Chapter 2

The room was silent, stunned.

Brenda' s face was a mask of fury. "Intuition? What nonsense is this?"

Victoria and Ashley looked at Ellie as if she' d grown a second head.

They thought she was insane, or worse, pathetically desperate.

Charles Sr., however, leaned forward, a strange light in his eyes.

He was a man clutching at straws, Ellie knew. Desperate for any solution, any hope.

"An intuition, you say? Like Maria' s?" he asked, his voice raspy.

Ellie met his gaze, her expression carefully sincere.

"Yes, sir. She taught me to see things others miss."

The patriarch was silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on Ellie.

Then, a slow, almost terrifying smile spread across his face.

"Maria' s girl," he rasped, a strange joy in his tone. "Yes. Yes! Perhaps you are what I need."

He coughed then, a deep, racking sound that shook his frail body.

Brenda rushed to his side, patting his back, but her eyes, when they met Ellie' s, were filled with venom.

The moment of the patriarch' s delusion passed, replaced by the stark reality of his failing health.

Victoria, recovering from her shock, stepped forward.

"Father, this is absurd!" she snapped. "She has no business sense! No Harrison touch!"

She grabbed a financial report from a nearby table. "Look at these projections for the new solar farm. Can she even understand them?"

Charles Sr. looked from Victoria to Ellie, his brief hope flickering. "Well, child?"

Victoria shoved the report at Ellie. "Tell us, 'advisor,' what's your brilliant take on this?"

Ellie glanced at the complex figures, feigning confusion.

"It' s... a lot of numbers," she said, making herself sound hesitant, out of her depth.

Brenda let out a short, sharp laugh. "I told you. Useless."

She turned to Charles Sr. "Charles, this is a farce. Send her away. She' s an embarrassment."

The sisters nodded in agreement, their earlier amusement replaced by contempt.

Ashley, however, spoke up, a calculating look in her eyes.

"Perhaps not, Mother. She might be a amusing distraction. And besides," she added, a cruel smile playing on her lips, "everyone knows she won't survive in this world for long. She'll crash and burn soon enough."

It was a prophecy, delivered with casual cruelty.

Ellie felt a familiar coldness settle in her. They had been saying things like that for years.

Charles Sr. looked deflated. "You have no... knack for these things, then?" he asked Ellie, his voice heavy with disappointment.