A hand rummaged through the desk drawer of a very large, expensive antique oak desk. Julian knew he didn't have much time before his father returned and so he wanted to get in and out as soon as possible. It wasn't the first time he'd found himself hunting through Lorenzo's desk, looking for his cheque book. Julian did it frequently whenever he needed a quick sum of cash that Lorenzo wouldn't give to him. He felt a sense of entitlement to his father's money.
Finding what he was looking for he pulled it out of the drawer triumphantly. He took a seat in the wood, leather and studded office chair that didn't look to be too far removed from a throne. Grabbing a pen, Julian wrote out a cheque for cash, forging Lorenzo's signature for 20,000 dollars. More than that and he knew Lorenzo would question it. A little bit here and there, had seemed thus far to have gone unnoticed by his father.
"What are you doing?" A voice caused Julian's heart to jump into his throat. Standing there in the doorway to his office was his father.
Quickly closing the cheque book before Lorenzo saw it Julian stuttered at first trying to think of something quick to say that would explain why he was there. "Oh... I..I..I... was just balancing your cheque book.."
Julian stood up again watching the elder man walking over to the desk. Lorenzo reached for the cheque book only to have Julian step in the way of his arm knocking it offside.
"Grand dad? I gotta go.." A seventeen year old boy stuck his head around the corner of the door. He had a guitar slung over his shoulder in a carry case. "Ma wants me home for supper."
Lorenzo turned his face to look at Pax. "Alright Pax. I'll see you tomorrow."
Pax nodded. "Bye.." He'd already taken his first steps down the corridors when he called back. "Bye Uncle Julian." Minutes later a car door outside opened and shut and the old beat up Lincoln in the circular driveway started up.
"There goes a good boy." Lorenzo often regretted the way he'd given in to Julian's every greedy need for money, cars, anything else he wanted up until Julian had reached the age of twenty. Unlike Pax, Julian hadn't learned what it was like to not get everything he wanted until he was an adult. And although Lorenzo wanted to spoil Pax, his son and daughter in law, Pax's parents had other ideas how to bring up their son. Now, in hindsight Lorenzo realized that they'd been right all along. Pax's compassion for others and independence were treasured characteristics that Lorenzo unfortunately had never seen in his own eldest son, Julian.
"I sometimes wish I was harder on you growing up. Perhaps then, you would have learned the true value of money and working for it. Not just waiting for me to hand it to you when you thought you needed it." He'd sent Julian to all the best schools money could buy, and yet his no good dead beat son seemed to just be biding his time thinking that he didn't need to work because he was only a matter of a few years away from an inheritance that he'd never be able to spend in his entire lifetime. Julian didn't know it, but he was in for a shock upon Lorenzo's death.
The old man reached down picking up the cheque book and opened it. "You wouldn't try to steal it.." He finished glancing down at the cheque Julian had tried to forge in his name. "I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago." Lorenzo's voice was heavy with regret as his eyes lifted to fix on those of his greedy son. "Pack your bags Julian. I want you out of my house. It's about time you learned how to support yourself."
Julian's world seemed to come crashing down around him. "No. Pa, please...?" Julian didn't want to be cut off.
"GET OUT!" Lorenzo ordered turning his back on his son he was about to walk away when Julian reacted by snatching up a heavy paper weight on the desk and swinging it with all his might at the back of the old man's head.
"You won't cut me off you old bastard! I'll kill you before I let that happen!" He dropped to his knees where Lorenzo had fallen and hit him again, and again, and again and again until the back of Lorenzo's skull was caved in. Blood splattered everywhere, over the desk, walls, chair, polished floors, and all over Julian and his face. He didn't stop pounding until Lorenzo was barely even recognizable. Blood seeped through the wounds at the back of his head, through his mouth nose and ears onto the wooden floors. Julian didn't stop beating his father until long after he'd stopped moving all though the first couple of skull fractures would have been enough to kill him.
When he was finally tired he stopped, standing up and dropped the paper-weight to the floor beside Lorenzo's motionless body. He wiped the top of his head with the sleeve of his jacket only to have the blood smear across his brow. "See what you made me do you old fool!" He kicked Lorenzo in the ribs as a final act of defiance.
After disposing of the murder weapon, he took a shower, cleaned himself up then burned of his clothes in the incinerator before going back into Lorenzo's office and making a mess, pulling free drawers, files and anything else to make it look like a robbery had gone wrong before finally calling 911.
