🎬 PART 2: The Answer In The Dark
Lucas forced himself to suppress the sheer terror. He realized that if he caused a scene now, the conspirators in the room would eliminate the evidence. Faking a panic attack from grief, he managed to delay the procession, forcing his mother to move him to a resting room in the back.
At midnight, when the funeral home grew quiet and the guards dozed off from exhaustion, Lucas slipped out. Armed with a small crowbar from the maintenance closet, his hands shook as he pried open the nails on the casket one by one.
Crack! The wooden lid popped open. Lucas nearly dropped the iron tool at the sight inside.
His father, Arthur, was lying there. His eyes were bloodshot and wide with oxygen deprivation, his mouth sealed by three layers of black duct tape, and his limbs chained beneath his burial shroud. Lucas frantically tore the tape off. Arthur coughed violently, wheezing in a raspy voice: "Run... Lucas... This isn't my funeral..."
Before Lucas could process the words, a shadow stepped out from the darkness, flicking on the overhead lights of the hall. It was Victoria and Thomas, who was holding a syringe filled with an amber liquid.
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Victoria looked at her son, her eyes stripped of the morning's panic, leaving only a terrifying coldness: "I warned you, Lucas. Your real father passed away three days ago in his office. The man lying in that casket... is an impostor who underwent plastic surgery to steal our entire family fortune. And I am simply helping you take it back."
Lucas froze, looking at the crying man in the casket vigorously shaking his head, and then at his own mother. Who was the one telling the truth?
