Chapter 2 - The House Cleaning
I left Sloan in the waiting room with a cup of hot tea and a promise that I would be back in exactly one hour. I stepped into an empty consultation room and pulled out my phone.
I didn’t call my assistant. I called Marcus Vance, my Chief Operating Officer and the man who had handled the aggressive restructuring of my personal assets during the divorce. Marcus had been my right hand for five years. He was ruthless, efficient, and obsessed with our stock price.
“Vincent,” Marcus answered on the second ring, sounding entirely too cheerful for a Friday afternoon. “I thought you were off the grid until Monday. Did the Singapore investors push back?”
“Marcus,” I said softly. “When I finalized the divorce with Sloan, what were your specific instructions regarding her medical coverage?”
There was a slight pause on the line. “Standard procedure, Vince. We provided the lump sum settlement and terminated ongoing liabilities. She was completely severed from the corporate accounts. Why? Is she asking for more money?”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
The silence stretched longer this time. When Marcus spoke, his tone was defensive, laced with the arrogant assumption that we were on the same side. “My legal team flagged a prenatal blood panel on her medical claims two days after you filed the divorce papers. You were right in the middle of the Tokyo merger. You explicitly told me you wanted zero distractions and a clean break. A surprise pregnancy from an ex-wife was a multi-million dollar liability and a PR nightmare. I made it disappear. I severed the policy so she couldn’t tie the child to your estate.”
The rage that hit me was blinding. It wasn’t hot; it was absolute, freezing ice. Marcus hadn’t just hidden my daughter from me. He had weaponized my own instructions about "zero distractions" to justify cutting off a pregnant woman’s lifeline.
“You canceled the medical insurance of a woman carrying my child, knowing she had no income,” I said, my voice dropping to a deadly calm.
“I protected your assets!” Marcus snapped, finally realizing the danger he was in. “You said marriage trapped you! You said you wanted her gone! I did my job, Vincent!”
“Your job was to manage my company, Marcus. Not my bloodline.” I walked over to the hospital window, looking down at the Manhattan traffic. “As of this exact second, you are terminated. You are stripped of your equity, your board seat, and your severance package.”
“You can’t do that! The board will skin you alive!”
“Let them try. I am also calling the federal authorities. Canceling a spouse's medical insurance during a pending settlement without a judge's signature is insurance fraud. You’re going to prison, Marcus. If you ever contact me, my ex-wife, or my daughter again, I will make sure you don’t have a penny left to hire a public defender.”
I ended the call and crushed the phone in my hand, tossing it into the trash can. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need the device; I needed to get back to my family.
When I returned to the waiting room, Dr. Aris, the chief of pediatric cardiology, was standing with Sloan. He looked grim.
“Mr. Sterling,” Dr. Aris said, extending a hand. “Your daughter’s situation is critical. The initial shunt has failed entirely. Her right ventricle is exhausted. We need to perform the Glenn procedure immediately—months ahead of schedule. It is a massive risk. But without it, her heart will stop before midnight.”
I looked at Sloan. She was completely broken, staring at the doctor like he was reading a death sentence. I stepped forward and wrapped my arm securely around her waist, pulling her against my side. She stiffened for a second, then collapsed against my chest, her fingers gripping my shirt.
“Do the surgery, Dr. Aris,” I said, looking the surgeon dead in the eye. “Whatever you need. Experimental tech, specialist consults flown in from Geneva—I don’t care. Do whatever it takes to save her life.”
“We will prep the OR,” Aris nodded. “You have ten minutes to say goodbye before she goes under.”
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We walked into the neonatal ICU. Willa was lying in a plastic isolette, hooked up to a dozen monitors, her tiny chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow jerks. She looked so small. I reached through the porthole, gently resting my index finger against her tiny, perfect hand. Immediately, her tiny fingers curled around mine.
A tear slipped down my face, landing on the sterile plastic. “I’m right here, Willa,” I whispered. “Daddy is right here. I’m never leaving again. You just have to fight.”
