Chapter 22: The Attrition
The victory against the Albrights was tactical, not strategic. It proved they could defend, but it didn't stop the attacks. The Millers shifted from a targeted blitz to a war of attrition, a slow, grinding pressure designed to exhaust them.
Small, inexplicable problems began to surface. The bank temporarily flagged Elias's brokerage account for a "random review," freezing his access for seventy-two hours during a key moment in NetSolve's volatility. The landlord of the office space Croft & Associates was using suddenly announced a drastic, unexpected rent hike, citing "new market evaluations." A local business magazine, which had scheduled a profile on the "teen tech whiz," abruptly canceled, the editor mumbling about "shifting editorial focus."
Each incident was a pebble, insignificant alone, but together they created a constant, low-grade anxiety. It was like being slowly buried in sand.
Elias met each challenge with grim resolve. He had backup financial channels. He and Croft found a new, cheaper office. He accepted the magazine cancellation without complaint. He was a fortress, and fortresses were built to withstand sieges.
But the true target of this attritional warfare wasn't him; it was Eleanor.
Her acceptance letter to Carlton University arrived, but it was followed by a dauntingly large financial aid package that was mostly loans. The generous scholarship she had been verbally promised had mysteriously evaporated. Then, her mother's health took a sharp, stressful downturn, the strain of the ongoing insurance battles and financial worry becoming too much. Catherine Shaw was hospitalized for two days.
Elias saw the toll it took. The bright, fierce light in Eleanor's eyes dimmed under the weight of constant worry. She was trying to be his stronghold while her own world was crumbling.
He couldn't fix it with a strategic masterstroke. He couldn't anonymously mail her a scholarship. This was a battle that had to be fought in the open, with heart, not cunning.
He went to the hospital, bringing books for Catherine and quiet comfort for Eleanor. He sat with her in the waiting room, not speaking, just being a solid, silent presence. He used a portion of his growing capital to anonymously pay a portion of the hospital bill that the insurance wouldn't cover, laundering the money through a fake contest win from a "patient advocacy charity" he invented.
It was a stopgap. A temporary patch on a leaking dam.
The breaking point came on a rainy Tuesday. Eleanor, looking pale and exhausted, told him she was considering deferring her acceptance to Carlton for a year. To stay home, get a job, and help her mother.
"That is exactly what they want," Elias said, his voice low and urgent. "They want to grind you down. To make you sacrifice your future. If you do this, they win."
"What choice do I have, Eli?" she cried, her voice cracking with a frustration he had never heard before. "I can't just 'strategize' my way out of my mom being sick! I can't write a case study to pay the bills! This isn't a game of chess!"
The words landed like a physical blow. For a moment, the CEO in him wanted to retort, to outline a dozen financial solutions, to prove it *was* a solvable problem. But the boy who loved her saw the raw pain in her eyes and knew that logic was a foreign language here.
He reached for her, but she took a step back, wrapping her arms around herself.
"I need to go," she whispered, and walked away, leaving him standing alone in the rain.
It was his first true defeat. Not a lost battle, but a lost connection. The attrition was working. The constant pressure was creating fissures in the one thing he could not afford to lose.
That night, he didn't look at stock charts or business plans. He sat at his desk, staring at the map of Robert Miller's connections. He had been playing a defensive game, countering each move. It was time to stop playing defense. The Millers wanted to break what he loved most? Two could play that game.
He focused on the map. There was one name, one connection he had been saving. Robert Miller's eldest son, Brandon. The golden child, the heir apparent, a junior executive at a prestigious investment firm. In his previous life, Elias recalled a minor, hushed-up scandal about Brandon—an insider trading tip he'd received from a friend at a regulatory body. It had been too small to make public waves, but large enough to get him quietly dismissed.
Elias hadn't planned to use it. It felt too brutal, too final. But watching Eleanor walk away in the rain, her spirit broken by a thousand small cuts, changed his calculus.
He opened a new, encrypted file. He began to compile the data, cross-referencing dates, trades, and phone records that would be nearly impossible for a teenager to access. He was no longer just building a foundation or defending a castle.
He was building a gun. And he was loading a single, silver bullet.
The war of attrition was over. He was done letting them set the terms. It was time to show Robert Miller what happened when you pushed a king to his limit. The next move would not be a parry. It would be a kill shot.