Chapter Seven: Empty Bed

Ethan called Whitfield before the car had even come to a full stop outside the Bennett house.

“Julius,” Ethan said the moment the line connected, his voice sharper than he meant it to sound. “Tell me he is safe.”

There was a pause, brief but wrong, the kind of pause that told Ethan something had already gone badly before he asked. “Mr Carter. How do you know something has happened?”

“Because I am looking at a photograph of his empty hospital room right now.” Ethan’s hand tightened around the phone. “Cassius sent it to me twenty minutes ago.”

He heard Whitfield exhale sharply, heard footsteps moving fast on the other end, a door opening. “I was informed the room was empty eight minutes ago. I assumed it was a transfer, a precaution, since we increased security after the message about Mr Bennett. I am heading there myself now.”

“Increased security did not stop this.”

“No,” Whitfield admitted. “It did not. I do not yet know how.”

Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, forcing himself to breathe through the panic clawing up his throat. Two men taken in one night, both because of him, both because a cousin he had never met wanted to prove exactly how much damage he could do before Ethan even had time to understand the scope of what he had inherited.

“I am coming to the hospital,” Ethan said.

“Mr Carter, I would advise—”

“I do not care what you would advise right now.” Ethan was already opening the car door. “That is my grandfather. I am coming.”

He hung up before Whitfield could argue further, the second time that night he had cut off the old lawyer mid-protest, and turned to find Sophia standing in the doorway of her family’s house, having clearly heard enough of the conversation to understand something was wrong.

“What happened,” she said.

“Julius. My grandfather. He is gone from the hospital.” Ethan’s voice was tighter than he wanted it to be. “Cassius took him too.”

Sophia’s face went pale. “Ethan, I am so sorry. Is there anything I can—”

“Take care of your father,” Ethan said. “He needs you more right now than I do.” He was already moving toward the car, Marcus falling into step beside him without needing to be asked.

“Ethan.” Sophia’s voice stopped him at the edge of the driveway. He turned. She stood there, arms wrapped around herself, something raw and unguarded on her face that he had not seen from her in years, maybe ever. “Be careful. Please. I mean it.”

He nodded once, not trusting his voice, and got into the car.

The drive to the hospital took twenty minutes that felt like hours. Ethan spent most of it staring at the photograph again, the overturned chair, the stripped bed, searching the image for any detail that might tell him something Cassius had not intended to reveal. There was nothing obvious. No reflection in a window, no clock visible, no clue beyond the message itself.

I needed to know how much you actually care about people who never cared about you.

The words sat heavy in Ethan’s chest the entire drive. Cassius had engineered the entire Bennett situation not to hurt Ethan directly, but to study him, to see how far Ethan would go for people who had spent three years treating him like nothing. And having learned the answer, he had moved immediately to the one person whose safety actually mattered to Ethan on instinct, without hesitation, without three years of resentment complicating the response.

His own blood. The only person in his life so far who had looked at him and seen something worth searching eighteen years for.

The hospital’s fourth floor was chaos when Ethan arrived, security personnel moving through the hallway in tight formation, two police officers speaking quietly with a nurse near the nurses station, Whitfield standing in the doorway of Julius’s room looking older than Ethan had seen him look in three days of knowing him.

“What happened,” Ethan demanded, pushing past a security guard who moved to stop him before Whitfield waved the man off.

“The security footage shows two men in medical uniforms entering the room approximately forty minutes ago,” Whitfield said, his voice controlled but strained. “They presented credentials that passed initial verification, credentials we are now confirming were falsified with considerable sophistication. They wheeled Julius out on a gurney under the guise of an emergency transfer to another facility. Nobody questioned it because the paperwork looked entirely legitimate.”

“How does someone forge hospital transfer paperwork that thoroughly,” Ethan said.

“By having access inside the hospital administration itself,” Whitfield said grimly. “Which tells me Cassius has resources and reach far beyond what I accounted for when I assumed this building was secure.”

Ethan walked into the room, staring at the stripped bed, the overturned chair still exactly where it had been in the photograph. The machines that had been keeping his grandfather alive sat dark and silent, disconnected, a stack of medical tubing coiled neatly on a side table like someone had taken the time to be careful even while committing an abduction.

“He needs those machines,” Ethan said quietly. “Whatever heart condition he has, whatever medication he needs. If Cassius has him somewhere without proper care—”

“I am aware,” Whitfield said. “Which is precisely why I do not believe Cassius intends to hurt him, not directly. A body would be far simpler to arrange than an elaborate abduction requiring forged credentials and careful medical handling. I believe Cassius wants leverage, not a funeral.”

“Leverage for what,” Ethan said, though even as he asked it, he suspected he already knew the answer.

“The proxy shares,” Whitfield said. “The forty per cent Julius transferred to you two days ago. With Julius in Cassius’s custody, he can force the old man to sign documents reversing that transfer, documents that would hold up legally regardless of duress, because courts rarely investigate the circumstances behind an elderly patriarch’s signature unless someone specifically challenges it.”

“Then we challenge it,” Ethan said immediately. “The moment he tries to use forced signatures—”

“By the time we could challenge anything in court, Cassius will already have used the reclaimed control to consolidate his position on the board,” Whitfield said. “He does not need the reversal to survive scrutiny forever. He only needs it to survive long enough to secure enough votes that your claim becomes irrelevant regardless of what a court eventually decides.”

Ethan’s phone buzzed again. The same number.

He opened it with hands that were not entirely steady.

Your grandfather is comfortable, for now, and receiving adequate care, because unlike you, I understand the value of patience over sentiment. He will remain that way as long as you cooperate.

Come to the address below, alone, by six in the morning. Bring nothing but yourself. If Whitfield’s men or the police follow you, or if anyone else knows where you are going, you will not see either of us again.

This is your only invitation, cousin. I suggest you do not waste it trying to be clever.

Below the message sat an address Ethan did not recognise, somewhere well outside Millbrook, followed by a final line that made his blood run cold.

Oh, and Ethan. Bring the signed proxy documents with you. I would hate for this to become permanent for either of them.