The Heart's Echo

​The world was a blur of white coats and the shrill, unrelenting scream of medical monitors.

​"Clear!"

​The sound of the defibrillator hitting Liam’s chest was a dull thud that seemed to vibrate through the very floorboards under my feet. I stood frozen, my hands clawing at my own throat as I watched his body lurch.

​Behind me, another team was huddled over Mia. My vibrant, sun-drenched daughter was now a pale porcelain doll, her curls fanned out against the linoleum floor as a nurse pumped air into her tiny lungs.

​"I have a pulse on the girl!" someone shouted.

​"She’s synchronized with him," the lead surgeon yelled, sweat pouring down his face. "If he goes, she goes. We need to stabilize Sterling now!"

​I felt a small, cold hand slip into mine. I looked down. Leo was standing there, his face a mask of preternatural calm that was more terrifying than any scream. His eyes were fixed on his father.

​"He won't leave," Leo whispered. His voice was still raspy, unused, but it held a certainty that shook me to my core. "He promised to take us to the park. He doesn't break promises."

​I pulled Leo into my side, my tears hot and fast. Oh, Leo. He broke every promise he ever made to me. But as I looked at Liam—at the way he had stepped in front of that bullet without a second thought—I realized the man in that bed wasn't the man who had signed that contract five years ago.

​"Again! Increase to three hundred!" the doctor barked.

​Thump.

​Liam’s chest rose and fell.

​Silence.

​A long, agonizing second where the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.

​Beep... Beep... Beep-beep.

​The rhythm was erratic, weak, but it was there. On the floor, Mia gasped, her eyes fluttering open as her heart mirrored the return of his.

​"They're back," I sobbed, collapsing to my knees, pulling both children into a desperate, crushing hug. "They're back."

​Twenty-Four Hours Later

​Liam was moved to a private ICU suite. He was still unconscious, a ventilator doing the work his battered lungs couldn't quite manage yet. Mia was in the room next door, sleeping off the trauma, her vitals finally steady.

​I sat by Liam’s bed, holding his hand. It was warm now. The blood transfusion from the hospital’s rare-type bank had worked. I watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, my mind a battlefield of conflicting emotions.

​I loved him. I hated him. I wanted to run away and never look back, and I wanted to crawl into that bed and never let go.

​The door opened softly. I expected Eleanor, coming to resume her reign of terror. Instead, a man in a sharp grey suit entered, carrying a leather briefcase.

​"Ms. Davis? I’m Marcus Thorne, Mr. Sterling’s personal estate attorney."

​"He’s in a coma, Mr. Thorne," I said, my voice weary. "He can't sign anything."

​"I’m not here for a signature," Thorne said, his expression grave. "I’m here because of a standing order Mr. Sterling gave me three days ago—right after he saw you and the children at the flower shop."

​He opened the briefcase and pulled out a thick document.

​"Before the shipyard, before the kidnapping, Liam called me. He said if anything happened to him, I was to execute this immediately. He knew his mother was moving against him. He knew the Morettis were a threat."

​Thorne laid the paper on the rolling table.

​"Mr. Sterling has officially acknowledged Mia as his legal heir, alongside Leo. But that’s not the important part."

​I looked at the document. My eyes blurred as I tried to make sense of the legal jargon. "What is it?"

​"He has transferred seventy percent of his personal shares in Sterling Global into a blind trust," Thorne explained. "The trustee isn't his mother. And it isn't his board of directors."

​He looked me dead in the eye.

​"The trustee is you, Nora. As of this moment, you are the majority shareholder of the Sterling empire. You have the power to fire the board, to liquidate assets, and... most importantly... to remove Eleanor Sterling from the premises."

​My breath caught. Liam had given me the keys to his kingdom. He had given me the one thing that would protect me and the twins from his mother forever.

​"Why?" I whispered. "Why would he trust me with this?"

​"Because," a weak, gravelly voice came from the bed, "you're the only one... who can't be bought."

​I whirled around. Liam’s eyes were open. They were bloodshot and filled with pain, but they were focused on me. He reached out, his fingers brushing my wrist.

​"Nora..." he wheezed, the ventilator mask muffling his voice.

​I leaned in, my heart racing. "Don't talk, Liam. Just rest."

​"No... listen," he gripped my hand with surprising strength. "The ledger... Sofia... she didn't get the real one."

​I froze. "What?"

​"The one I gave her... was a decoy," Liam whispered, his eyes darting toward the door as if the walls themselves were listening. "The real ledger... the one that proves my mother killed your grandmother... it’s not in a safe."

​"Then where is it?" I asked, a chill running down my spine.

​Liam’s grip tightened, pulling me closer until his lips were inches from my ear.

​"It’s inside... Leo’s rabbit."

​My blood turned to ice. Leo’s blue rabbit. The one he had been clutching since the day I brought him home. The one that was currently sitting in the nursery suite with Eleanor.

​Suddenly, the hospital intercom crackled to life.

​"Security to the North Wing Nursery. Code Silver. Unauthorized removal of a minor. Repeat, Code Silver."

​I looked at Liam. His eyes mirrored my absolute horror.

​Eleanor wasn't going to wait for the lawyers. She was taking the only leverage she had left.

​And she was taking the evidence of her own crimes with her.

Eleanor has snatched Leo and the blue rabbit containing the evidence of her crimes. With Liam trapped in a hospital bed and Nora newly empowered but physically helpless, can they stop the Matriarch before she vanishes with the heir and the truth?