Chapter 2 - Shadows at the Emergency Entrance
The Mercedes glided smoothly through the snow-bound streets of downtown Chicago. Sitting in the back seat, James watched Lucy stare out the tinted window at the glowing neon lights of the city. She held a half-eaten protein bar James had found in his glove box, taking tiny, polite bites as if afraid she would be scolded for eating too much.
"Is your mommy sick, Lucy?" James asked quietly as they turned onto Huron Street.
Lucy nodded, her cheeks full of chocolate and oats. "Her heart hurts," she said after swallowing. "She worked at the laundry place all night, and then she fell down. The ambulance came and took her. Chloe gave the man in the blue shirt all our money, but he said it wasn't enough for the big medicine."
James closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, a dark anger rising in his chest. A single mother collapsing from exhaustion, two children left abandoned in a hospital waiting room while the system calculated their insurance status. It was a story as old as the city, but seeing it embodied in the tiny girl sitting next to him made it unbearable.
His phone buzzed. It was Vance.
"Boss, we’ve got a situation," Vance reported, his voice tense over the speaker. "We found the sister, Chloe. She was in the alley behind the pediatric wing. Two low-level enforcers working for a local debt-collection syndicate had her cornered. They were trying to force her into a van."
James's knuckles turned white around the phone. "Where are they now?"
"My boys handled the enforcers. They're locked in the back of our SUV waiting for the police. Chloe is safe. She's shaken up, but unharmed. We have her in the private waiting area on the fourth floor."
"Good work, Marcus," James breathed a sigh of relief. "What about the mother?"
There was a long beat of silence on the line.
"Marcus?" James pressed.
"You need to see the medical chart yourself, Mr. Carter," Vance said quietly. "Her name is Sarah Morrison. And... boss, there's something else. Her records show her legal guardian until she turned eighteen was a trust fund managed by your late father's firm."
James stared at the phone in absolute disbelief. "What did you just say?"
May you like
"Sarah Morrison isn't a stranger, James," Vance whispered. "She’s the daughter of Thomas Sterling."
Thomas Sterling had been James’s father’s business partner—the man who had mysteriously disappeared fifteen years ago after being framed for a multi-million-dollar embezzlement scheme that had nearly destroyed Carter Enterprises.
