2026-03-14 23:30:00The next morning, the factory was silent.
Not the silence of a break. The silence of death.I walked in at 7:00 AM, Sarah trailing behind me with her coffee cup."Why is it so quiet?" Sarah asked, looking around.I ran onto the floor.It was a disaster.Loom 4—the one I had nearly killed myself to fix—was smashed. Someone had taken a sledgehammer to the control panel. The gears were shattered. Oil was pooling on the floor.But it
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CHAPTER 86
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall. The wallpaper was peeling in the corner, a small, jagged tear in the otherwise perfect damask pattern.It was the only flaw in the room, and right now, it felt like the only honest thing in the entire house.My hands were still shaking, but the rhythm had changed. It wasn't the violent, bone-rattling tremor of acute withdrawal anymore.It was a finer, faster vibration—the hum of a machine running too hot.The herbal cleanse Mama Sol had given me had stripped away the chemical fog Sarah had carefully layered over my mind, leaving behind a sharp, painful clarity.I closed my eyes and replayed the sound of the tape in my head."...I paid off the union leaders... It cost me peanuts..."I listened to it again, not with my ears, but with my memory. I stripped away the emotion. I stripped away the fear of my father’s anger. I focused on the audio itself, visualizing the waveform
CHAPTER 85
The lock on my balcony door clicked. I spun around. It was midnight. Sarah was asleep in the other room, having taken a sleeping pill herself to ensure her "beauty rest." The glass door slid open with a soft hiss. A gust of cold wind blew in, carrying the scent of rain. A figure stepped out of the shadows. It was Isabella. She wasn't wearing her usual power suit. She was wearing black tactical gear, tight and functional, like a cat burglar. She moved silently across the room. "You look like hell, Victor," she whispered. "Isabella?" I asked, leaning against the wall for support. My knees felt weak. "How did you get past the guards?" "I own the company that installed the security system," she said, tapping a small device on her wrist. "I have a master key. And I pay your guards better than Elias does." She walked over to me. She looked me up and down,
CHAPTER 84
The fourth night was the worst.Mama Sol had warned me that the poison would try to fight back. She said the body would revolt before it healed. She was right.It hit me at 3:00 AM.I woke up screaming, but no sound came out. My throat was paralyzed.It felt like my bones were melting. Every nerve ending in my body was on fire. It was a cellular scream.I fell out of bed. I hit the floor with a thud."Victor?" Sarah called out sleepily from the other room.I couldn't answer. I couldn't move my tongue.She appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall light."Oh, look at you," she yawned. "Another nightmare?"She didn't help me up. She just watched me writhe on the carpet, clutching my chest."It's just the withdrawal, sweetie. It passes. Eventually."She went back to bed. She left me there.I dragged myself to the bathroom. The tiles were freezing, but the cold fel
CHAPTER 83
Sarah moved into the East Wing the next day."I can't leave you alone," she said, carrying a suitcase into the adjoining room. "What if you fall? What if you have a seizure? I need to be close."She was suffocating me. There was no privacy. No moment of peace.She changed the locks on the bathroom door so I couldn't lock it. She installed a baby monitor in my bedroom—a sleek, white plastic eye that stared at me from the dresser."I need to hear you breathing," she said with a sweet smile that didn't reach her eyes. "It comforts me."It was psychological warfare. She was dismantling my mind, piece by piece, stripping away my dignity until I was nothing more than a patient.That evening, she came in with dinner. It was vegetable broth this time."Open wide," she said, holding the spoon. She was sitting on the edge of my bed.It was the same silver spoon with the family crest. My grandfather used this spoon to eat
CHAPTER 82
The East Wing of the estate was a tomb. It was built in the early 1900s and rarely used, reserved for distant cousins or business partners we didn't particularly like.The air here was different from the rest of the house. It was colder, draftier. It smelled of old lavender sachets, dust, and neglect.Now, it was my cell.I stood by the window on the second day of my confinement. My room overlooked the main circular driveway.It was the only view I had of the world I used to run. The glass was cold against my forehead, a stark contrast to the burning heat in my veins.The detox was still tearing through me. My skin felt like it was two sizes too tight, stretched over bones that ached with a deep, throbbing rhythm.Every joint felt rusted. Standing there took more effort than running a marathon.But I forced myself to stand. I had to watch. I had to know.A black limousine pulled up to the front steps.I
CHAPTER 81
The heavy oak door to my father’s study didn't slam this time. It clicked shut with a soft, final sound that felt infinitely worse than a scream.I stood in the center of the room, my feet sinking into the thick Persian rug. It felt like quicksand, dragging me down, making it impossible to find my balance.My father, Elias, was standing by the massive stone fireplace. His back was to me.He was staring into the dying embers, his shoulders slumped in a way I had never seen before. He looked smaller. Older."Father," I started. My voice was rough. I tried to project confidence, but it came out as a desperate plea. "You have to listen to me. The tape is edited. Sarah changed the audio files. She spliced my voice with Julian’s."Elias didn't turn around. He just shook his head slowly in exhaustion."Do you know how much money I spent on your education, Victor?" he asked quietly. "Do you know how many strings I pulled to keep you out
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