Marcus: "A lie? You made me attend a fake funeral?! You made me mourn a man who was alive in our basement wall?!"
Sarah: "You don't understand the pressure we were under! The family business... the offshore accounts... everything was collapsing!"
Elderly Man: "Sarah... water... please..."
Marcus hesitated for a second before grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen counter and tossing it to the old man, who drank eagerly, his hands trembling violently.
Marcus: "Explain this to me right now, Sarah, or I swear to God I am calling the federal marshals this second!"
Sarah: "My father was the chief financial officer for a firm that handled trust funds and life insurance settlements. Eight years ago, his partners tried to frame him for a fifty-million-dollar embezzlement scheme."
Marcus: "So he faked his death?!"
Sarah: "They were going to kill him, Marcus! They had hitmen looking for him! We built this house six years ago specifically with this hidden panic room behind the living room wall!"
Marcus: "And you kept him living like an animal inside our drywall while we raised our daughter right next to him?!"
Sarah: "He wasn't supposed to stay this long! The legal appeals took years... his defense lawyer was working in secret to clear his name!"
Elderly Man: "The lawyer... Sarah... he stopped responding three weeks ago. That's why I started hitting the wall. I ran out of supplies..."
Marcus: "Stopped responding? Why would his lawyer stop responding?"
Sarah's phone on the glass coffee table suddenly vibrated loudly, illuminating the dark screen with an incoming call from an unknown private number.
Sarah: "Oh God... don't pick that up, Marcus!"
Marcus grabbed the phone before Sarah could reach it and swiped the screen to answer.
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