Michael Harrison did not unbuckle his seatbelt immediately.

By 2:00 AM, the storm outside had turned into a full-scale blizzard, blanketing Seattle in a silent, suffocating white.

Inside the guest wing, the atmosphere was tense and clinical.

Dr. Sterling pulled his stethoscope from his ears, wrapping it around his neck as he stepped away from Clara’s bed. He walked over to the corner of the room where Michael stood, staring out the floor-to-ceiling window into the snow.

"How are they?" Michael asked without turning around.

"The baby, Maya, is surprisingly resilient," Dr. Sterling reported, his tone grave. "Severe respiratory distress and mild hypothermia, but we’ve put her on an humidified oxygen tent and administered intravenous fluids. She’ll recover."

"And Clara?"

Sterling sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Advanced double pneumonia, acute malnutrition, and physical exhaustion. If you had left her out there for another two hours, Michael, she would have suffered total organ failure. I’ve started her on broad-spectrum antibiotics and a continuous saline drip, but she needs around-the-clock monitoring."

Michael turned around slowly. "Is she stable enough to talk?"

"Not tonight," Sterling warned firmly. "Her immune system is completely depleted. Any severe emotional distress could send her into septic shock."

Michael nodded slowly, his face an unreadable mask of stone. "Thank you, David. Set up whatever equipment you need. Money is no object."

After Sterling left the room to check on the infant in the adjacent nursery, Michael walked over to the bedside chair and sat down.

The bedroom was silent, saved only for the rhythmic, low hum of the medical monitors and the soft tapping of sleet against the windowpanes.

Michael looked at Clara.

In the dim light of the bedside lamp, stripped of the grime and soot of the street, her face retained the quiet, intellectual beauty he had secretly admired six years ago. When she had worked at Harrison Medical, Michael had been a young, ambitious CEO trying to prove himself after his father’s death. Clara had been the brilliant, fiery scientist who refused to bow to corporate deadlines, insisting that every clinical trial be conducted with absolute perfection.

They had shared long nights in the lab, eating cold takeout pizza while staring at molecular structures on digital monitors. There had been an unspoken spark between them—a quiet, fragile tension that neither had dared to act upon due to corporate ethics and professional boundaries.

Then came the theft. The betrayal.

Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He dialed an internal security number that bypassed his corporate staff, connecting directly to Marcus Vance—his private head of security and former military intelligence officer.

"Boss?" Marcus’s deep voice answered on the second ring. "It’s two in the morning."

"Marcus," Michael said softly, keeping his eyes on Clara’s pale face. "I need you at the estate. Bring the original case file on the 2021 Aegis-9 embezzlement."

There was a long, heavy pause on the other end of the line.

"The Clara Vance file?" Marcus asked, his tone shifting instantly into sharp alertness. "Boss... that file was sealed by the board five years ago after the federal authorities closed the case."

"Unseal it," Michael ordered coldly. "And Marcus?"

"Yeah?"

"Check the security logs for Harrison Medical Tower tonight. I want to know who assigned the private guard detail to Fourth Avenue."