"Still playing the silent martyr, Evelyn?" Alexander's voice, thick with contempt, wrenches me back to the penthouse prison. His knuckle grinds deliberately against my windpipe, triggering a wave of choking panic.
Beyond his shoulder, through the rain-smeared glass, the needle spire of the Empire State Building pierces the gloom, its red warning lights burning like demonic eyes reflected in his furious blue ones.
"Pathetic."
He releases my throat just long enough to snatch a sheaf of papers from the chrome-and-glass console beside him. With a vicious flick of his wrist, he sends them fluttering into my face. They slap against my skin, paper cuts stinging, before fluttering to the polished ebony floor like wounded birds.
"Vivian laid it all out for me. Every sordid detail."
My gaze drops, drawn inexorably to the top sheet lying at my feet. Bank statements. My name leaps out: EVELYN LIN And the amount, seared into my retinas: $2,000,000.00.
A king's ransom. A traitor's fee. The receiver. And the sender? BLACK OAK CAPITAL. The name was a brand burned into Sterling Capital's history – his most ruthless, relentless rival. The architects of countless hostile takeovers, rumored to employ tactics far dirtier than corporate raiding.
Transfer Date: 48 Hours Before The Crash.
The date stamp is a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs. Two days before the accident. Two days before I found him bleeding in that ditch. Proof of premeditated betrayal. Cold dread pools in my stomach, heavier than the rain lashing the windows.
"How much?" Alexander hisses, his face inches from mine. The fury in his eyes is incandescent, but beneath it, I glimpse something else – a raw, bewildered pain that shocks me. "How much did Black Oak pay you to set me up? To leak my route? To deliver me to them broken in that ditch?" He grabs the front of my rain-dampened shirt, shaking me hard.
My head snaps back against the glass again. "Was it worth it, you treacherous bitch? Was my life that cheap?"
My eyes fixate on the bottom of the statement, on the stylized, looping electronic signature. V.Shaw. Vivian Shaw. The flourish, the arrogant curl of the 'S' – I'd seen it a hundred times, autographing glossy La Traviata playbills, scrawled on thank-you notes for extravagant bouquets Alexander sent to her dressing room. The signature of Manhattan's darling soprano, Alexander's luminous companion. Proof, in undeniable digital ink, of her lie.
The penthouse door whispers open on well-oiled hinges. Vivian Shaw stands framed in the doorway, a vision of calculated vulnerability. She's swathed in one of Alexander's deep burgundy silk dressing gowns, the belt cinched tight around her narrow waist, the fabric pooling around her bare feet. Her platinum hair cascades artfully over one shoulder. Her face, usually radiant under stage lights, is carefully pale, eyes wide with concern.
"Alexander," she murmurs, her voice a low, honeyed contralto that could melt stone. She glides into the room, the scent of gardenias preceding her. "Please, my love, don't let her poison your spirit. She's not worth this rage." She stops beside him, placing a slender, perfectly manicured hand on his rigid forearm, a calming gesture that only seems to tighten the cords in his neck.
Then, with a delicate, almost theatrical wince, she lifts her left arm. It's encased in layers of pristine white gauze, wrapped thickly from wrist to mid-forearm.
"The doctors said it might take weeks," she sighs, leaning her head briefly against Alexander's shoulder. "The donation... it left me so terribly weak. Still get dizzy spells, you know." Her gaze flicks to me, a fleeting spark of triumph in the depths of her limpid blue eyes before it's replaced by practiced sympathy.
I stare at the bandage. A harsh, incredulous sound almost escapes my lips. The thick padding completely covered the radial artery on the inner wrist – a prominent vessel, yes, but notoriously *useless* for the large-volume blood draw required for a transfusion.
Anyone who'd actually donated significant blood, especially rare RH-null blood which required specialized collection protocols, would know extraction was done from the median cubital vein – deep within the elbow crease. Her bandage was a carefully placed lie, a prop for her performance. The needle site throbbed dully on my own inner elbow beneath my sleeve, a hidden counterpoint to her fraudulent display.
"The lawyer is here, Mr. Sterling." Vivian steps aside gracefully, revealing the man who had been standing silently in the hallway. He's a study in expensive intimidation – Savile Row suit sharp enough to cut, steel-gray hair swept back from a stern face, eyes like chips of flint behind rimless glasses. He carries a slim, black crocodile leather attaché case that probably costs more than my Volvo.
He enters without a word, his polished Oxfords silent on the marble floor. Setting the case on a low glass table, he snaps the latches open with precise movements. From within, he extracts a single, heavy sheet of paper. He holds it out, not towards me, but towards Alexander, though his flinty eyes remain fixed on my face.
Alexander takes it, his jaw clenched, and thrusts it towards me. The bold, black letters of the title seem to leap off the page, stabbing into my consciousness:
INVOLUNTARY PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION ORDER
The words swim before my eyes. Aster Institute. The name alone conjured images of gothic architecture and whispered scandals – a place where inconvenient people quietly disappeared behind high walls and hefty donations.
"Sign it, Miss Lin," the lawyer states, his voice devoid of inflection. He produces a heavy, gold-plated fountain pen from his breast pocket, extending it towards me like a ceremonial dagger. "Aster offers the finest therapeutic environment. Discretion is paramount." He pauses, letting the unspoken threat hang in the air. "A period of rest and evaluation would be... beneficial."
Alexander's hand shoots out, tangling painfully in my hair, yanking my head back. His eyes are wild, desperate. "Sign the paper, Evelyn," he growls, his voice low and dangerous, "or I swear to God, I'll have you charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. You'll rot in Rikers. Choose. The comfortable asylum cell... or the concrete box."
The proximity, the raw pain and fury radiating from him, is almost as suffocating as his grip. His breath hitches slightly. The scent of his cologne, the heat of his body, mingles sickeningly with the memory of his blood soaking into the Connecticut mud, of my blood flowing into his veins. The connection forged in that ditch feels like a physical chain, binding us in this grotesque dance. He needed me to save his life then; now, he needed me gone, erased, for a betrayal I didn't commit. The irony was a knife twisting in my gut.
Crash Site. Five Years Ago
The blood bag, my blood, hung nearly empty, a dark, deflated sac. Alexander's breathing, while still shallow and pained, had lost the terrifying, wet gurgle. Color, faint but definite, was returning to his waxy skin. The immediate, screaming edge of death had receded. Relief warred with a profound sense of violation. Distant sirens, faint at first but growing rapidly louder, pierced the rhythmic drumming of the rain on the car roof. Help was coming. Panic, different from before, seized me. He couldn't wake up. He couldn't see me.
*Alexander Sterling could never know that Evelyn Lin, daughter of the man he ruined, had saved his life.*
The humiliation, the potential leverage he could wield… it was unthinkable.
Moving quickly, I tucked the silver emergency blanket tighter around his unconscious form, ensuring the blood bag line was hidden. His wallet, heavy with implication, burned a hole in my coat pocket. I couldn't leave it for the police to find and trace back to him discovering my presence later. Impulsively, I shoved it deep into my own coat pocket. One last look at his face, peaceful in unconsciousness, the harsh lines softened. For a fleeting second, he looked vulnerable, almost human. Then I shoved the thought away, hardening my heart. He was the enemy. This changed nothing.
I scrambled back up the muddy embankment to my Volvo. As I started the engine, the headlights swept across the crash site one last time. Just before pulling onto the road, my eyes caught a flicker in the dense tree line opposite the ditch. A sliver of intense, unnatural green light. It winked once, like the reflective eye of a predator observing its prey, and then vanished, swallowed by the darkness and rain as if it had never been. A shiver, unrelated to the cold, traced its way down my spine.