Chapter 66 - Echoes of Thanksgiving
We boarded the platform through the rusted maintenance ladders hanging beneath the primary flare deck. The wind screamed through the steel girders, masking the quiet pop of our suppressed weapons as Marcus and I dismantled the outer patrol sentries.
The interior corridors were narrow, reeking of diesel fuel, salt water, and hydraulic fluid. There were no polished marble floors or velvet-lined elevators here. This was the raw, unadorned machinery of extortion.
As we reached the secondary communications node, the computer terminals lining the walls suddenly hummed to life. The overhead speakers crackled with static, followed by the smooth, mechanical playback of an archival audio file.
*"Emily lacks the Sterling instinct,"* my father’s recorded voice echoed down the iron corridor, preserved from an old conference line recorded ten years prior. *"She feels too much. She thinks loyalty is earned through kindness. Eleanor, you need to break her early. If she doesn't learn how to bleed without crying, the Board will devour her before her twentieth birthday."*
*"I'm handling it, Arthur,"* Eleanor’s voice replied through the speakers, chillingly detached. *"A girl who thinks she is unloved will work twice as hard for a single scrap of approval. Keep her isolated. Keep her insecure. She will become our greatest financial asset."*
Marcus glanced at me, his eyes full of unspoken rage. "Emily..."
"Keep moving," I said, my voice steady, though my stomach turned to acid.
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They hadn't just neglected me; they had engineered me. Every cold shoulder, every cutting remark, every time Arthur backhanded me across the kitchen while Eleanor turned up the television—it was a calculated conditioning regimen designed to forge a tireless, uncomplaining mule to carry their dark empire on her back.
They wanted a weapon that wouldn't fight back. They just made the mistake of teaching me how to survive anything.
