Chapter 3 - The Ghost at St. Elizabeth’s
By eight o’clock that morning, the sky over Back Bay had turned the color of bruised slate. A heavy, freezing drizzle swept in off the Charles River, slicking the cobblestone streets of Boston.
Edward’s armored Maybach pulled up to the emergency entrance of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Brighton.
Sophia sat in the leather back seat beside Edward, wearing an oversized wool sweater that belonged to Mrs. Martinez’s granddaughter and a pair of dry sneakers. Her eyes darted nervously out the tinted windows as four towering private security guards in black overcoats formed a wall around the vehicle.
“Is my grandma in trouble?” Sophia asked quietly, pulling the sleeves of the sweater over her hands.
Edward looked down at her. For fifty-two years, he had treated human beings like lines on a balance sheet. But every time he looked at this child, he saw the small, bleeding feet that had dragged his grandson out of a trash heap.
“No,” Edward said, his voice unexpectedly gentle. “Your grandmother is about to get the best medical care money can buy in this city. But she needs to tell me the truth.”
They walked through the sliding glass doors of the charity ward on the third floor. The hallway smelled of harsh floor wax, boiled cabbage, and cheap disinfectant. Nurses scurried past carrying plastic trays, ignoring the wealthy man in the tailored coat until six security guards cleared a path down the corridor.
In Room 312, an elderly woman lay under a thin scratchy blanket, her breathing shallow and raspy beneath an oxygen mask. Her face was lined with decades of hard labor, her hair snow-white against the yellowed pillow.
“Martha,” Edward said, stepping up to the side of the bed.
The old woman’s eyes fluttered open. They were cloudy with age and medication, but when they settled on Edward’s face, a sudden, terrifying jolt of recognition passed through her frame.
“Mr... Mr. Drummond?” she wheezed, reaching up a trembling hand to push her oxygen mask aside.
“Grandma!” Sophia cried, running around the bed and taking the old woman’s frail fingers into her small hands.
“Sophia... oh, thank God, my sweet girl,” Martha wept, kissing the child’s forehead. Then her eyes darted back to Edward, filled with an ancient, paralyzing fear. “Did they find you? Did Harrison’s men take the baby?”
Edward felt a cold blade of rage twist in his gut. “So you know Harrison Vance.”
Martha closed her eyes, tears leaking into the deep crevices of her cheeks. “I worked for St. Jude’s Memorial twenty-five years ago, Mr. Drummond. I was the head night nurse in the private maternity ward.”
Edward leaned over the bed rail, his broad shoulders blocking out the harsh fluorescent light of the room. “My wife Sarah. Did she die in childbirth?”
“Yes,” Martha whispered, her voice cracking. “She died of a hemorrhage at 2:14 AM. But the boy... the boy was healthy. Eight pounds, four ounces. He cried like a lion the second he hit the air.”
Edward swallowed hard, his throat feeling as if it were coated in glass. “Why did the doctors tell me he was stillborn?”
“Because Harrison Vance came into the delivery room ten minutes after your wife passed,” Martha said, her body trembling with recalled horror. “He brought your uncle, Victor Drummond. They had two men in dark suits with them. They paid Dr. Sterling fifty thousand dollars in cash to write a dead death certificate. And then Harrison looked at me.”
She reached out, grabbing Edward’s wool lapel with a surprising, desperate strength.
“Harrison told me that if I ever said a word, he would make sure my daughter—Sophia’s mother—was found floating in the Neponset River. They took the baby to a private estate in the Berkshires. They called him Julian. They raised him in a gilded cage, telling him you abandoned him because you hated him!”
Edward closed his eyes. The breath left his lungs in a long, shuddering exhale.
For twenty-five years, he had lived two miles away from the men who had stolen his child. He had invited Harrison Vance to his estate for Christmas dinners. He had given his uncle Victor a ten percent dividend share in Drummond Holdings every single year. He had nurtured the very vipers who had ripped his blood from his arms.
“And my sister?” Edward asked, his voice dropping so low it was almost a whisper. “My sister Clara. They told me she died in a car crash in Paris twenty years ago.”
Martha let out a ragged sob. “Clara didn't die in Paris, Mr. Drummond. She found out about Julian five years ago. She tracked him to the Berkshires. When she threatened to go to the District Attorney, Harrison Vance had her committed under a fake name to the Blackwood Sanatorium in Maine.”
Edward stood erect. The room seemed to grow utterly still.
The Don of Back Bay was no longer just a cold businessman. The terrifying force that had crushed rival corporations, destroyed corrupt politicians, and built an empire out of sheer ruthlessness was fully awake.
He looked down at Martha. “You kept my grandson alive today, Martha. Your family will never want for anything again.”
He turned to his lead security officer, a massive former Marine named Knox.
“Knox.”
“Sir?”
“Transfer Martha Miller to the private penthouse suite at Massachusetts General Hospital immediately. Put a six-man tactical team outside her door.”
“Understood, Mr. Drummond. And what about you, sir?”
May you like
Edward reached into his coat, pulled out a pair of leather gloves, and pulled them over his knuckles one finger at a time.
“I’m going back to my house,” Edward said, his blue eyes flashing with lethal intent. “Harrison Vance is coming over at nine o’clock to review our quarterly tax strategy. It would be rude of me to keep him waiting.”
