𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐃 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The phone rang close to midnight.

You almost didn’t answer. The world outside was already quiet—streetlights humming, the low buzz of a late summer night in L.A. pressing against the windows. When you finally picked up, the line crackled before he spoke.

“Can you come over?”

Lyle’s voice was thin. Controlled, but cracking underneath. There was no explanation, no follow-up—just the faint sound of him breathing through the receiver.

“Lyle?” you said softly, but he didn’t answer. The silence stretched so long you thought the line had gone dead—until you heard him whisper, almost to himself, “Please.”

You didn’t ask what happened. You already knew.

You pulled on the first sweater you could find and left without bothering to turn on the lights. The hallway smelled faintly of dust and old paint, and your shoes echoed off the tile. Outside, the streets were nearly empty. The hum of your car engine was the only sound as you drove through Beverly Hills—past manicured hedges, pale streetlamps, and homes that all looked the same: perfect from the outside, silent underneath.

Lyle had told you once that perfection was a kind of performance. That his father expected it, his mother mimed it, and he and Erik were caught in the middle—actors in a show they never auditioned for. You’d thought he was exaggerating back then. But the longer you knew him, the more you realized he wasn’t.

When you turned onto Elm Drive, every window of the Menendez house was dark except one—his. A thin rectangle of golden light spilled through the blinds, faint and steady.

The front door was unlocked.

You stepped in quietly, closing it behind you. The air smelled like polished wood and old money—cologne, whiskey, the faint burn of cigar smoke embedded in the walls. Somewhere down the hall, a grandfather clock ticked—slow, deliberate, too loud in the stillness.

You found him upstairs.

Lyle sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, head buried in his hands. The pale yellow lamp on his nightstand threw soft shadows across the room—trophies glinting, tennis racket leaning against the wall, the family photo facedown on the dresser.

You stopped in the doorway, watching him. His shirt was wrinkled, the collar pulled slightly to one side. There was a mark on his cheek—red, raised, unmistakable.

He didn’t look up. Didn’t need to. You could feel it in the air—the heat of anger still lingering, the aftershock of something that had gone too far.