Chapter 8 - The Empty Hospital Bed
Victor reached the open window first.
Cold rain blew into the room.
The pediatric wing was six stories above the street.
No one could have climbed down.
A narrow maintenance platform ran beneath the windows.
Wet footprints led toward the eastern stairwell.
Mercer shouted orders into her radio.
The hospital entered immediate lockdown.
Lily handed Sophie to Dr. Moreno and ran toward the corridor.
Victor caught her arm.
“You are injured.”
“My injuries do not matter.”
“They will if you collapse.”
“Ethan is gone.”
Victor released her.
They moved together.
Security footage showed a man in a respiratory therapist’s uniform entering Ethan’s room seven minutes earlier.
His identification belonged to an employee working on another floor.
The man’s face remained hidden beneath a surgical mask.
He carried Ethan through a service door.
A second figure waited near the elevator.
The second person wore a housekeeping uniform.
Lily recognized the woman’s walk.
“Serena.”
Mercer enlarged the image.
The woman’s face remained turned away.
A diamond bracelet flashed beneath the sleeve.
Victor had given Serena that bracelet after their engagement.
“She is supposed to be in custody,” he said.
Mercer called the officers responsible for transporting her.
Serena had never reached the central station.
Her lawyer presented a medical emergency claim before departure.
An ambulance collected her from a private police entrance.
The ambulance was false.
Two officers had been found unconscious inside a parking structure.
Graham Cavanaugh had disappeared.
“This was planned before tonight,” Mercer said.
Victor’s phone rang from a blocked number.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“Bring the original Blackwood trust to the Lakeshore Clinic.”
Victor looked toward Mercer.
“I don’t have the original.”
“Your father does.”
“What do you want with it?”
“The document proves who owns the company when the last legitimate heir is gone.”
Victor’s blood turned cold.
“Let me hear Ethan.”
The voice paused.
A child cried in the background.
“Daddy.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“I’m coming.”
“Alone.”
The call ended.
Mercer immediately requested a trace.
The signal had bounced through multiple towers.
“The clinic is probably a diversion,” she said.
Victor turned toward the elevators.
“I’m getting the trust.”
“Your father may not give it to you.”
“He will.”
Lily followed.
Victor faced her.
“You stay here with Sophie.”
“No.”
“Ethan needs you alive.”
“He also needs someone who knows how Serena controls him.”
“Lily.”
“She will use his fear.”
“She will make him quiet by threatening me or his father.”
“If I am not there, she can tell him we abandoned him.”
Victor knew she was right.
He also knew bringing her increased the number of people he could lose.
Mercer intervened.
“No one is going alone.”
“We will establish surveillance around the clinic.”
“We will also search every property connected to the tunnels.”
Victor agreed reluctantly.
Charles kept the original trust inside a private bank vault.
The document had been created when Victor was twenty-one.
It established permanent control of Blackwood voting shares through Victor’s biological descendants.
If Victor died without a legitimate heir, control passed to Julian.
If Victor had a child, the child inherited control at age twenty-five.
Until then, a designated guardian managed the shares.
Amelia had originally been named guardian.
After her death, the position became vacant.
Serena’s plan was clear.
She wanted the guardianship.
Julian wanted Ethan removed before he could inherit.
The DNA revelation complicated everything.
If Claire was Ethan’s biological mother, someone might challenge his legitimacy under the trust.
Charles arrived at the hospital vault with two attorneys.
He refused to hand Victor the original.
“They will destroy it.”
“They have Ethan.”
“They need the document because it contains a handwritten amendment.”
“What amendment?”
Charles looked at Lily.
“Amelia added it the night before Ethan was born.”
Victor’s patience disappeared.
“What does it say?”
“That any child born through the Blackwood medical program would be recognized as her legal child regardless of biological maternity.”
Lily stared.
“What medical program?”
Charles looked away.
“Amelia could not carry a pregnancy safely.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“She carried Ethan.”
“No.”
Charles’s answer shattered the last certainty in the room.
“Claire carried him.”
Victor stood motionless.
Charles continued.
“Amelia’s embryos repeatedly failed.”
“She and Claire became close through the foundation.”
“Claire agreed to become a surrogate.”
“Why was I not told?”
“Amelia feared you would refuse.”
“She was right.”
Victor’s anger shook beneath every word.
“You allowed my wife to deceive me about my child’s birth.”
“I tried to stop it.”
“By hiding everything?”
“The pregnancy was transferred to Claire.”
“Then why was Amelia in the delivery room?”
“The physician performed a staged emergency procedure.”
“Amelia remained in a private suite while Claire delivered in another wing.”
Lily felt nauseated.
“Claire never told me.”
“She had signed confidentiality agreements.”
Charles continued.
“Then she discovered the ledger.”
“She learned Julian was using the foundation’s fertility program to create hidden financial claims and control family trusts.”
“Sophie was conceived naturally with Julian.”
“Ethan was not.”
Victor struggled to breathe through his rage.
“Did Amelia know Claire was in danger?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“And you still allowed Claire to disappear.”
Charles’s face tightened.
“I believed Peter had taken her somewhere safe.”
“You believe whatever reduces your guilt.”
Victor took the trust document.
Charles held it tightly.
“If they destroy that amendment, Serena can argue Ethan is not Amelia’s legal child.”
“He is my son.”
“The trust requires a recognized marriage-line heir.”
Victor tore the document from his father’s hand.
“Then the trust can burn.”
Charles stared at him.
“You would lose the company.”
“I will not lose Ethan.”
Lily watched Victor.
For the first time, she understood why Amelia had loved him despite his distance.
He had spent years acting as though Blackwood power defined him.
When forced to choose, he did not hesitate.
Mercer organized the approach to the clinic.
Officers entered the tunnels from three points.
Victor and Lily carried the trust inside a waterproof case.
The abandoned clinic stood dark against the lake.
Its windows had been covered with boards.
A single light glowed in the upper floor.
Victor entered first.
Lily stayed close behind him.
The lobby smelled of dust and antiseptic.
A speaker activated above the reception desk.
“Place the document on the floor.”
Victor recognized Julian’s voice.
“Let me see Ethan.”
A monitor came on.
Ethan sat inside a treatment room.
His injured arm remained in its cast.
Serena stood beside him.
She held a syringe near his neck.
Lily stepped toward the screen.
“Do not touch him.”
Serena smiled through the camera.
“You should have stayed a failed nurse.”
Victor placed the document down.
“Release him.”
“Open the case.”
Victor did.
The original trust lay inside.
Julian’s voice returned.
“Walk away.”
“Not without my son.”
“Your son is evidence of a fraud.”
“He is a child.”
“He is four billion dollars wearing a cast.”
Lily’s anger rose.
“You hurt Claire because she refused to help you steal from him.”
Serena’s smile vanished.
“Claire hurt herself by believing morality would protect her.”
“Where is she?”
“Closer than you think.”
A door unlocked at the end of the corridor.
Victor and Lily moved toward it.
The treatment room appeared empty when they entered.
The monitor had shown prerecorded footage.
A portable speaker played Ethan’s cries.
Victor struck the wall in fury.
Lily noticed fresh marks on the floor.
A rolling medical cart had passed through recently.
She followed the tracks toward a freight elevator.
The elevator descended into the tunnels.
Mercer’s voice came through Victor’s hidden earpiece.
“Do not enter.”
“We are thirty seconds away.”
Victor pressed the button.
The doors opened.
Inside lay Ethan’s stuffed elephant.
A drop of blood marked one ear.
Lily picked it up.
The elevator descended before Mercer’s team arrived.
The underground level contained old examination rooms.
A dim light glowed behind one door.
Victor pushed it open.
Claire Carter sat tied to a medical chair.
She was thinner than in the photograph.
Her hair had been cut short.
Bruises covered her arms.
Her eyes opened slowly.
“Lily?”
Lily rushed toward her.
Claire looked past her.
“Where is Sophie?”
“She’s safe.”
Claire began crying.
Victor cut the restraints.
“Where is Ethan?”
Claire’s face filled with terror.
“They took him through the lake tunnel.”
“Who?”
“Serena and Peter.”
“What about Julian?”
Claire looked at Victor.
“Julian was never in charge.”
A gunshot echoed through the corridor.
The clinic lights went out.
Claire grabbed Lily’s hand.
“Your father is the one they are afraid of.”
Lily stared at her.
“Our father can barely walk.”
Claire shook her head.
“Thomas Carter did not have a stroke.”
“He was poisoned because he knows who ordered Amelia’s death.”
From the darkness behind them, a man’s voice spoke.
“I warned you not to trust the police.”
May you like
Detective Mercer stepped into the room.
Her weapon was pointed directly at Victor.
