Take him down
1172 Words
The moment cracked like thunder.
The matriarch’s hands slammed down on the table. The wood screamed beneath her fists as she stood, furious. The entire room flinched.
“You dare speak that name in my presence?!” Her voice was a beast. Even her loyal servants quivered under its weight.
“Daniel!” I shouted again, stepping forward. “Daniel Grayson! Your grandson! My friend! Tell me how the hell he died!”
Gasps shot through the air like bullets. People backed away. Women grabbed pearls. A man dropped his wine glass, and it shattered against the marble.
The matriarch’s voice returned, soaked in venomous sarcasm. “How dare a brat from House Caelum barge into my house like a rabid dog? Do you think I can’t touch your precious father, Nathaniel? Do you believe your name gives you immunity here?”
She snapped her fingers and pointed.
“Luther! Call that fool, Aldric Caelum! Tell him if he doesn’t appear here in ten minutes, his upcoming birthday banquet will become his funeral!”
A heavy silence descended again. Everyone watched Luther reach for his phone.
Reynold’s boot scraped against the floor as he stepped forward, his broad frame cutting through the room’s tense silence. His voice was thunder wrapped in fury.
“You shouldn’t bring Lord Aldric into this,” Reynold growled at the old woman. “Touching him would mean setting your entire lineage ablaze—”
“Reynold,” I said sharply, without even turning.
He paused. His breath caught. “I’m sorry,” he muttered and stepped back behind me, his hands clenched at his sides, the urge to destroy still boiling just beneath his skin.
I turned my eyes back to the old woman—Grayson’s iron queen.
Her lips curved into a bitter smile, the skin on her face tight with disdain. “If you wanted to keep a secret, Nathaniel, you shouldn’t have come waving your outrage like a torch in the wind,” she said coldly.
“I didn’t come to reveal secrets,” I replied, voice calm but cutting. “I came for truth.”
I stepped forward, closer to the head of the table, closer to her.
“Daniel Grayson…” I said his name like a vow, “was my brother. And his death a year ago? Inexplicable. Just written off like a footnote in your golden book.”
The murmurs returned, soft at first, then rippling like waves crashing into stone.
“All I want…” I continued, my eyes locked on hers, “is justice. If he truly committed suicide, then I’ll leave without a single word. But—” I swept my eyes across the room, feeling the weight of their breath hitch, “—if I find even a whisper of foul play, even a speck of rot beneath the surface—then this entire household will be wiped out.”
Gasps exploded like firecrackers. Several people stood unconsciously. The air changed.
The matriarch's face darkened. “So audacious…” she whispered, shaking her head. Then louder, “Fine.”
She placed both hands on the table. “If it’s death you seek, then let my family be buried with you. Let’s see if you’ve got the fangs to make good on your threats.”
She stood up straight, her eyes like blades. “I doubt you have the ability, Nathaniel.”
I didn’t flinch. I walked forward, step by step.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?!” Luther barked, but I didn’t look at him.
I stopped right in front of her. Close enough to smell the perfume on her robes. Close enough to see the tiny tremble in her fingers.
For a moment, the entire hall felt like it stopped breathing.
“She’s trembling…” someone whispered.
“Is the matriarch… scared?” another gasped, stunned.
“He’s just a bastard orphan… How could she—?”
Their voices were low, but not low enough.
The old woman’s eyes snapped to them, hearing it all.
And then she smiled… cold, venomous.
“So you’re the beast they say crawled back from the ashes…” she said. “I heard your adoptive father’s fiftieth birthday is around the corner.”
I tilted my head.
“I wonder,” she sneered. “Wouldn’t it be a lovely gift if I sent him your head wrapped in satin?”
I gave her a cruel smile, one that carried no amusement—just the sharpness of a blade eager to taste flesh.
“Make sure it’s velvet,” I said softly. “So it doesn’t soak too fast when the blood starts dripping.”
The room dropped into silence again.
The old woman’s expression sharpened as her wrinkled hands came together in a slow, deliberate clap.
Clap… clap… clap…
The echo bounced off the ancient walls like a warning bell. Then the front doors creaked open.
Boots, heavy and precise, struck the floor in slow rhythm. A man stepped in.
He looked to be in his fifties—tall, lean, but with a stillness that was more terrifying than any wild beast. His face was carved in stone, it was emotionless. Every part of him looked.... Lethal.
The temperature in the room dropped.
Luther’s eyes widened. So did Isabelle’s. A few of the other Graysons shifted uncomfortably in their seats, their confident masks slipping for a split second.
Someone on the far end of the table whispered, “What the hell is he doing here?”
Another muttered, barely hiding their tremble, “It’s going to get bloody now…”
Reynold leaned closer to me. “That’s Kieran Raze,” he said. “They call him the Widowmaker. Works like a mercenary for the Graysons. And rumor has it... he’s never failed a single assignment.”
I didn’t respond. I just watched the man—Kieran—make his way silently to stand beside the matriarch. The floor didn’t even seem to protest under his boots.
The old woman turned toward him with a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “Mr. Kieran,” she said softly, “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
Kieran dipped his chin once. “It’s no disturbance,” he said. “The usual price is twenty million,” he added.
Gasps swept the room like wildfire.
“Twenty million?” someone choked.
“For one person?” another exclaimed in disbelief.
Even the servants near the door stopped breathing.
Reynold shifted slightly, murmuring beside me, “He’s rumored to be deadly, Nathaniel. They say he once wiped out an entire village to catch a single target.”
The matriarch glanced at me with a smirk, then looked back at Kieran.
“Money,” she said with sarcasm dripping like venom, “has never been my problem.”
Her smile widened.
“If you can chop off that arrogant head of Nathaniel Caelum and bring it to me on a silver platter... then the twenty million is yours.”
- Writer
