Chapter 1 - EIGHT MINUTES
Eight minutes after my father told me to stay awake, someone began pounding on the penthouse door.
I flinched so hard that pain tore across my back.
“Ms. Sterling?”
A man's voice came through the door.
“This is Daniel Mercer with Sterling Security.”
I tried to answer.
Nothing came out.
The pounding stopped.
Then I heard metal scrape against metal.
My father was not asking Matthew's permission to enter.
Seconds later, the door opened.
Three men rushed inside.
The first froze when he saw me beside the sofa.
His face changed immediately.
“Call the paramedics upstairs now.”
“They're already in the elevator.”
He crouched beside me without touching my back.
“Clare, my name is Daniel.”
“Your father sent me.”
I tried to push myself upright.
He shook his head.
“Don't move.”
One of the other men stared at the shattered vase.
Then at the cane.
Then at the blood on the marble.
“Photograph everything.”
Daniel looked sharply at him.
“Nothing gets touched until the police see it.”
The elevator opened again.
Two paramedics entered with a stretcher.
Behind them came a silver-haired man in a black overcoat.
For seven years, I had imagined what seeing my father again would feel like.
Anger.
Shame.
Pride.
Maybe resentment.
I had never imagined seeing Richard Sterling step over broken orchids and drop to his knees in my blood.
He stopped less than a foot from me.
His face went completely white.
“Clare.”
I had forgotten how he said my name.
Not Claire.
Not sweetheart.
Clare.
Exactly the way my mother had chosen it.
“Dad.”
His jaw tightened.
He reached toward me.
Then he noticed the injuries on my shoulder and stopped himself.
The hesitation hurt more than touching would have.
“I'm here.”
My eyes filled.
“I made a mistake.”
“No.”
He looked at me directly.
“You made a choice seven years ago.”
“Tonight, Matthew made a crime.”
One of the paramedics gently examined my wrist.
“We need to move her.”
My father stood.
“Whatever she needs.”
The paramedic gave him a hard look.
“We know our job, sir.”
To my surprise, my father nodded.
“Then do it.”
They fitted a collar around my neck and carefully lifted me.
Pain exploded beneath my ribs.
I gasped.
My father's hands curled into fists.
Daniel quietly stepped between him and the cane.
That small movement told me everything.
Everyone in the room knew what Richard Sterling wanted to do.
Everyone also knew he would not do it.
Not because Matthew deserved restraint.
Because my father had built his entire life on understanding the difference between power and control.
As they rolled me toward the elevator, I saw one of the security men photographing the cane.
Another photographed the bloody shoe print near the broken vase.
My father walked beside the stretcher.
Then his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen.
“It's Henderson.”
My eyes opened.
Arthur Henderson had been my father's general counsel for almost twenty years.
My father answered.
“What happened?”
He listened for several seconds.
His expression hardened.
Then he looked directly at me.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Freeze it.”
I stared at him.
He ended the call.
“What?”
My voice was barely audible.
He slipped the phone into his coat.
“Matthew scheduled an eighty-four-million-dollar transfer from NexusCore less than forty minutes ago.”
My heartbeat changed.
“To where?”
“Henderson doesn't know yet.”
The elevator doors opened.
My father stepped inside beside me.
“But the receiving company is registered in Lauren Thorne's name.”
For the first time since the cane touched my skin, the pain became secondary.
Because Matthew had not only been beating his wife tonight.
May you like
He had been preparing to run.
And whatever he was running from had apparently begun before I ever picked up the phone.
