Chapter 2 - The Price of a Life
The VIP wing of St. Jude Medical Center didn't look like a hospital. It looked like a five-star hotel that happened to have IV stands and oxygen ports hidden behind mahogany wall panels.
Ruby stood in the doorway of Room 702, holding a paper cup of lukewarm machine coffee that tasted like burnt cardboard. The room was massive, featuring a plush leather sofa, a private kitchenette, a massive flat-screen television, and a panoramic window that looked out over the rain-swept Seattle skyline.
In the center of the room, lying in a bed with high-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, was her mother, Clara.
Clara looked fragile, her skin pale and translucent, her graying hair covered by a soft knitted cap. But for the first time in six months, she didn't look like she was in pain. The constant, low-grade grimace that had carved deep lines into her forehead was gone, smoothed out by the advanced pain-management protocols that Dr. Vance—a world-renowned oncologist who usually only took patients by referral from foreign royalty—had personally prescribed three hours ago.
"Ruby, sweetie," Clara murmured, her voice weak but clear. "Are you sure we aren't in trouble? Two men in very expensive suits packed up my things in the general ward. They didn't even let me finish my jello."
Ruby walked over to the bed, setting her coffee cup on the bedside table. She took her mother’s thin, cool hand in her own, squeezing it gently.
"We aren't in trouble, Mom," Ruby said, forcing a reassuring smile onto her face. "I... I did a favor for someone. Someone with a lot of money."
"A favor?" Clara’s brow furrowed. "What kind of favor gets you a room with a view of the Space Needle?"
"I found a lost kid," Ruby said, keeping the details simple. She didn't want to explain the dark alley, the blue lips, the choking sounds, or the terrifying men with guns who had escorted them up here. "His father is a big deal in the city. He wanted to say thank you."
"Well, he must be a very nice man," Clara sighed, her eyelids growing heavy as the medication began to pull her back down into sleep.
"Yeah," Ruby whispered, looking out the window at the dark, roiling clouds. "Something like that."
The door to the room opened with a soft click.
Ruby spun around, her defensive instincts immediately on high alert.
It wasn't a doctor. It was Victor, the lead bodyguard with the scarred temple. He had removed his wet overcoat, revealing a tailored charcoal suit and a communication earpiece nestled in his right ear. He held a sleek, silver tablet in his hands.
"Ms. Walker," Victor said, his tone professional, polite, and entirely devoid of emotion. "Mr. Sterling would like to see you."
"Is Julian okay?" Ruby asked, her chest tightening. "The boy?"
"The young master is resting in the pediatric ICU. He is out of danger, thanks to your timely intervention. Dr. Aris expects a full recovery. Mr. Sterling is waiting for you in his private office on the penthouse floor of this building."
"His private office?" Ruby blinked. "In a hospital?"
"Mr. Sterling built this hospital, Ms. Walker," Victor said simply, as if explaining that the sky was blue. "He maintains a private suite here for... security purposes. Please follow me."
Ruby looked back at her sleeping mother, then down at her own clothes. The hospital staff had kindly provided her with a pair of clean, oversized green scrubs to replace her wet, muddy uniform, but she still felt like an impostor walking through these pristine, quiet corridors.
She followed Victor to a private elevator at the end of the hall. Victor swiped a gold-embossed keycard, and the elevator rose silently, bypassing all other floors until it reached the top.
When the doors opened, Ruby stepped into a space that looked more like a fortress than an office. The walls were lined with dark oak panels, the floors covered in deep, slate-gray carpets that swallowed the sound of her footsteps. Large, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a 360-degree view of the city, the lights of Seattle flickering through the storm like fallen stars.
Arthur Sterling sat behind a massive desk of petrified wood. He had discarded his suit jacket, his white silk shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing strong, muscular wrists and a heavy platinum watch. He was reading a physical folder, his eyes scanning the pages with rapid, cold efficiency.
"Sit, Ms. Walker," Arthur said, not looking up from the documents.
Ruby walked over to one of the leather armchairs opposite his desk. She didn't sit. She stood with her hands tucked into the pockets of her scrub pants, her shoulders squared.
"I like standing," she said.
Arthur paused. He slowly closed the folder, set it down on the desk, and leaned back in his chair. He locked his gray eyes onto hers, a faint trace of amusement dancing in the shadows of his gaze.
"You have a habit of refusing to do what you are told, don't you, Ruby?"
"Only when the person doing the telling thinks they own the room," Ruby replied.
"I don't think I own this room, Ms. Walker," Arthur said, his voice quiet, smooth, and laced with a quiet promise of violence. "I know I own it. Along with the ground beneath it and the air you are currently breathing."
"Good for you," Ruby said, refusing to back down. "But unless you're going to charge me rent for the air, I'd like to know why I’m here. My mom is safe. Your kid is safe. We should be even."
"We are far from even," Arthur said, standing up. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the city. "Three hours ago, my security team retrieved the surveillance footage from the alley behind the Rusty Anchor. They also retrieved the GPS data from Julian’s tracking device."
He turned back to her, his face turning cold, his eyes hardening into flint.
"The tracking device didn't malfunction. It was cut out of his jacket with a knife. The kid who was with him—his cousin, the son of my late brother—was found tied up in an abandoned warehouse three blocks away. This was not a random accident, Ruby. It was an organized abduction. The people who took my son wanted a ransom of fifty million dollars."
Ruby’s breath caught in her throat. "Fifty million?"
"And they would have gotten it," Arthur continued, walking back to his desk. "But they made a mistake. They didn't realize Julian had an undiagnosed, severe allergy to peanuts. They fed him a cheap peanut butter sandwich to keep him quiet. When he went into anaphylactic shock, they panicked. They thought he was already dead, so they dumped him behind your diner to avoid a murder charge."
He stopped, his gray eyes burning into hers.
"If you had not gone out to throw away that trash when you did, my son would have died in that mud. The men who did this would have escaped, and I would have spent the rest of my life hunting ghosts."
Arthur reached down, opening the drawer of his desk. He pulled out a sleek, black checkbook and a heavy gold pen.
"I do not like being in debt," Arthur said, opening the checkbook. "Name your price, Ruby. Whatever it is. One million. Two million. A house in Bellevue. Your mother's medical bills are already taken care of, but this... this is for you. Name the number, and I will write the check right now."
Ruby stared at the black checkbook. For a second, the image of her stacked bills, her landlord's red-inked notices, and her cold, rattling Honda flashed through her mind. She could be free. She could walk away from the diner, buy a house, go back to nursing school, and never have to smell old fryer grease again.
But then she looked at Arthur Sterling’s eyes.
She saw the cold calculation. She saw the wealthy tyrant who thought every human being, every act of kindness, and every drop of blood had a price tag that could be settled with a signature.
A sudden, sharp anger flared in her chest.
"Keep your money, Mr. Sterling," Ruby said, her voice quiet but vibrating with a fierce, hot pride.
Arthur paused, his pen hovering over the paper. He blinked, a genuine expression of shock crossing his features. "What did you say?"
"I said, keep your money," Ruby repeated, stepping closer to the desk, her eyes flashing. "I didn't save your son for a payday. I saved him because he was a little boy who was dying, and I'm a human being. If I take your check, then what I did tonight wasn't a rescue. It was a transaction. And I don't sell my humanity to people like you."
She turned toward the elevator, her shoulders straight.
"Ms. Walker," Arthur’s voice boomed through the room, no longer quiet, no longer amused. It was the voice of a king who had just been defied in his own court. "No one walks away from me."
May you like
"I just did," Ruby said, pressing the elevator button.
The doors slid open, and she stepped inside, leaving the sovereign of Seattle standing in his high tower, his gold pen still hovering over a blank check, his gray eyes filled with a dangerous, dark fascination.
