Dirty dice
The memory came back to Ethan in fragments — the way most nights did when too much alcohol was involved.
The burn of whiskey sliding down his throat. The pounding bass of the club. The man’s smirk.
And then… the rage.
Ethan remembered his fist connecting with bone — again, and again, until his knuckles split. By the time someone pulled him off, the man was crumpled on the floor, barely breathing. Blood pooled beneath his cheek. Later, Ethan would learn he’d been intubated in the hospital, his jaw shattered in two places.
Now, he sat slumped on the edge of the leather sofa in the family’s private lounge, the ice pack on his hand melting into a slow, irritating drip. His head throbbed with a hangover already beginning to set in.
“You are going to destroy us.”
His mother’s voice was low but shaking with fury. Enid Chambers stood in front of him, arms crossed, every inch of her immaculate frame trembling. Her dark hair was swept into its usual perfect chignon, makeup untouched even at this hour. She looked as if she had stepped out of a magazine — except for the vein throbbing at her temple.
“I handled it,” Ethan muttered, keeping his gaze on the floor.
“You handled it?” Her tone snapped like glass breaking. “Do you know how many calls I’ve already had this morning? Board members. Clients. The press. Do you know what it will do to the company if you’re seen as a violent drunk?”
“It was one time,” he said, though they both knew it wasn’t.
“One time? Ethan, it’s every month lately. You drink, you lose control, you end up in the headlines or with someone threatening to sue. I cannot keep cleaning up after you.”
He pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, the bitterness in her voice cutting deeper than he wanted to admit. “So you’re worried about your reputation, not me.”
Enid’s eyes flashed. “Do not twist this. If you ruin our name, you ruin yourself. And I will not let you drag this family into the gutter because you can’t put down a bottle.”
Her voice cracked on the last word. She wasn’t crying — Enid Chambers didn’t cry — but there was a desperate edge there, the kind that came from a lifetime of holding up an image she couldn’t afford to let slip.
“Please, Ethan,” she said finally, softer now. “Stop drinking before you destroy everything.”
For a moment, he almost promised her he would. Almost. But the truth was, the drink was the only thing that quieted the noise in his head — the expectations, the comparisons, the weight of the Chamber name.
And so he just leaned back, pressed the melting ice harder against his knuckles, and looked away.
The backyard no longer looked like a celebration. Yellow lights still glowed over the tables, but now they illuminated pale, shocked faces. Guests whispered in tight clusters while uniformed officers moved with brisk efficiency, sectioning off the pool area with bright yellow tape.
Lucas stood near the patio, his drink long forgotten, watching two paramedics zip the butler’s body into a black bag. The sound of the zipper made his stomach churn.
Ethan emerged from the crowd, his suit jacket gone, shirt sleeves rolled up, hair damp as if he’d just washed his face. A police officer immediately intercepted him, notebook in hand. Lucas seized the moment and stepped closer.
“Where the hell were you?” Lucas demanded under his breath.
Ethan rubbed his temple as if the question itself was giving him a headache. “Bathroom,” he said flatly. “Freshening up.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes. “Convenient timing.”
“Don’t start,” Ethan muttered. But the edge in his voice was sharp, defensive.
From a few feet away, Enid Chambers watched her sons with the cool detachment of someone cataloguing every expression. But there was something else there — not concern, not outrage, but a flicker of… doubt. Her gaze lingered on Ethan longer than it should have, as though she were weighing something in her mind.
An officer approached another detective crouched beside the body. He held a clear evidence bag, inside of which was a sleek black fountain pen — its gold nib stained dark. The detective turned it in the light, examining the engraved initials along the barrel: E.C.
“It’s lodged deep in the carotid,” the officer said grimly. “No mistaking it — this is Ethan Chambers’ pen. His favourite pen, according to his staff.”
Lucas’s stomach twisted as his eyes darted from the pen… to his brother.
Ethan’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. The only sound was the faint ripple of water in the pool, now tinged with crimson.
The night unraveled quickly after that. Uniformed officers moved with sharp efficiency, snapping photos, collecting glassware, and dusting the pool railing for prints. Guests huddled in clusters, murmuring in hushed tones, their laughter from earlier now replaced with uneasy glances at the Chambers family.
One by one, the police ushered them aside to take statements. Ethan went first. He sat stiffly at a small table near the patio doors, answering questions with clipped precision. His jaw tightened each time the detective mentioned the pen. When they swabbed his hands for trace evidence, he didn’t flinch — but Lucas noticed his knuckles were white from how tightly he gripped the arms of his chair.
Adelyn was questioned next. Her voice was steady, almost gentle, as she described the evening — her presence beside Lucas in the kitchen, the sudden scream, the sight of the butler’s body in the water. She even placed a comforting hand on Lucas’s arm as she spoke, her eyes meeting his briefly before she looked away.
Enid Chambers was the last of the family to be interviewed. Her tone was polite but chilly, her gaze fixed somewhere over the detective’s shoulder. When asked about her son’s temperament, she said only, “Ethan is… passionate. Sometimes too much so.”
With the Chambers’ extensive social and political connections, the process was surprisingly swift. Fingerprints were taken from the immediate family, statements signed, and business cards handed out with instructions to “remain available for follow-up.”
By midnight, the backyard was empty except for the faint outlines of police tape fluttering in the breeze.
Because the estate was now a closed crime scene, the Chambers family had little choice but to relocate. Lucas’s house — a sleek, modern place less than ten minutes away — became their temporary refuge.
Lucas stood by the door as Ethan and Enid entered, the tension between them palpable. Adelyn followed behind, her eyes sweeping over the polished floors and tall windows.
“Not as grand as the family estate,” Lucas said lightly, “but it’s warm, and the wine cellar’s fully stocked.”
Adelyn’s lips curved — the smallest, most fleeting hint of a smile — before she turned toward the guest rooms.
Upstairs, doors closed, voices muted, but the night’s chaos lingered in the air. Somewhere in the quiet, the first subtle shift had begun.