"My Lord! The mistress gave strict orders! You're not allowed to go out today! You still have seminars to attend on—on Ford Leadership and Responsible Inheritance!" the butler, a man in his thirties with a receding hairline and an overworked soul, shouted breathlessly from down the hallway.
His voice echoed through the marbled corridors of the Ford estate like a final warning bell before a storm. But Zeke didn't so much as glance back.
Instead, he slammed the double doors behind him with the kind of finality that made the ancestral portraits rattle on the walls. The sound reverberated like gunfire, cutting off whatever lecture his butler-turned-warden was still trying to deliver.
Zeke strode down the steps with purpose, one hand raking through his dark hair as he muttered curses under his breath—most of them directed at the "mandatory family rehabilitation program," otherwise known as How to Be a Better Ford in Eight Soul-Crushing Seminars.
