Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Ten Years Past
“She survived,” Dr. Chen said, stepping into the private consultation room.
The breath I had been holding for three hours rushed out of me in an unsteady shudder. Beside me, Hazel remained glued to my side, her fingers curled tightly into the fabric of my suit jacket, while Iris still slept on the sofa under the heavy fleece blanket.
“The aneurysm ruptured on the anterior communicating artery,” Dr. Chen continued, his eyes tired but focused. “We successfully clipped the vessel and evacuated the hematoma. We’ve placed an intracranial pressure monitor to track the swelling. The next seventy-two hours are critical, Mr. Drake. We’re keeping her in a medically induced coma to allow her brain to rest.”
“Can she hear us?” Hazel asked, her small voice cutting through the clinical jargon.
Dr. Chen softened his expression, crouching down slightly to Hazel’s eye level. “The brain is a mysterious thing, sweetheart. Sometimes, people in deep sleeps can feel when the people they love are nearby. Your mom is very strong.”
“I want to see her,” I told him, leaving no room for medical debate.
“Only immediate family is typically permitted in the Neuro-ICU during the first twelve hours—”
“I don’t care about your typical protocols, Doctor,” I interrupted, my tone smooth, quiet, and unyielding. “I own the wing this unit is housed in. Move her to the presidential suite on the eighth floor. Post a dedicated nursing team outside her door, and ensure these girls have a private room adjoining hers. CPS will try to intervene within the hour. If anyone from the state tries to step foot on that floor without my authorization, have security escort them out.”
Dr. Chen nodded once, understanding the caliber of power he was dealing with. “I’ll arrange the transfer immediately.”
Twenty minutes later, the presidential ICU suite was prepped.
The room was vast, overlooking the gray expanse of Puget Sound through reinforced glass windows. In the center of the room, surrounded by an intricate web of IV poles, digital monitors, and a mechanical ventilator, lay Sloan.
Seeing her stopped my heart.
Ten years had passed, but time had done nothing to diminish the fierce, delicate beauty of Sloan Callaway. Her face was pale as marble, a white gauze dressing wrapped around her shaved left temple where the surgeons had opened her skull. Dark purple bruises shadowed her cheekbone from where she had struck the floor, but the curve of her jaw, the shape of her lips, and the fragile line of her throat were the exact same features that had haunted my dreams for a decade.
Iris walked into the room slowly, her hands clutching Sloan’s brown loafer again, her eyes round and terrified. She stopped at the edge of the bed, her small chin barely clearing the silver side rail.
“Mommy looks like Snow White,” Iris whispered, her voice hitching. “When she ate the bad apple.”
Hazel walked to the other side of the bed, climbing onto the edge of the plastic visitor’s chair. She reached over the railing and rested her small hand against Sloan’s limp, pale fingers, which were tethered to a pulse oximeter.
“She’s warm,” Hazel said, looking over at me with desperate relief. “Her hands are always cold when she works on her drawings, but right now she’s warm.”
“That’s the blanket, Hazel,” I said gently, stepping behind Iris and resting my hands on the little girl’s shoulders. The child didn’t flinch. In the span of four hours, Iris had accepted my presence as an anchor in a world that had suddenly dissolved beneath her feet.
“You talk to her,” Iris said, looking up at me with those gray eyes that belonged to my grandfather. “Tell her to wake up. She listens when grown-ups talk.”
I choked on the lump rising in my throat. “I don’t think she wants to listen to me, Iris.”
“She does,” Iris insisted stubbornly. “She talks to your picture when she thinks we’re asleep. When the bills are big, she holds your picture and says, *‘I wish you knew, Griffin. I wish you could see them.’*”
A cold fury mixed with devastating grief tore through my veins.
*I wish you knew.*
How many nights had she sat in that freezing Fremont kitchen, balancing ledgers, skipping meals so these two little girls could have new shoes, all while holding a photograph of the man who could have given her the world? Why hadn’t she swallowed her pride? Why hadn’t she run to me when the twins were born?
I knew the answer. Because my mother was a monster, and Sloan knew that if the Drake dynasty caught wind of twin heirs born out of wedlock to a working-class architect, Evelyn would have used every judge, lawyer, and dirty politician in Washington to strip those children from Sloan’s arms.
Sloan hadn’t run away from me. She had run away from the machine that bore my name.
Suddenly, the heavy oak door of the suite clicked open.
Marcus walked in, carrying a dark leather briefcase. He took one look at the twins, lowered his gaze respectfully, and stepped back toward the anteroom.
“Keep an eye on them for five minutes,” I told the private nurse stationed by the monitors.
I stepped into the adjoining sitting room and closed the door behind me. “Did you get it?”
Marcus placed the briefcase on the mahogany conference table and snapped the latches open. Inside lay the contents of Sloan’s cedar box: two yellowed hospital identification bands marked *Baby Girl A* and *Baby Girl B*, a stack of handwritten letters on drafting paper, and the untouched cashier’s check for five million dollars.
I picked up the first letter. The ink was faded, dated eight years ago, two weeks after the twins were born.
*Griffin,* the letter began in Sloan’s sharp, elegant script.
*Today, your daughter Hazel opened her eyes. They are the color of rain over the Sound, exactly like yours. Ten minutes later, Iris cried for the first time, and she sounds like a storm. I wanted to call you. I picked up the payphone at the clinic three times. But your mother’s voice still rings in my head: ‘If you tie Griffin to a gutter rat’s legacy, I will ensure you spend the rest of your life fighting criminal fraud charges in an institution.’ She showed me the blueprints she planted in my portfolio, Griffin. She had the copyright certificates falsified. She would have sent me to prison before I could ever hold my babies. So I chose them. I chose our children’s freedom over your protection. Please forgive me. Please live a life big enough for all the dreams you told me about.*
My hands shook so violently that the paper rattled.
A single, hot tear dripped from my lash and hit the dried ink of Sloan’s handwriting.
“Boss,” Marcus said quietly, his hand resting on his sidearm beneath his coat. “We have a problem downstairs.”
I wiped my face with the back of my sleeve, the vulnerability vanishing behind a mask of absolute, predatory ice. “What kind of problem?”
May you like
“Evelyn,” Marcus said. “Her private driver just pulled up to the main entrance. She caught wind of your car running red lights and the emergency craniotomy on your account. She’s on the elevator right now.”
***
