Part 2 The emergency surgery lasted four hours.
Part 2
The emergency surgery lasted four hours.
I sat alone in the corridor, staring at the beige hospital wall, my hands clenched so tightly my nails left marks in my palms. Unknown numbers kept calling my phone, offering millions to “resolve the matter privately.” I hung up each time and dialed Brenda Vance, a high-stakes defense attorney recommended by a friend. When the doctor finally emerged, his face was pale but determined.
“The capsule is out,” he said. “It was embedded deep in scar tissue. It’s been there for decades. We’ve placed it under strict chain of custody and notified the authorities.”
Inside the dark metallic cylinder were original payment ledgers, dates, names, and a certified birth record with my mother’s forced fingerprints. The destination read: The Sterling Family. The assigned name: Edward.
My mother, weak and still under sedation, whispered from her bed, “Linda… forgive me. I was nineteen. They told me you were dead. They paid me to stay quiet. I was terrified.”
I held her hand, tears streaming down my face.
“You were a child. They were monsters.”
Arthur was detained that same afternoon. His phone logs showed frantic texts to a contact saved as “E.S.” — Edward Sterling, the current CEO of the Sterling Insurance Group.
“If the old woman gets a CT scan, it’s all over. The capsule must be recovered before it falls into the District Attorney’s hands.”
The contact wasn’t the long-dead Ethan Sterling. It was Edward — Ethan’s legal son, the man who had inherited the empire built on stolen lives.
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