Chapter 1 - The Lockdown at St. Catherine’s
The single word hung in the sterile air of the hospital corridor, heavy enough to fracture the foundation I had spent decades building. Poisoned. Claire, the steady heartbeat of my existence, the woman who had shared peanut butter sandwiches in a cramped student apartment when my net worth was negative, was fighting for her life against an invisible assassin.
“Lock down this floor,” I told my head of security, Marcus, through clenched teeth, my voice dropping an octave into the register that usually made boardrooms tremble. “Nobody enters. Nobody leaves. Not doctors, not nurses, not visitors. Find the chief administrator and secure every security feed from the maternity wing for the past twelve hours.”
Marcus gave a sharp nod and vanished into the stairwell.
Across the hallway, Vanessa Vale hadn’t moved. Her high heels stood neatly on the linoleum, her posture rigid, her phone clutched in a manicured hand. Vanessa was the senior vice president of public relations at Sloane Infrastructure Group—brilliant, ambitious, and uncomfortably close to my inner circle. She had managed my corporate image through hostile takeovers and municipal scandals, but what was she doing in a restricted VIP maternity floor at two in the morning?
“Vanessa,” I said, stepping across the corridor toward her. My charcoal suit felt suffocating, soaked in the cold sweat of a nightmare. “What are you doing here?”
She blinked, smoothing down the lapel of her designer blazer with practiced grace, though a bead of sweat tracked down her jawline. “Mason... I saw the alert on the corporate crisis channel. When I heard you rushed to St. Catherine’s, I came immediately. As your head of communications, I anticipated media fallout—”
“The public doesn’t even know the babies are born yet, let alone that my wife is in the ICU,” I interrupted, stepping close enough to see the micro-tremors in her eyelids. “How did you know to come to the VIP floor specifically?”
Her breath hitched for a fraction of a second. “The... the desk nurse downstairs mentioned it when I checked in.”
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“The desk nurse downstairs doesn’t give out VIP room numbers to anyone,” I whispered, my gaze locking onto hers. “Who called you, Vanessa?”
Before she could answer, Dr. Bennett pulled open the heavy ICU doors, his face drained of color. “Mr. Sloane. You need to see this now. The toxicology panel just updated, and whatever is in her system isn't breaking down. It's attacking her central nervous system.”
