The Crimson Price

​The sound of the gunshot didn’t just echo; it shattered the world.

​Time slowed to a nauseating crawl. I saw the muzzle flash from the darkness of the warehouse rafters. I saw the leaden death whistling through the salt-heavy air toward my children. And then, I saw the man I had spent five years hating—the man who had stolen my son and discarded my soul—transform into something I never thought he could be.

​A father.

​Liam didn’t hesitate. He didn’t calculate the cost or look for a way out. He threw his body across the gap, his tall frame a wall of meat and bone between the bullet and the twins.

​Thud.

​The sound of the bullet hitting his back was wet. Horrible. It was the sound of a life being interrupted.

​"Liam!" I screamed, my voice tearing in my throat.

​He collapsed, his momentum carrying him forward until he fell over the crate, pinning Mia and Leo beneath him in a protective, bloody embrace.

​"Daddy!" Leo’s voice was a jagged shriek, the silence of two years replaced by a raw, primal agony.

​I was moving before I could think. I reached the pile of bodies just as the second shooter stepped out from the shadows of the rafters. It wasn't a professional hitman. It was someone far more desperate.

​Vanessa Laine.

​Her designer coat was stained with grease, her hair a bird's nest of manic fury. She held a small, silver pistol, her hands shaking so violently the barrel danced in the air.

​"He was mine!" she wailed, the sound bouncing off the rusted metal walls. "He was supposed to marry me! If I can't have the Sterling life, nobody can! I’ll kill them all! I'll kill the brat that ruined everything!"

​She leveled the gun at Mia, who was sobbing under Liam’s heavy weight.

​"Vanessa, stop!" I yelled, standing up to block her view. "It’s over! The police are coming!"

​"Let them come!" she shrieked. "I'll be famous! The woman who ended the Sterling dynasty!"

​She pulled the trigger again.

​Click.

​The gun jammed. Vanessa stared at it in disbelief, a frantic, high-pitched giggle escaping her lips. Before she could clear the chamber, a dark shadow rose from behind her. Sofia Moretti—the woman I knew as Martha—swung the butt of her rifle into Vanessa’s temple.

​The heiress dropped like a stone, unconscious before she hit the floor.

​"Go to him," Sofia said, her voice sounding tired, older than her years. "Go to your family, Nora. The debt is settled."

​I turned back to the crate. Liam was slumped over, his face ashen, a dark, widening stain blooming across the back of his charcoal suit. Leo was clutching Liam’s hand, his small face pressed against his father’s cheek.

​"Daddy, wake up," Leo whispered. "Daddy, please."

​I rolled Liam over, my hands instantly slick with his blood. It was warm—terrifyingly warm. His eyes were half-closed, the storm-cloud grey now clouded with pain and fading light.

​"Mia? Leo?" Liam’s voice was a wet rattle.

​"They’re safe, Liam," I sobbed, pressing my hand against the wound in his shoulder. "They’re okay. Because of you."

​A ghost of a smile touched his lips—a real smile, one that didn't hold a drop of ice. He looked up at me, his gaze focusing for one final, lucid second.

​"Nora..." he gasped. "The signature... I never... I never knew about the girl. My mother... she forged it. She wanted... the perfect heir. I was... just her tool."

​"I know," I whispered, the hatred I had carried for five years leaking out of me, replaced by a hollow, aching fear. "I know, Liam. Just stay with me. Don't you dare leave them now. Leo just started talking! You can't leave him!"

​His hand moved, twitching toward mine. I grabbed it, his skin already feeling cold against the humid shipyard air.

​"Fix... them," he breathed. "Make them... happy. Like you."

​His eyes rolled back, and his head slumped to the side.

​"Liam! LIAM!"

​The sirens finally broke through the sound of the rain—a chorus of blue and red lights reflecting off the black water of the harbor.

​Two Hours Later: St. Jude’s Private Hospital

​The waiting room felt like a sensory deprivation chamber. The white walls were too bright, the smell of antiseptic too sharp. I sat on the edge of a plastic chair, my clothes still stained with Liam’s blood.

​Mia was asleep in my lap, exhausted from the terror. But Leo... Leo wouldn't sit. He stood by the double doors leading to the operating theater, his hand pressed against the glass. He was waiting for his father.

​I watched my son, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces. In one night, he had found his voice and lost his hero.

​Footsteps echoed down the hall. I looked up, expecting the doctor. Instead, I saw Eleanor Sterling.

​She looked as though she had aged twenty years. Her pearls were gone, her hair disheveled. She walked toward me, her gaze lingering on Leo.

​"Is he...?" her voice trailed off.

​"He’s in surgery," I said, my voice cold and hard as flint. "The bullet hit a major artery. They aren't sure if he’ll make it."

​Eleanor sank into a chair across from me. For the first time, she didn't look like a Matriarch. She looked like a woman who had burned her own house down to stay warm.

​"I did it for the legacy," she whispered, her eyes vacant. "Two children... the inheritance would have been contested. The scandals... I just wanted Liam to have everything."

​"You gave him a grave, Eleanor," I said. "And you gave these children a lifetime of trauma. If he dies, his blood is on your hands, not the Morettis'."

​She didn't argue. She just stared at her trembling hands.

​The doors to the OR swung open. A surgeon stepped out, pulling off his mask. He looked exhausted.

​"Ms. Davis? Mrs. Sterling?"

​We both stood up. Leo ran to the doctor’s side, clutching his lab coat.

​"The surgery was successful," the doctor said, though his expression remained grim. "We managed to stop the bleeding and repair the lung. He’s a fighter. But..."

​"But what?" I asked, my breath catching.

​"He’s lost a significant amount of blood. His body is in shock. He needs a transfusion, but he has an extremely rare blood phenotype—the same one as the children."

​"Take mine!" I said immediately.

​"Yours won't work, Ms. Davis. You don't share the phenotype. We’ve already started the process with Leo, but he’s too small to give the volume we need. We need another direct match. Immediately."

​He looked at me, then at the sleeping girl in my arms.

​"Mia," I whispered.

​"If she’s his daughter, she’s our best hope," the doctor said.

​I looked at Mia’s peaceful face. I had spent five years hiding her from the Sterlings to keep her safe. Now, the only way to save the man I loved—and hated—was to put her under the needle.

​"Do it," I said.

​But as the nurses took Mia from my arms, a sharp, frantic beep began to echo from the ICU down the hall. A "Code Blue" announcement shattered the silence.

​"It’s Mr. Sterling!" a nurse yelled. "He’s flatlining!"

​My heart stopped. I watched as the crash cart was wheeled into the room where Liam lay. Through the window, I saw the doctors beginning chest compressions.

​But then, something happened that made the blood freeze in my veins.

​Mia, who had just been woken up, didn't cry. She stood up, her eyes wide, staring at the room where her father was dying. Suddenly, she clutched her chest and fell to the floor, her face turning a terrifying shade of blue.

​"Mia!" I screamed, lunging for her.

​The doctor knelt beside her, his face turning pale. He checked her pulse, then her eyes.

​"What is it? What’s happening?" I cried.

​The doctor looked up at me, horror written in his eyes. "It’s not shock. Her heart... it’s mimicking his. It’s the Gemini Effect. When one twin's heart stops... the other follows."

​I looked at the monitor in Liam’s room. A flat, continuous line.

I looked at Mia. She wasn't breathing.

​"Save them!" I roared, grabbing the doctor’s collar. "SAVE THEM BOTH!"

Liam’s heart has stopped, and because of the mysterious "Gemini Effect," Mia’s life is slipping away with his. Can the doctors save the father without killing the daughter? Or is the Sterling legacy destined to end in a double funeral?