Chapter 5 - THE MEDICAL FILE
The silence in my bedroom was suffocating, broken only by the sound of my own ragged breathing.
What if your mother paid him to hurt her?
The words hung in the air, a poisonous vapor infecting my mind. I thought back to the night Lily and Sofia were born. I had been in London closing a massive shipping contract. My mother had assured me Isabella was fine, that the twins weren't due for another month.
But then the panicked phone call came. Emergency labor. Complications. By the time my private jet landed in Chicago, Isabella was heavily sedated, Lily was healthy, and Sofia... Sofia’s spine had been irreparably damaged during a "difficult extraction."
Dr. Evans had looked me in the eye, placed a sympathetic hand on my shoulder, and told me they did everything they could to save her life.
“We’re going to Union Station,” I told Elena, my voice terrifyingly calm. It was the kind of calm that preceded a massacre in my line of work. “We get the ledger. Then we find Dr. Evans.”
“I’m coming with you,” Elena said fiercely.
I looked at her. She was wearing a maid’s uniform, her hair messy, tears drying on her cheeks. But she had Isabella’s fire in her eyes. She was family.
“Marco!” I yelled into the hallway.
My head of security appeared instantly.
“Lock down Lily in the safe room,” I ordered. “Four guards on the door. Nobody enters, nobody leaves. You stay with her. If my mother’s men come back, you have authorization to use lethal force.”
“Understood, Boss,” Marco said grimly.
Ten minutes later, Elena and I were in the back of my armored SUV, tearing down the highway toward downtown Chicago. The rain had started, drumming heavily against the bulletproof glass.
I held the brass key, my thumb tracing the words Trust the Doctor.
Why would Isabella scratch that into the key? If Dr. Evans had purposely crippled our daughter on my mother’s orders, why would Isabella tell me to trust him?
We pulled up to Union Station. The terminal was practically empty at this hour, echoing with the sound of our footsteps on the marble floors. We found the old bank of rusted storage lockers near the defunct West Gate.
Locker 804.
I slid the brass key in and turned it. The lock was stiff with age, but it gave way with a heavy click.
I pulled the metal door open.
Inside sat a thick, leather-bound ledger. But it wasn't alone. Resting on top of the book was a thick manila envelope sealed with red wax.
I pulled the envelope out, broke the seal, and opened it.
Inside was a stack of medical documents. And clipped to the front was a handwritten letter from Dr. Evans himself, dated three years ago—the week Isabella died.
Adrian, the letter began.
If you are reading this, I am likely dead. Your mother is a monster, and I am a coward. For years, she blackmailed me into falsifying medical records for her rivals. But two years ago, she demanded the unthinkable.
I felt Elena lean in close, reading over my shoulder. Her breathing hitched.
Your mother knew about the terms of your grandfather's trust, the letter continued. The trust stated that if you had a healthy heir, you would take full financial control of the empire, cutting her out entirely. She paid me a million dollars to ensure that one of the twins did not survive the birth, creating a medical crisis that would allow her to retain conservatorship over the estate.
My hands began to shake. I could barely read the next lines.
I couldn't do it, Adrian. I couldn't kill a child. But I knew if I refused, she would simply hire someone who would. So, I faked the spinal injury. Sofia is not paralyzed.
I stopped breathing.
The terminal spun. I gripped the edge of the metal lockers to keep from collapsing.
“Read it, Adrian,” Elena sobbed, gripping my arm. “Read the rest!”
I administered a targeted, slow-release nerve block to Sofia’s lower lumbar region immediately after birth, the letter read. It mimics the exact symptoms of permanent paralysis. It requires a booster injection every six months to maintain the illusion, which I have been administering during her 'specialist checkups' under your mother’s watchful eye. Without the boosters, the nerve block will wear off. The child can walk, Adrian. The child can heal. Isabella found out what I did. She forgave me. We were planning to flee together with the ledger to expose your mother. If Isabella is dead, your mother killed her.
I dropped the letter.
Sofia wasn't paralyzed. The years of tears, the agonizing physical therapy, the doctors who shook their heads with pity—it was all a lie. A manufactured tragedy to keep my mother in power.
And tonight... tonight, Elena had encouraged Sofia to try. And because Sofia was overdue for her "booster" injection from Dr. Evans, the nerve block was fading. That was why she had been able to take those five steps.
“She can walk,” I whispered, tears finally breaking through my stoic facade, blurring my vision. “My little girl can walk.”
“Adrian,” Elena said urgently, pulling on my sleeve.
She was looking past me, toward the entrance of the terminal.
Four men in long dark coats were walking through the doors, spreading out. My mother’s enforcers. They had tracked us.
“Run,” I said to Elena, grabbing the ledger and the envelope.
We sprinted toward the maintenance tunnels at the back of the station. A gunshot rang out, shattering the glass of the locker bank behind us.
I pushed Elena through the heavy steel service doors and locked them from the inside. We were in a dark, concrete corridor that smelled of ozone and damp earth.
“We have to get to the docks,” I said, drawing my firearm from my shoulder holster. “We have the ledger. We make the trade. We get Sofia.”
“No,” Elena gasped, pointing at the bottom of Dr. Evans' letter, which I had crumpled in my fist. “Look at the postscript.”
I flattened the paper out under the dim emergency lights.
P.S. Dr. Evans had written. If your mother ever takes Sofia, do not bring the ledger to her. She will kill you both. Go to the abandoned warehouse on Pier 39. I set up a safe house there for Isabella. It is heavily fortified. Isabella never made it there. I pray you do.
“Pier 39,” I said. “That’s three miles from where my mother told me to meet her at the old docks.”
“She’s setting you up in an ambush,” Elena said. “She doesn't have Sofia at the docks.”
“Then where is she?” I asked, terror gripping my chest again.
Elena looked at me, her eyes wide with a horrifying realization.
“Adrian,” she whispered. “If Isabella was running to Pier 39 three years ago... and your mother caught her on the mountain road...”
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My blood turned to ice.
My mother didn't take Sofia to the docks. She took her to the mountain.
