Chapter 6
The door to room four-twelve swung open with a heavy, hollow click. The room was sparse—a single narrow bed bolted to the floor, a small metal desk, and a high window barred with reinforced steel. A small bedside lamp cast a dim, yellow halo over the figure huddled beneath a thin gray blanket.
Maya Sterling looked terrifyingly frail. At twenty-eight, she possessed the same striking red hair as Clara, though hers was cropped short and lacked its natural luster. Her face was pale, almost translucent against the pillow, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. When the light hit her face, she flinched, shielding her eyes with a hand that trembled visibly.
“Julian?” Her voice was a fragile whisper, cracking with disuse. “Is that… are you real, or is this another medication dream?”
Julian crossed the room in two long strides, dropping to his knees beside the bed. He pulled the blanket back gently, his strong hands cupping his sister’s cold face. For a man who prided himself on emotional restraint, the sight of what had been done to his only sister broke something fundamental inside him.
“It’s me, Maya,” Julian said, his voice thick with a emotion he struggled to contain. “I’m real. You’re safe now. We’re leaving.”
Maya began to cry, but there was no theatrical wailing—just quiet, exhausted tears that spilled over her lower eyelids and soaked into the rough cotton pillowcase. She reached out, her fingers digging into the fabric of Julian’s beige suit jacket as if anchoring herself to the physical world.
Clara stood in the doorway, watching the reunion with a heavy heart. She stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind her, giving them a moment of privacy while keeping watch.
“How long?” Maya whispered, looking past Julian to catch Clara’s eye. “How did you find the ledgers, Clara?”
“I found them in the bottom of the oak safe in your grandfather’s old study,” Clara said softly, walking over to the side of the bed and placing a gentle hand on Maya’s shoulder. “Your grandmother thought she had burned all the duplicates after he passed, but he kept a ledger in the back of the false-bottom drawer. She caught me copying them, and… well, Julian walked in just in time.”
Maya let out a dry, humorless chuckle that turned into a cough. “Grandmother never leaves anything to chance. If she’s still in that house, she’s already burning the physical archives. She won’t go down quietly, Julian. She has judges, politicians, and half the board of directors in her pocket.”
May you like
“Let her try,” Julian said, standing up and helping Maya sit against the pillows. He shrugged off his beige jacket and draped it over her shivering shoulders. “The board can’t protect her from federal fraud charges, and the politicians won’t touch her once the SEC gets the digital backups Clara uploaded to my secure server before we left the estate.”
Maya looked up at her brother, a flicker of the fierce, intelligent activist she used to be returning to her eyes. “Then we don't go back to the mansion. We go straight to the federal building downtown.”
