2My billionaire mother left my twin sister and me sitting alone at our eleventh birthday party after every invited child mysteriously canceled. Then one of New York’s most feared mafia bosses walked into our ballroom carrying two birthday gifts, called our dead father his “brother,” and Mom came running downstairs screaming, “Get away from my daughters!”

Thirty minutes later, we emerged from a hidden access door inside an old, abandoned industrial warehouse near the East River.

Rain was pouring over New York City in heavy, sheet-like torrents. Waiting for us inside the warehouse were three black armored SUVs with tinted windows. A dozen armed men wearing dark raincoats instantly surrounded us, forming a defensive perimeter as Dante wheeled Esme and me into the middle vehicle.

The drive across the bridge into Queens was silent.

Mom sat in the corner of the leather seat, staring out the window at the glowing Manhattan skyline. The billionaire titan who once ruled Wall Street looked small, broken, and terrified. She kept looking at Esme and me, her hands reaching out as if to touch us, then pulling back, weighed down by immense guilt.

“Ivy... Esme...” Mom began, her voice barely a whisper against the hum of the SUV’s engine. “I am so sorry. I thought... I thought I was honoring your father by making Voss Biotech the biggest company in the world. I thought if I built an empire, no one could ever hurt you.”

“You didn't listen to Dad,” I said quietly, looking down at my hands. “He didn't care about the empire, Mom. He cared about us.”

Mom buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

The SUVs pulled into a high-walled compound in Industrial Queens. Heavy iron gates closed behind us with a loud mechanical thud. The building didn't look like a mob hideout; it was a sleek, modern concrete-and-glass estate surrounded by high security fences and armed guards stationed every twenty feet.

Dante opened the SUV door and carried Esme and me inside himself, placing us gently into two fresh wheelchairs waiting in the sunlit main lobby.

Standing in the lobby was a woman in her late forties, wearing a white medical coat over dark scrub pants. She had sharp gray eyes and her hair pulled back in a neat silver clip.

Dr. Elena Vance.

When she saw Mom, her face turned cold as stone. “Celeste Voss. I never thought I’d see your face again after you dragged my name through the mud.”

“Elena... please,” Mom begged, stepping forward with her hands raised. “You were right. Sterling lied to me about everything. He killed Julian. And he’s been poisoning my girls.”

Dr. Vance’s eyes widened. She instantly bypassed Mom and dropped to her knees in front of Esme and me, taking my wrist to check my pulse. She shined a small penlight into our eyes, her expression growing increasingly alarmed.

“Severe neurological suppression,” Dr. Vance diagnosed quickly, her voice tight with anger. “Sterling’s signature work. He’s been administering micro-doses of Neuro-Inhibitor 9 to keep their lower spinal nerves dormant.”

“Can you neutralize it?” Dante asked, standing behind us with his hands folded.

“With Julian’s prototype cure?” Dr. Vance looked at the two blue metallic cylinders sitting in our laps. Tears welled in her eyes. “Julian actually did it... he finished the synthesis.”