sanguine (hiatus!) | a mileven fic.

eight.

"Don't you think that you're pushing her too hard?" One of the few managers in that damned company asked. It was rare for anybody to address Eleanor. If anybody was honest, it wasn't a topic to talk about when Brenner was around. The girl didn't know, the group didn't know, but everybody else knew that the poor girl belonged to him. That no matter what he did with her, she'd stay under his hands since she loved the fame as much as he loved the money that he made off her.

"Who? Suzie? Her solo is coming next year. The other girls are getting better shoots soon. Everybody's fine." Brenner says, his eyes not leaving the laptop and the thousand of files linked to Neptune. It had from old photos of the girls together to future birthday posts from the company. In his eyes, he was treating the girls perfectly and nobody can change his mind. Not the thousand of posts commenting on how the other girls barely did photoshoots, how the better dancers of the group were pushed to the back, and how the vocalists barely had any lines. All because of her.

"I'm talking about Eleanor. You leaked her song and to distract everybody, you release their upcoming music video to the public. No warning. No saying anything to the girls. You even leaked their album name. Do you not care about them?" The manager pushes and he has all his attention now. It earns a gulp from the unfamiliar stranger. Martin was now staring at him, a smirk on his face and his answer was right there.

"Care about who? I don't care about anybody." He says, leaning into his seat. "I'm going to run that girl to the ground. Destroy her, just like her mom did me." It's almost like he's talking about a stranger. Not a girl that he's had under his care for the longest of years. "Her mother stole money from me, and I threatened to sue. Do you think a nobody from Hawkins has that type of money?"

Silence.

"She signed a little paper. She gave me her daughter and I might've lied a little. Might've told her I would have given her daughter a career. It worked. Didn't It?"