Chapter 7 - The Daughter’s Tear
The sound of her voice hit me like a physical blow.
The cold, tactical detachment I had worn like armor for seven months shattered into dust. I dropped to my knees beside the bed, carefully taking her uninjured left hand in mine, pressing my forehead against her cold fingers.
"I'm here," I choked out, tears burning my eyes. "I'm right here, Soph. You're safe. I came home."
Her swollen eyes opened a fraction of an inch, cloudy with pain medication and trauma, but the moment they focused on my face, a tear traced a clean line through the dried iodine on her cheek.
"Dad..." she breathed, her voice barely a thread. "Dad... brought him..."
I felt Richard flinch behind me.
I slowly stood up and turned around.
Richard was pressed against the far wall of the private room, clutching his chest, his face pale as chalk. He looked like an old, ruined man. The polished veneer of the wealthy real estate mogul had disintegrated completely.
"I didn't want this, Ethan," Richard sobbed, sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. "I swear to you on your mother’s grave, I never wanted her to get hurt! Brock was only supposed to take the drive! That was the deal!"
"You watched him break her ribs," I said, my voice dead and cold. "You watched him beat your own daughter half to death, and then you helped him bleach our kitchen."
"Vance would have killed us both!" Richard cried out, clawing at his hair. "You don't understand who Vance is! He controls the state judges! He controls the port authority! He has men in the federal marshal’s office! If Sophia submitted that audit, Vance was going to murder our entire family and burn Carter Real Estate to the ground!"
"So you decided to murder her yourself to save your company?"
"No! I tried to save her!" Richard wailed. "I told Brock to leave her in the alley so the paramedics would find her! I thought... I thought if she woke up with amnesia, or if she was too scared, she’d drop it! But tonight... Henderson called me. He said they found the memory card was missing from the house. He said Vance gave the direct order: Sophia couldn't be allowed to wake up."
"And you walked that killer into her room," I said, pointing at the unconscious woman on the floor.
"If I didn't," Richard whispered, his eyes hollow, "they were going to kill me too."
On the bed, Sophia let out a ragged breath. "The ring... Ethan..."
"I have it," I whispered, turning back to her and gently touching her hair. "I found the ring, Soph. I found the card."
"The files..." she managed to say through clenched teeth. "Vance’s personal offshore server... the IP addresses... the transaction codes... it's all on that chip. Everything."
The door to the room suddenly clicked open.
Frank Ramos slipped inside, his suppressed submachine gun held low across his chest. His tactical vest was stained with rain.
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"Ethan, we have to move now," Frank said urgently. "Henderson just pulled into the hospital parking lot with four cruisers. They’re shutting down the elevators. They know their cleaner failed."
***
