Chapter 83 - The Shadow of the Patriarch
Ethan threw on a sterile gown and burst into the operating theater, the scent of antiseptic, cauterized flesh, and raw iron slamming into him like a physical blow.
"Charge to two hundred!" Dr. Thorne roared, holding the defibrillator paddles over Olivia’s open chest. "Clear!"
Olivia’s body arched violently off the table as the shock tore through her. The electrocardiogram emitted a long, flatline whine that sliced through Ethan’s skull like a hot wire.
"Liv!" Ethan lunged toward the table, but two orderlies caught him by the shoulders, holding him back. "Olivia, do not leave me! Fight it! Fight for her!"
"Push one milligram of epinephrine!" Thorne screamed, sweat pouring into his eyes. "Charge to three hundred! Clear!"
*Thud.*
Her body jerked again.
Across the room, at the neonatal warming station, a tiny, high-pitched wail pierced the chaos.
A pediatrician in bloodied gloves turned, lifting a minuscule, glistening infant wrapped in warm sterile towels. "We have the baby! Girl! Apgar score is low, but she's breathing! Get her into the incubator, now!"
Ethan looked between his daughter—tiny, fragile, fighting for her first gasps of air—and Olivia, whose face was completely drained of life, the monitor showing nothing but a cruel, unbroken horizontal line.
"Liv..." Ethan broke free from the orderlies, falling to his knees beside the head of the operating table. He grabbed her limp, freezing hand, pressing it against his tear-streaked cheek. "You hear that? That's our daughter. She has your chin, Liv. She needs you. I need you. If you go, I have nothing left to fight for. Come back to me!"
Thorne rubbed the paddles together for the third time. "Charge to three-sixty! Clear!"
*Thump.*
Silence hung in the room for five agonizing seconds, broken only by the hum of the ventilation system and the tiny, muffled cries from the incubator.
Then, a single, tentative beep echoed from the monitor.
Then another.
*Beep... beep... beep.*
"Sinus rhythm restored," the anesthesiologist whispered, slumping back against his stool. "Blood pressure forty over twenty. It’s weak, but she’s back. Close her up, Alan. Fast."
Ethan buried his face in Olivia’s palm, his body wracked with silent, shuddering sobs. She was alive. Barely hanging onto the thread of existence, but she was here.
Ten minutes later, Ethan stood outside the intensive care cubicle, watching through the plate glass as Thorne and his team stabilized Olivia with automated transfusions while the baby rested in an adjoining isolette under ultraviolet warming lamps.
Marcus walked up behind him, carrying a heavy, sealed titanium briefcase.
"What is that?" Ethan asked without turning around.
"A courier just dropped it at the hospital's underground ambulance bay," Marcus said grimly. "He didn't ask for a signature. He simply handed it to our gate guard and said, 'For the Sovereign Heir, before the clock strikes midnight.'"
Ethan turned around, his gaze locking onto the case. Etched into the polished metal surface was the crest of the Sterling family: an ouroboros encircling a broken crown.
Beside the handle was a biometric scanner programmed to read Sterling DNA.
Ethan stepped forward, wiped the dried blood of his wife from his thumb, and pressed it against the glass sensor.
The scanner flashed green. The internal latches clicked open with a hiss of pressurized nitrogen.
Inside lay a single encrypted satellite tablet, a handwritten letter on personalized parchment, and a small, lead-shielded vial containing a clear, viscous liquid labeled: *Erebus Antigen: Dose 01.*
Ethan picked up the handwritten letter. The penmanship was bold, sharp, and unmistakable.
*Ethan,*
*The Council gave Victoria the synthetic neurotoxin that induced Olivia's placental abruption three days ago during her courtroom deposition; it was in the water she drank. The antigen in this case is the only thing that can halt the cellular breakdown in her liver over the next twenty-four hours.*
*Victoria thought she was playing for the family fortune. She never knew she was merely the ignition switch for the Council's liquidation of the Sterling bloodline.*
*If you want to save Olivia, you will bring the child to the abandoned docks at Red Hook at 0300 hours. Alone.*
*Do not trust Marcus. Do not trust Thorne.*
*Trust only the blood that made you.*
May you like
*— Your Father.*
***
