Chapter 1 - The Weight of a Memory
Clara knelt beside the small boy in the dim light of the estate library, the polaroid of Arthur Sterling held gently between her thumb and forefinger. The scent of old leather and woodsmoke hung heavy in the air, a precursor to the nightmare that would soon consume the fortress.
"Why wasn't he sleeping?" Leo whispered again, his wide, solemn eyes fixed on his father’s exhausted face in the vintage snapshot.
"Because the moment you were born, your father knew the world he was bringing you into was a battlefield," Clara answered softly, her voice steady despite the rising panic echoing from the courtyard below. "The Sterlings didn't value family, Leo. They valued assets, control, and public perception. Your father tried to break that cycle, and it cost him everything."
Leo swallowed hard, his small fingers gripping the armrests of his specialized chair. "Was that why the helicopter crashed? Because he tried to leave?"
Before Clara could answer, a loud, thunderous crack echoed overhead as a massive oak beam gave way, showering the library rug with burning embers. The heat was becoming suffocating. Outside, the sirens of the responding Newport fire brigades wailed in the distance, but inside the crumbling chateau, they were entirely cut off.
"We have to move, Leo," Clara said, standing up and grabbing his arm. "Your brace is locked. I need you to trust me."
"My legs won't hold me, Clara," Leo cried, tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks. "Leave me! Aunt Eleanor said—"
May you like
"Aunt Eleanor wants you erased!" Clara interrupted, her voice cutting through the roar of the flames with fierce, unyielding authority. "She left you here to die because you are the only living obstacle standing between her and the entire Sterling oil fortune. Now stand up!"
Summoning a strength she didn't know she possessed, Clara hooked her arms beneath Leo's shoulders, hauling him out of the chair just as a shower of sparks rained down where they had been sitting a second before.
