Chapter 3 - The Ledger of Sins
The fluorescent light overhead flickered once, casting long, jittery shadows across the blood-spotted floor. Jonathan Vance swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper. The mention of the safe house—and the ledger—shattered the last remnants of his arrogant facade.
"You’re lying," Jonathan whispered, though his voice lacked any real conviction. "The safe house burned down three years ago. Everything inside was turned to ash."
Stallone reached slowly into the inside pocket of his dark jacket. His movements were deliberate, measured, giving Jonathan no reason to panic, yet instilling a paralyzing dread. He withdrew a small, leather-bound notebook with charred edges. The corners were blackened by soot, but the embossed gold initials on the cover—*A.V.*—were unmistakable. It belonged to Arthur Vance, Jonathan’s father and the patriarch of the city's most untouchable medical dynasty.
"Fire doesn't destroy everything, son," Stallone said, holding the book steady in his palm. "Especially not records kept in a waterproof lockbox buried beneath the floorboards. Your father thought he could bury his illegal adoption ring under layers of hospital bureaucracy. He was wrong."
Jonathan lunged forward with sudden, desperate speed, clawing at the air to grab the notebook.
Stallone simply pivoted to the left, letting Jonathan's momentum carry him past. Jonathan stumbled against the wall, striking his shoulder hard against the doorframe. He slid downward, clutching his bruised arm, panting heavily.
"If that book gets into the hands of the federal prosecutor," Jonathan hissed, his voice cracking with desperation, "my whole family is finished. Do you hear me? Finished! My father, my sister, everyone."
"Your father made his choices when he started putting price tags on infants born to desperate mothers in this very ward," Stallone replied, slipping the charred ledger back into his coat. "And you decided to follow in his footsteps by selling your own newborn to pay off the men waiting in the basement parking garage."
The nurse in the doorway shrank back into the shadows, horrified by the magnitude of the corruption unfolding before her eyes.
Jonathan slowly lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot and filled with a venomous hatred. "You think you've won, don't you? You think you can walk out of here with that book and save the day like some forgotten hero from an old war." He let out a dark, breathless chuckle. "Look outside the window, old man."
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Stallone turned his head toward the reinforced glass of the hospital window. Down below, parked in the ambulance bay, was a black unmarked van with its engine idling.
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