"Did you touch her?!" Daniel roared, his voice bouncing off the marble walls like gunfire.
Standing ten feet away was Arthur Montgomery.
At sixty-nine, Arthur was the patriarch of the family—a silver-haired gentleman dressed in a green tweed jacket, beige trousers, and a silk tie. He held both hands up in an open, non-threatening gesture, his gold-rimmed reading glasses trembling on the bridge of his nose.
"She's lying, Daniel!" Arthur pleaded, his voice raspy and desperate. "I didn't touch her! Listen to me—"
Before Arthur could finish his sentence, Daniel stepped forward and struck him across the face with a heavy right hook.
The impact echoed sharply through the corridor. Arthur went flying backward, his leather shoes slipping across the polished marble. He crashed heavily onto the floor, his tweed jacket sliding across the tile as he hit the ground with a sickening thud.
From the far end of the hallway, Eleanor Montgomery—Daniel’s mother—gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as she ran forward. "Daniel! Stop!"