Chapter 34 - The Father's Resurrection
"Stabilize her line!" Arthur barked, pushing Marcus aside and shoving an ampoule of dark amber liquid into Callagher’s hands. "Administer this. It’s an unrefined antagonist. It will stall the cellular breakdown for twenty minutes, no more."
Callagher drove the secondary needle into the Y-port of Chloe's line. Within seconds, the girl’s violent tremors subsided into a dull, rhythmic twitching, her breathing settling into a low, terrifying rattle.
Marcus stared at Arthur, his breathing ragged. The ghost of his childhood stood before him—the father he had identified in a charred morgue ten years ago, the man whose tombstone he had visited on every anniversary.
"Ten years," Marcus whispered, the weight of the betrayal crushing his chest. "I held a funeral for you. I buried an empty casket while Eleanor took control of the family estate, while she turned our lives into a corporate slaughterhouse. Where were you?"
Arthur’s grey eyes softened, but the scars pulling across his cheek gave him the grim countenance of a demon. "I was in a private trauma ward in Switzerland, Marcus. Eleanor didn't just set fire to the manor that night. She trapped me in the vault beneath the library. She thought the heat would cremate everything. But the fire department breached the outer cellar wall before the oxygen ran out."
Arthur stepped closer, reaching out a leather-gloved hand toward Marcus, but stopped himself, knowing he had no right to touch his son.
"When I woke up from the coma two years later," Arthur continued, his voice thick with gravel, "she had already declared me legally dead. She had bought the probate judge, the medical examiners, and the board of directors. But worse than that... she had begun the second phase of the project. She had already placed Sarah in your path. If I had come back openly, Eleanor would have activated the contingency protocols. She would have eliminated you and the child to protect the Vance Trust’s corporate valuation."
"So you hid in the shadows while she poisoned my baby?" Marcus demanded, tears of fury burning his eyes. "You let her put Chloe through six years of manufactured agony?"
"I was building an army, Marcus," Arthur replied, pointing to the tactical team securing the perimeter doors. "I was tracking the off-shore accounts. I was waiting for Eleanor to make her move on the biological asset. I knew that the moment Chloe turned six, the patent window would open, and Eleanor would be forced to extract the marrow. That was our only window to strike."
"She’s not an asset!" Marcus roared, grabbing his father by the tactical vest. "She’s a little girl! She’s my daughter!"
Before Arthur could answer, a high-pitched electronic tone chimed from Eleanor’s wrist.
Marcus looked down. Strapped beneath Eleanor’s diamond-encrusted watch was a black, military-grade transponder. Its tiny LED display was flashing a single, chilling word in bright red text:
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*ACQUIRED.*
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