The Madness
Tony was livid. “I distinctly told him not to come here. And he was in your bedroom?”
bedroomHe’d called me from my study to his right after he got home, shortly after tea. “He was, Tony. But ... it wasn’t that. What he told me was even worse.” I sat in front of his desk and related the conversation, and Tony looked as horrified as I felt. “He said the doctors told him he might die. How sick is he?”
“I don’t know. He’s never said a word about it.”
“The way he spoke ... I fear he’s gone mad, Tony. I really do.”
“My father’s not mad,” he snapped. “He knows exactly what he’s doing.” He stormed out.
Acevedo began to cry in the distance, and I returned to my study, feeling caught in the midst of a nightmare. A man driven to insanity by a s******c fiend, then betrayed by his ru
