PART 9 — THE CONFRONTATION IN THE HALLWAY
The intruders stopped for a moment in the doorway, their silhouettes standing out sharply against the bright light of the jeep outside. The smell of rain, wet asphalt, and smoke hung in the air.
Lucas stepped forward into the narrow hallway, shoulders broad, his gaze intrepid despite the obvious danger.
"Who are you? What do you want here?" Lucas asked in an ice-cold, controlled voice.
The front man—a broad figure with a scar running from under his hood down to his jawline—laughed darkly. It sounded more like a wheezing noise than genuine mirth.
"Well, look at that," the man said in a rough voice. "The prodigal son has returned. We thought you were somewhere abroad, Lucas. But I guess you couldn't resist returning to your old man's nest."
My heart skipped a beat. They knew Lucas. They knew who he was.
"You don't need to play games anymore," Lucas continued without yielding even an inch. "My father is deathly ill in bed. Your extortion is decades old. Why are you still here now?"
The scar-faced man stepped into the hallway, making the small space feel even narrower and more suffocating. His boots left muddy tracks on the wooden floor. He smiled disdainfully.
"Thirty years ago, your father thought he could outsmart us by faking your death and sending you away," the man said, slowly removing his gloves. "But debts don't expire, kid. And papers... evidence your father kept in a safe about our transactions... we still need that."
From the bedroom we heard a weak cry from Willem. The scar-faced man glanced toward the bedroom door and raised his eyebrows.
"Ah, the old man is still alive? How convenient. Then we can discuss right away where he hid the final archive."
Before the man could move further, I did something no one expected. I grabbed a heavy brass candelabra on the hallway table and held it in front of me with both hands.
"You're not coming in here!" I shouted with a voice trembling with anger and fear. "If you take another step, I'll bash your skull in!"
The man looked at me, laughed loudly, and slowly pulled something out of his coat pocket. A metallic object that gleamed ominously in the dim light.
"My dear lady," he said in a falsely friendly tone. "You've been living in a dream for the last thirty years. Let's bring that dream to an abrupt end right now."
