Chapter 4 - The Night in Westchester
The revelation seemed to cause the temperature inside the penthouse to drop by twenty degrees.
Leo and Noah had retreated slightly, standing hand-in-hand between Julian and Sarah, their small bodies leaning against Sarah’s knees like saplings seeking the shelter of an ancient oak. They were no longer crying. The miraculous return of speech had not left them; they simply stood watch, their wide eyes moving between the adults with an intuitive understanding of the storm unfolding around them.
Victoria sank onto the settee, her fingers digging into the plush velvet fabric until her knuckles turned ivory. “She’s lying! She’s an opportunist! Julian, think about what you’re saying! You stood by the casket! You saw the death certificate signed by the chief coroner of New York State!”
“A coroner who was appointed to his post by your father, Senator Vance,” Sarah replied. Her voice had lost all trace of domestic subservience. It was clear, resonant, and carried the steady, rhythmic cadence of a woman who had rehearsed this testimony in the dark for four long years.
Sarah turned to Julian, her eyes dark with the memory of an unimaginable nightmare.
“Four years ago, November fourteenth,” Sarah began, her words measured and unhurried. “You were in London, Julian. You had just closed the transatlantic shipping merger. I was thirty-four weeks pregnant with the twins at our loft in Brooklyn.”
Julian closed his eyes, a shudder running through his broad shoulders. “I got the call at three in the morning. They told me you suffered an acute placental abruption. They told me you were rushed to Saint Jude’s because the city hospitals were locked down during the blizzard.”
“There was no blizzard,” Sarah said softly. “And there was no ambulance. Two men in dark suits forced their way into the loft at eight o'clock that evening. They told me you were in a crisis meeting at the Vance estate in Westchester, and that you had sent them to escort me there for safety.”
She looked at Victoria, whose gaze was now glued to the marble floor, her breathing shallow and ragged.
“They brought me to Saint Jude’s Pavilion,” Sarah continued. “A private, unmarked medical facility on the edge of the Vance compound. When I arrived, Victoria was standing in the lobby with Dr. Harrison—her father’s personal physician.”
Julian slowly turned his head to look at his wife. His hands balled into tight fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking under the strain.
“What did they do to you, Sarah?” Julian asked, his voice shaking with suppressed violence.
“They induced labor,” Sarah said, her voice dropping to a whisper that made the grand room feel claustrophobic. “They gave me high doses of pitocin and ketamine. When the boys were born—crying, healthy, breathing—they took them away from the room before I could even touch their skin. Then Dr. Harrison leaned over my bed with a syringe. He told me that a girl from an unverified background had no place in the Sterling dynasty. He told me that Victoria Vance would make a far more suitable mother for Julian Sterling’s heirs.”
“You’re insane!” Victoria screamed, jumping to her feet, pointing a trembling finger at Sarah. “You have no proof! Not a single court in this country will take the word of a deranged maid over the daughter of a United States Senator!”
Sarah reached into the deep pocket of her cleaning apron.
May you like
She did not pull out a weapon. She pulled out a small, encrypted external solid-state drive, its brushed aluminum casing bearing the faded serial number of a private hospital workstation.
“Dr. Harrison was an arrogant butcher, Victoria,” Sarah said coldly. “He thought I was completely unconscious from the paralytic. He didn't realize that my hand had clamped down on the mobile recording unit used by the delivery nurses. He didn't realize that when his orderly threw my ‘corpse’ into the back of an unmarked medical van to be dumped in a pauper’s grave across the state line, I woke up.”
