MASSILO P.O.V
He didn't seem satisfied with the apology.He never would be.After they hauled her away,my father crossed the room with the slow,patient gait of a man who knows he's broken something and wants to watch how it fails.
He stopped in front of me and folded his hands as if we were about to play a harmless card game.The men eased back into a semi-circle,faces blank like gamblers waiting for the next hand.For a second,his expression was almost ordinary like a lecture about business or Sunday mass,then the ordinary cracked and something colder slid out.
"Where is she?" He asked,not my mother but the idea of her. "Where is she right now?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "You keep your hands on that chair and you do not move.I'm going to ask you three questions.You will answer each one fast within one minute.If you fail,if you lie,if you stall,there will be a consequence.One consequence per failure" He smiled then,and the smile was a thin blade.
I realized with a sick lurch what he meant by consequence when he turned his head toward the doorway where Sua had been dragged.One of the men pulled a small gun out of his waistband and rested it casually on the arm of a chair like it was a cigar.The metal glinted.My mouth went dry.
"You understand me?" Dad asked softly. "We play a game.You answer.Your choice."
The game started with an absurdly calm preface as if he were explaining rules at a family dinner. "Question one" He said. "Why is the company's sales rate decreasing?" He set his watch on the table between us,palms spread. "You have sixty seconds"
My brain fought through a fog of shock and rage and tried to reach for the part of me that knew business the part that had been in meetings,the part that had stayed late fixing spreadsheets.I could feel my father watching me like a hawk.
"It's…product quality" I said,words coming faster than I felt them. "And distribution.We pushed growth too fast without tightening QA.Returns and refunds spiked and our top sellers got delayed on shipments" I heard myself lay out the facts like a man offering a confession.Sixty seconds felt like a lifetime.Dad's eyes didn't soften,they only narrowed.He let a slow,approving hum escape.
"Question two" He didn't bother with a pause. "Where's Mrs Mason?" The name landed with an extra weight,it was precise and loaded.
I pictured my mother's pretty smile,the way she laid on her deathbed.I pictured her face in a dozen different lights and for a wild second all the memories scattered like glass.My throat closed.
"She's…" I said,keeping my voice steady. "Dead" It wasn't clean.I could feel the edges of the truth,but it was plausible.He tapped his watch once,then twice.He didn't laugh.He merely nodded as if the answer satisfied a curiosity rather than closing a wound.
"Question three" He leaned in as if this one mattered most. "What's the real identity of the new cook at the house?"
The room tightened.The men straightened imperceptibly.The seconds on his watch tracked off like a slowly cutting rope.I felt Sua's face flash behind my eyes,the way she'd looked on the floor,the apology like a torn thing in her mouth.I felt my father's approval like a tongue along a wound.
I knew what he wanted.I knew what the cook was in reality,a throb of ugly truth I'd kept at the back of my head and tried not to name.I knew and I also knew how the rest of this could play out if I said it.
I swallowed.My tongue felt like lead.
"Why don't you do a background check as usual,i know nothing about the new cook" I said finally.It wasn't the truth,but it was clean and small.I made my voice sound empty of fear,the way you do when you sell something worthless.
His face didn't change for a beat.Then it tightened,not with anger but with the slow,clinical disappointment of a man whose expectations have been confirmed.He looked at the men. "He lied" He said,almost lazily. "You lie for her"
Somewhere in the room,close and immediate,the sound of metal being cocked snapped like a verdict.I saw one of the men lift the gun.It was a small motion,discreet,practice.I lunged forward uselessly, but hands pinned my arms to my sides again.My shout was swallowed by the room.
The shot cut the air.It was not the gushing,grotesque thing I'd hoped I might never have to imagine,it was a clean,terrifying punctuation.Sua's scream,the one I'd heard before,ragged and raw,tore across the corridor and then she hit with a sound that made something inside me hollow out.Her body folded and slumped in a way that seemed to slow down,each motion a betrayal of hope.
They dragged her again after that,bearing her like an object that had been struck and discarded.My father watched as if he was closing the cover on a book he'd already read. "One shot" He said quietly as if instructing me on a math problem. "One failure.One truth at a time.Remember that, son.You have two more choices"
I was left with nothing but the ringing in my ears and the taste of iron at the back of my mouth.The floor under my knees felt unreal as if it belonged to someone else.I had answered two questions and lied on the third and in the space where my future had been there was only the echo of a gunshot and the absence of the person I loved.
He didn't let it rest.After that single shot,after the world had thinned to the echo of her cry,he looked at me the way a man looks at a clock he intends to break.
"Answer me" He said,slow and almost patient. "What is she to you? Who is that cook?" He tapped his watch the way a conductor taps a baton.
I stared at the spot where they'd thrown her,at the smear on the floor that was still too much like a person to be only an absence.My mouth was a desert.I could feel the truth like a hot coal in my chest,the cook wasn't some stranger,wasn't some convenient lie.The cook was Sua's sister.The detail sat there,simple and devastating,and I tasted it bitter on my tongue.
"I don't know" I said at first,because saying anything else felt like handing him the final shape of his victory.He asked the question again,the same words,the same watch,the same slow cruelty.The second time the room seemed to lean in,waiting for me to betray her and myself.
I kept my mouth shut.I couldn't give him that.To name her would be to give him a pistol aimed at another life.To name her would be to sign a page that would let him write whatever came next.The silence was a small, useless rebellion,and it shook me from the inside.
His face closed into something stricter,old and feral.He looked at the men and nodded,the motion casual as lighting a cigarette.They moved as if on a signal precisely and indifferent.I watched Sua's chest rise once more,a fragile, useless thing and then go slack.There was no theater,no long drawn-out cruelty this time,just one clean shot,the sound was like a hard punctuation and then the hush that followed was worse than any noise.
They didn't hide what they'd done.They dragged her back across the floor like a thing they were tired of.Dad's eyes bored into me as they set her down where she'd first fallen and for a moment I thought I might scream.Instead,my legs gave and I broke into a run before my brain could stop me.
"No" Someone barked,but the grip on my shoulder was gone.Dad watched me go with a quiet satisfaction that felt like glass under my feet.He let me pass through his men,let me cross the room to her body as if allowing me to see the consequence was another way to teach me.
I dropped to my knees beside her,hands fumbling at her collar,at the blood and the fabric,at any sign of life.There was none to find.Her face which was the face I loved,was still,features slack in a way that made my stomach fold in on itself.I cupped her cheek and it was colder than it should have been.The breath I wanted to give her came out as a soundless,broken thing.
Behind me,the men moved away.Dad's voice reached me then,soft and final. "Remember the game,son" He said. "Two more questions" But his words were meant for a different future,one that had already been smashed into pieces on that floor.I pressed my forehead to hers until my tears mixed with the dust and the awful,permanent stillness and the only thing I could think to ask the air was why.