Chapter 66 - The Matriarch's Mirror
I didn't lower my rifle. The crosshairs of my optic remained pinned dead-center on the bridge of my mother’s nose.
"Stand down, Bradley," she said calmly, taking a slow, measured sip. "If you fire that weapon, the pressure sensors embedded in my wrist will register a flatline, and the secondary payloads currently loitering over Chicago, Dallas, and New York will initiate terminal descent. You wouldn't want Arthur’s precious real estate holdings turned to glass, would you?"
General Bradley kept his weapon raised, his jaw clenched tight. "You're a traitor to this country, Eleanor. You hijacked sovereign defense assets."
"Country?" Eleanor laughed, a sound as cold and dry as autumn leaves. She set the teacup down on the saucer with a soft click. "This country is an obsolete collection of borders governed by men who measure power in quarterly earnings and television ratings. Men like your father, Elena. Men like your pathetic brother."
"You used them," I said, my finger resting lightly against the trigger. "You spent thirty years pretending to be Arthur's submissive socialite wife."
"I needed a front," Eleanor replied, standing up smoothly and walking toward the edge of the dais. Up close, her face bore no signs of the cancer that had allegedly eaten her alive. Her skin was taut, her eyes sharp, cold, and calculating. "Arthur was loud. Arthur was arrogant. He drew every eye in Texas, every regulator, every competitor. While he strutted around his oil fields playing the great patriarch, I used his capital to fund Tartarus."
"And me?" I asked, the words cutting through the hum of the servers. "Why discard me? Why let Arthur treat me like dirt while Jake took every shred of credit?"
Eleanor smiled—a horrific, proud smile. "Because soft soil produces weak timber. Look at Jake! He folded the moment your strike team breached the refinery. He wept, he begged, he clung to his father's money like a child clinging to a blanket. If I had coddled you, if I had given you the Carter name, you would have become another useless, parasitic heir."
May you like
She stepped down from the dais, stopping bare inches from the muzzle of my rifle. She didn't flinch.
"I made you an outcast so you would have to fight for every breath," she whispered, her voice filled with a sickening, genuine affection. "I drove you into the military because I needed someone who knew how to bleed. Someone who knew how to command when the sky falls. I didn't abandon you, Elena. I refined you. And now... it is time for the daughter to claim her inheritance."
