“I told you what your mother said.”
Marcus didn’t react right away. He just stared at me. Not blinking. Not breathing. “The old man chose our names.” His voice was quiet—flat—but I could already see the gears in his head turning.
Then, all at once, it was like something snapped.
“He picked our names,” he repeated, sharper this time. “He chose them, and then he highlighted them in the Red Will. He disinherited the family twenty years ago, and not long after that, he gave us our middle names.” Marcus began pacing the hallway, his movements quick, erratic—like an animal that suddenly realized the size of its cage.
“Julian’s twenty-eight. I’m twenty-six. Aaron turns twenty-four next month.” He stopped walking. “It lines up. All of it.”
I could feel him fighting for clarity, for control, t
