AI Model: gemini-2.5-flash
The emerald brooch refracted a light as deep and mysterious as a cosmic black hole under the lamplight.
Victoria's voice, cold and resolute, declared the impending bloody harvest: "When the appointed 'Sacrifice Day' arrives, these cursed wagers will instantly inflate, boil, and erupt in the global furnace of panic!
They will transform into an overwhelming torrent, forged from gold and blood, that will engulf everything!
The Roosevelt family will not only avoid turning to ashes in that great fire but will also calmly harvest a war dividend, far exceeding ten billion dollars, belonging to the shadow conquerors, stepping over the wreckage of civilization!"
Hiss—!
A bone-chilling cold, like liquid nitrogen, instantly shot up Ethan's spine, freezing his limbs and even his thoughts.
His carefully planned warning from the future, which he considered a desperate, fate-changing leverage... seemed so naive, futile, and ridiculous in front of this colossal beast of a family that had awakened from the mire of history and was coldly laying out its schemes!
Admiration and frustration, like two poisoned thorns, wildly entangled and bit at his heart.
He realized for the first time that the 'prophet's' perspective, which ordinary people prided themselves on, was merely a fleeting, faint glow of a firefly before the profound chess game of top-tier families, rooted in the corrupt soil of power and the dust of history.
Howard's body, taut as a full moon's bowstring, finally relaxed instinctively under the impact of Victoria's vast, precise, and chillingly suffocating plan.
This brief relaxation, like a tiny crack in a dam, was immediately flooded and overwhelmed by a more surging, sharper, and more suffocating sting—the feeling of betrayal and loss from being excluded from the core!
He suddenly turned to Victoria, his gray-blue eyes now burning with the rage of being kept in the dark and deep confusion, his voice a low growl like a wounded lion, carrying the pain of shattered trust: "Victoria! Why?!"
"Such a monstrous conspiracy, concerning the very heart of the family's survival, concerning my foundation in New York!
The Elder Council... and you!
Why choose to exclude me?
Like guarding against an unreliable pawn?!"
"Am I no longer worthy of knowing where the blade guarding the heart is pointed?!
No longer worthy of knowing who is wiping the blood from my sword?!"
Victoria met her husband's gaze, which was a mix of anger, hurt, and bewilderment.
The intense emotions churning in the depths of his eyes caused a rare, complex light to flash across her icy gaze—it was understanding, heartache, but also an undeniable practical consideration.
She sighed softly, her sigh like an autumn leaf falling onto a lake, carrying a hint of helpless resonance.
"What else could it be, my dear Storm?"
Her voice softened, carrying a nearly tender cruelty, her fingertips seemingly warm as she lightly, from a distance, traced the knife-like wrinkles on Howard's brow, symbolizing his continuous battles with Wall Street and political enemies, and the deep, dark shadows under his eyes, accumulated over years.
"Look at you now.
Chairman of the New York State Economic Development Oversight Committee?
The weight of this crown, shining in the sun, has long since squeezed you like the endlessly grinding gears of Wall Street—worn, hot, yet unable to stop."
"Where were you on the night of the family's quarterly core meeting?"
Her voice was calm, yet every word was like a hammer blow to Howard's heart, "In the cold, damp, rust- and despair-filled dock warehouses of Queens, confronting those angry, roaring worker representatives, mercilessly crushed by the global economic juggernaut, until dawn!
My father specifically asked me to record the meeting minutes for you, the voices that would determine the family's future direction, but you didn't even have time to finish listening to them on your private jet, flying to Washington to deal with the next crisis..."
Her gaze drifted, falling on the wedding ring on his left ring finger, symbolizing eternal connection, and more so on his right wrist—on the heirloom gold watch, symbolizing his status as an heir to the Elder Council, yet covered with fine scratches from countless documents and negotiation tables.
"When was the last time you had a full dinner with us?
Was it the night of Sandy's birthday, when the candles on the cake hadn't even burned out, and he looked up at you with his little face, asking 'Daddy, don't you want me anymore?', while you were trapped at the negotiation table for seven full days and nights by those greedy vultures from Morgan Stanley, fighting for the last piece of fat in the port?"
Victoria's voice carried a soul-piercing insight, and an undeniable conclusion: "Howard, your battlefield is in the sunlight, in the roar of the parliament, in the pulse of the economy, in the focus of news cameras.
The Elder Council needs you, this sharp, invincible sword, to cut through the overt thorns, to deter those covetous wolves."
"And those tasks of weaving spiderwebs in the shadows, laying ambushes, manipulating ghost accounts, and dancing with devils in the abyss of capital... let them be handled by those 'moles' who are naturally accustomed to breathing in the shadows, whose heartbeats synchronize with the darkness."
"This is for your protection, Howard. To keep you away from the filth that can corrupt the sunlight, to maintain the 'cleanliness' and 'sense of power' essential for a politician."
She paused, her tone resolute, "This is also the family's coldest and most efficient allocation of power.
Knowing too much, for the sword you wield in the sunlight... can sometimes be a fatal burden and a weakness."
Howard felt as if he had been struck by a thousand pounds! The scene Victoria described—his son's tearful questioning, his wife facing the darkness alone, the exclusion from the family's core conspiracy—was as clear as a poisoned dagger, instantly piercing all his anger and pride.
The surging rage was completely drowned by an overwhelming sense of guilt that threatened to drown him.
For the family's glory in the sunlight, he charged into battle, burning himself out, yet he had almost become the most familiar stranger in his own fortress, missing the battle to guard the heart, and missing the most important companionship in his life... He slumped his head, as if completely crushed by an invisible burden, his bony fingers deeply raking through his thick, now silver-streaked golden hair, letting out a suppressed growl, like a wounded lone wolf howling at the bottom of an abyss.
"But..."
Ethan's voice, like a stone dropped into a deep pool, timely broke the heavy and private atmosphere between his parents, and instantly pulled all three of their nerves back to the center of the suffocating vortex of conspiracy.
His gaze was burning, with a hint of barely perceptible urgency: "Mom, with such a secret plan, how exactly did the family's intelligence network penetrate through layers of mist to capture the precise pulse of 'Sirius' restarting?
Could it be... that we and the Bush family..."
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