Chapter 9 - WHISPERS IN THE DARKFar across the city, in a cramped, damp basement apartment lit only by a flickering fluorescent bulb, two broken men sat in total silence.
Andrew Whitman stared blankly at a cheap television screen broadcasting the evening financial news. The headline flashed across the screen in bold, glowing letters:
‘MORETTI-JENNINGS HOLDINGS ANNOUNCES GLOBAL EXPANSION: CEO GRACE MORETTI NAMED PHILANTHROPIST OF THE YEAR.’
On the screen, Grace appeared—radiant, stunning, and utterly untouchable, smiling as she cut the ribbon for a new nationwide shelter dedicated to single mothers and abused women.
Beside Andrew, his father sat in a stained armchair, coughing weakly into a handkerchief flecked with red.
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"We should have killed her when we had the chance," the old man rasped, his voice dripping with venom and bitter regret.
Andrew didn't answer. He just stared at the screen, tears of pure, unadulterated self-pity streaming down his hollow cheeks as he remembered the tiny baby girl he had thrown out into the November rain—the very girl who now owned the world he used to rule.
