Chapter 3 - THE DOCTOR’S DIAGNOSIS
The gas burned Ethan’s lungs. His knees buckled, and the cold linoleum rushed up to meet him. Through his blurring vision, the heavy steel door of the clinic room hissed open. Two figures in gas masks stepped inside, dragging him by his arms out into the fresh air of the hallway. They dumped him onto the floor. Ethan coughed violently, his lungs fighting for oxygen. He looked up, expecting to see Victor’s smug face. Instead, a man in a tailored grey suit knelt beside him, removing his gas mask. It was Dr. Samuel Hayes. The same doctor who had tested the poisoned tea. The same doctor Marcus said had just taken Lily from the mansion. “Breathe slowly, Ethan,” Dr. Hayes said, his voice maddeningly calm. “The sedative is fast-acting, but it won’t kill you. Victor wanted you alive for the board meeting.” Ethan lunged forward, grabbing the doctor by the throat. But his muscles were weak. Hayes easily peeled Ethan’s hands away and pushed him back against the wall. “Where is my daughter?” Ethan rasped. “She’s safe,” Hayes replied, adjusting his cuffs. “Safer than she was with you.” “You’re working with Victor.” “Victor is a brute,” Hayes sneered. “A man obsessed with money. I don’t care about the Blackwood empire, Ethan. I care about the research.” Hayes stood up and paced the hallway. “Seven years ago, Victor paid me to ensure Amelia didn’t survive that fire. But when I examined her, I realized her unique neurochemistry was the perfect subject for my cognitive wiping trials.” Ethan’s stomach churned. “You erased her memories.” “I suppressed them,” Hayes corrected. “A beautiful, delicate procedure. Victor got his heirless CEO, and I got unlimited funding for my private clinic. A perfect arrangement. Until the housekeeper got sentimental and let the child live.” Ethan forced himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. “Where is Amelia?” “Victor took her. He panicked when you didn’t drink the tea. He’s taking her to the Blackwood Tower right now.” Ethan frowned, his mind fighting the sedative. “Why bring her to the board meeting?” Hayes smiled, a cold, clinical expression. “Because to transfer the majority shares of the family trust in the event of an emergency, Victor needs the signatures of the CEO and his legal spouse. He has her. Now, he just needs you.” “I’ll never sign.” “Oh, you will,” Hayes said softly. “Because if you don’t, Victor will have Amelia drop a signed confession admitting she caused the hospital fire seven years ago. He will frame her for the murder of the nurses who died that night. Your wife will spend the rest of her life in a federal penitentiary.” Ethan’s fists clenched. “And Lily?” “Lily is collateral,” Hayes said. “But I have her. If you want to see your daughter again, you go to the board meeting. You sign the papers. You let Victor win.” Hayes turned to walk away. “Wait,” Ethan said, his voice weak. Hayes paused, looking back over his shoulder. Ethan reached into his pocket. He pulled out the sealed evidence bag containing the teacup with the digitalis. “You forgot your lab results, Samuel.” Before Hayes could react, Ethan ripped the plastic bag open and hurled the remaining poisoned tea directly into the doctor’s face. Hayes screamed, clawing at his eyes as the toxic liquid burned his mucous membranes. He stumbled backward, crashing into a medical cart. The two masked guards raised their weapons, but Ethan was already moving. He grabbed a heavy oxygen tank from the wall rack and swung it with everything he had. The metal cracked against the first guard’s helmet, sending him sprawling. Ethan snatched the fallen guard’s stun baton and drove it into the second guard’s ribs. The hallway fell silent, save for Hayes’s agonizing groans. Ethan walked over to the doctor and crouched down, pressing the crackling stun baton against Hayes’s neck. “You’re going to tell me exactly where in the mansion you hid my daughter.” Hayes coughed, his eyes red and tearing. “She’s not at the mansion,” he wheezed. “I locked her in the old greenhouse on the south lawn. The glass is soundproof.” Ethan stood up, his vision clearing as adrenaline burned away the sedative. He grabbed Hayes’s car keys from his pocket. As Ethan turned to leave, Hayes let out a wet, desperate laugh. “You can’t save them both, Ethan! If you go to the greenhouse, Victor secures the board! If you go to the board, Lily freezes to death!” Ethan didn’t look back. He knew something Hayes didn’t. When Lily had hugged him earlier, she had slipped something into his pocket. Ethan pulled it out as he ran toward the clinic exit. It was a child’s drawing of a blue butterfly. And folded inside the paper was a master keycard to the Blackwood Tower’s private elevator. The elevator that went directly to the boardroom.
