic heartbeat. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The family turned white. The realization that their murder plot had been broadcast, that their victim was alive, and that they had been caught in the act began to ripple through them like a shockwave. Julian pressed the remote, and the doors to the estate groaned open, not for guests, but for the tactical team of law enforcement that had been waiting for the signal. "You wanted the estate?" Julian asked, his voice low, vibrating with the intensity of a man who had stared into the abyss and come back with a weapon. "You wanted my wife dead? You have ensured that you will never see the light of day as free people again." He looked at his brother, Marcus, who was now weeping in the corner, his ambition collapsed into the wreckage of his own cowardice. The two worlds—the world of heartless, inherited power and the world of brutal, unyielding justice—had finally collided.
