Upon Yuletide supper, my sibling alongside myself commenced bickering. My parent spit across my visage right alongside every attendee then shrieked: “You prove a bloodsucker. My finance stays withheld from you.” Next she motioned towards our young little baby girl: “Remove this deadweight then step outside.” My partner grasped my fingers: “We shall depart.” Two hours afterwards, my papa rang: “Your parent recently discovered everything surrounding that residence.”

Deep beneath the rusted skeletal frame of the old Sterling Textile Mill, the air was thick with the smell of damp brick and old iron.

Claire strained against the zip-ties binding her wrists to the wooden chair, her muscles screaming in protest. The heavy silver cane in Evelyn’s hand hovered just inches from her face, the wolf-head glinting menacingly in the dim, flickering light of the single bulb.

"You think you've won, don't you?" Evelyn snarled, her voice echoing off the damp concrete walls. "You think because the courts took my money, because the press branded me a criminal, that the Sterling name is dead? Brands don't die, Claire. Bloodlines don't wash away. We built this city. We own the politicians, the judges, the very ground beneath your feet."

"You built your empire on lies, theft, and human misery," Claire spat back, her chin held high, refusing to show a shred of weakness despite the pain radiating through her body. "And now it's gone. No amount of money, no amount of terror can bring it back. You're a dinosaur, Evelyn. Extinct."

Evelyn’s face contorted into a mask of pure rage. She swung the heavy silver cane downward, striking the wooden arm of the chair just inches from Claire’s fingers with a resounding *crack* that reverberated through the cavernous room.

"Watch your tongue, you ungrateful little parasite!" Evelyn shrieked, spittle flying from her lips. "I plucked you from the gutter! I gave you a name, a home, a life! And how did you repay me? By conspiring with my enemies, by stripping my accounts, by throwing me to the wolves!"

"You threw me out into the snow with a newborn baby!" Claire fired back, her voice cutting through the damp air like a razor blade. "You called me a bloodsucker while you drained everyone around you dry! I didn't destroy your empire, Evelyn—you did it to yourself!"

Evelyn raised the cane again, her breath coming in ragged, furious gasps. Her eyes were wide, manic, the look of a cornered animal desperate to inflict maximum pain before the end.

Before the blow could land, a loud, echoing metallic crash reverberated from the upper level of the abandoned mill—the sound of a heavy steel fire door being forced open with brute force.

Evelyn froze, her cane suspended in mid-air. She turned her head toward the darkened stairwell leading up to the ground floor.

"What was that?" Sarah whispered, stepping out from the shadows near the entrance, holding a heavy-duty tactical flashlight.

"Go check," Evelyn hissed, lowering the cane slightly, though her eyes remained locked on Claire. "And if anyone followed you, make sure they don't leave this building alive."

Sarah drew a sleek, matte-black pistol from inside her coat, clicking off the safety with a sharp, metallic *click*, and began walking stealthily toward the rusted iron staircase leading up into the gloom.