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“My father died,” Ellie said quietly, her small fingers tightening around the faded fabric of the doll’s waist. “Before I was born. My mother says he was a hero, but heroes don’t leave money for bread.” / Chapter 6 / 8

Chapter 6 - The Live Stream Execution

Damon stood in the clinic office, watching the snow fall against the glass. He had less than two hours.

He looked at Ellie, who was carefully re-attaching the brown button eye to the rag doll using a needle and thread the clinic nurse had given her.

“Ellie,” Damon said softly, walking over and kneeling before her. “Why did you name her Rosie?”

Ellie looked up, her small face serious. “Because my mama told me roses grow in the cold if you take care of them. Rosie hides secrets because secrets are the only things that keep good people safe from bad people.”

Damon stared at the rag doll. A radical, high-risk strategy formed in his mind. Evelyn expected him to play by corporate rules. She expected a legal fight, a private buyout, or a desperate media leak.

She did not expect him to burn the entire empire to the ground on live television.

Damon picked up his phone and made a single call to the owner of the largest independent global news broadcasting syndicate—a man whose company Blackwell Global had been trying to aggressively acquire for five years.

“Marcus,” Damon said. “I’m about to give you the biggest story in modern history. But I need you to hijack every broadcast network, social media feed, and digital billboard in Manhattan at six o’clock sharp.”

At 5:55 PM, the black Maybach pulled up to the glittering glass tower of the Blackwell Global Headquarters on Fifth Avenue.

Damon stepped out into the freezing wind. He wore his custom suit, his gray wool coat, and carried a leather briefcase in one hand. In his other hand, he held the rag doll.

He took the private express elevator to the 80th-floor penthouse suite.

When the gold doors slid open, he walked into a massive, marble-lined room overlooking the twinkling skyline of New York City. Sitting in a high-backed leather chair behind a mahogany desk was Evelyn Blackwell, wearing a emerald silk dress and diamonds.

Standing beside her was Roman Pike, his hand resting on his holstered firearm. Standing in the shadows near the floor-to-ceiling glass windows was a tall man with graying hair and a cold, familiar face.

Arthur Blackwell. His father.

“Look at you, Damon,” Arthur said, stepping into the light, his voice raspy. “Holding a rag doll like a broken child. I raised you to be a king, and you came here acting like a martyr.”

“You’re alive,” Damon said quietly, staring at the ghost of his father.

“I am the mind behind this dynasty,” Arthur snapped. “You were just the caretaker while the real work was completed. Now, hand over the drive.”

Evelyn slid a stack of legal documents across the mahogany desk. “Sign the transfer of control, Damon. Save yourself the embarrassment of being destroyed.”

Damon walked slowly toward the desk. He set the leather briefcase down. He set the rag doll right in the center of the desk, facing his mother and father.

“You’re right about one thing, Mother,” Damon said softly. “If I leaked those files to the press tomorrow, your lawyers would spin it. The courts would delay it for decades. The truth would die in paperwork.”

He smiled—a cold, terrifying smile that made Roman Pike instinctively take a step back.

“So I didn't send the files to the press,” Damon continued.

Damon reached out and tapped the single brown button eye on the rag doll’s face.

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Deep inside my banking app, the little green toggle next to the automatic transfer had vanished. For forty-eight months, that button had silently pumped $2,450 out of my dwindling savings account directly into the primary mortgage servicing pool for 442 Oakridge Lane.

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Ethan went pale—but his mother looked terrified and whispered, “Stop her before she finds out.” That was when I realized my triplets weren’t the only secret the Montgomery family had been hiding.

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A tiny blue LED light inside the eye blinked to life.

“The rag doll isn't just a recording device,” Damon announced, his voice reverberating through the vast room. “It’s a high-definition broadcast transmitter. And right now, every news network in America, every digital screen on Fifth Avenue, and fifty million live internet streams are watching and listening to this room.”

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