Chapter 2 - Cold Blood and Paper Trails
The digital audio file cut out with a harsh hiss of static. Mark stood alone in his top-floor penthouse study, the heavy soundproofed doors locked from the inside. In the adjacent nursery, a private medical team and two armed bodyguards watched over baby Leo.
Mark tapped his desk, replaying the words in his head. Not his biological father. It made no sense. He had loved Victoria once, or at least he had believed in the domestic quiet she promised after the bitter divorce from his first wife. When Leo was born prematurely six months ago, Mark had wept in the hospital hallway.
His intercom buzzed. It was Thomas, his personal attorney of fifteen years.
""Mark, the district attorney is formalizing charges against Victoria,"" Thomas said, entering the room with a thick leather binder. ""Attempted murder, reckless endangerment, and premeditated insurance fraud. The tablet footage from the foyer is indisputable. She deliberately loosened her grip.""
""She didn't act alone,"" Mark said, his voice quiet. He didn't look up from his desk. ""Where is Eleanor?""
""Her mother vanished from the estate twenty minutes after the police escorted Victoria out. Her car was found abandoned near the harbor. We’re tracking her bank accounts now, but she initiated three wire transfers to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands before noon.""
""Find her,"" Mark ordered, his jaw tightening. ""And pull the hospital records from Saint Jude’s. The original birth registration. The blood work. Everything.""
Thomas paused, frowning. ""Is there an issue with Leo's documentation?""
""Do it quietly. No one on the board hears a whisper of this. If the press catches wind that the Sterling heir’s legitimacy is in question, the stock price will crater before the opening bell.""
After Thomas left, Mark walked over to the reinforced glass window overlooking the sprawling city skyline. Down below, reporters swarmed the wrought-iron gates like vultures, flashbulbs popping in the dark. Victoria was ruined, but Mark felt no victory—only an encroaching, suffocating paranoia.
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Suddenly, the screen on his desktop computer flickered. A remote access prompt flashed once, twice, and then bypassed his enterprise-grade firewall. A new window snapped open on the display. It was a live video feed of Leo’s nursery right next door.
One of the armed bodyguards was standing directly over the crib, his back to the camera. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small glass vial and a syringe.
