Ever since the night of the Shincity gala, Martin Chamberlain had devolved into a bag of nervous wreckage. The fragile facade of the "successful heir" had not just cracked; it had disintegrated into a fine dust. His already dwindling relationship with his father and the board of directors had hit rock bottom, cratering under the weight of his public humiliation at the hands of Sebastian Monday.
More clients pulled out their projects daily, fleeing the sinking ship of Martini Construction like rats sensing a shipwreck. The few who remained did so not out of loyalty, but out of a trapped, suffocating necessity—their capital was tied so deep into the foundations of failing projects that pulling out now would mean certain bankruptcy. They were tethered to a dying company, and they knew it.
