Chapter 4 - CODE CRIMSON
The emergency trauma bay at Denver Presbyterian Hospital exploded into coordinated chaos the second the Sterling medevac team crossed the threshold.
“Twenty-six-year-old female, twenty-eight weeks gestation, severe environmental hypothermia, blunt abdominal trauma from fall!” Dr. Elena Cole, the chief of maternal-fetal medicine, barked out commands while running alongside the gurney. “Get the rapid infuser running with warmed saline! We need continuous fetal Doppler right now!”
Alvin followed them into the bay, his clothes smeared with freezing water and melted frost, his eyes never leaving Clara’s pale face.
“Sir, you have to wait outside,” a nurse said gently, placing a hand on his chest.
“I am Alvin Sterling,” he said without blinking. “I built this wing. I stay.”
Dr. Cole glanced up, saw the lethal resolve in the billionaire’s eyes, and nodded once to the nurse. “Let him stand by the wall. Don’t get in the way of the crash cart.”
On the examination table, Clara’s body was connected to an array of warm-air blankets, IV lines, and fetal monitors. A steady, terrifyingly slow rhythmic tone echoed through the room: Thump... thump... thump...
“Fetal heart rate is eighty-two,” the sonographer called out, her face pale. “Normal should be one-forty. There’s signs of placental abruption. The cold shock and the fall caused a partial tear. The fetus is in acute distress!”
Clara stirred slightly, groaning through the oxygen mask strapped to her face. Her eyelids fluttered open, glassy and unfocused, searching the bright ceiling lights. “Dad...”
Alvin stepped past the monitors and took her hand. It was warmer now, but still frail. “I’m here, Clara. I’m right here.”
“The papers...” she whispered, her voice cracked and dry. “He wanted the shipping shares... Julianna... they were going to liquidate the European ports...”
“Hush now,” Alvin said, brushing damp strands of hair from her forehead. “The shares are safe. You are safe. Concentrate on your breathing.”
“Doctor, we’re losing the heartbeat!” the sonographer shouted. The monitor’s slow rhythm degenerated into an erratic flutter. “Down to sixty-four! The baby is suffocating!”
Dr. Cole didn’t hesitate. “Call the OR! Emergency stat Cesarean section! Prep her now! We have less than four minutes to get this infant out or we lose them both!”
The trauma bay transformed into a hurricane of sterile drapes, metal trays, and screaming alarms. They unlocked the gurney, wheeling Clara toward the surgical suite at a dead run.
Alvin followed until the double doors of the operating room swung shut in his face, their frosted glass panels reflecting his solitary, haggard figure standing in the bright fluorescent hallway.
He stood there for five minutes without moving a muscle.
His phone vibrated in his breast pocket. It was Marcus.
“Report,” Alvin said, his voice gravelly.
“Diego has been detained by the county sheriff,” Marcus said over the line. “His uncle, Commissioner Navarro, tried to intervene at the precinct, but the state troopers arrived with a warrant signed by a federal magistrate thirty minutes ago. Diego is currently in an interrogation room. But there’s a complication, sir.”
Alvin’s eyes narrowed. “What complication?”
“Diego didn’t act alone. We intercepted a digital transfer initiated twenty minutes before you arrived at the house. Julianna Vance used Clara’s forged digital signature to submit an emergency petition to the state probate court, claiming Clara was incapacitated and granting Diego temporary conservatorship. They were trying to empty the trust accounts before dawn.”
“Did the bank clear it?”
“Our firewall caught it at the clearing house,” Marcus replied. “The funds are locked. But Julianna and Brenna Navarro are currently at the downtown headquarters of the First Continental Bank. They have a corrupt branch vice president opening the physical vault right now to access Clara’s safe deposit boxes—the ones holding the original bearer bonds and family deeds.”
Alvin looked at the closed doors of the operating room. Inside, his daughter was fighting for her life, and his grandchild was hanging between the world of the living and the dead.
The Navarro family wasn’t just greedy; they were vultures trying to carve up the carcass before the heart had even stopped beating.
“Marcus,” Alvin said softly.
“Yes, Mr. Sterling?”
“Take Team Two. Go to First Continental Bank. Seal the building. Do not let Brenna or Julianna leave with a single scrap of paper. I am on my way.”
“Sir, your daughter—”
“My daughter is in the hands of the best surgeons on the continent,” Alvin said, turning toward the elevator with an icy determination that felt like iron. “My job is to ensure that when she wakes up, the monsters who did this to her have nothing left in this world to hide behind.”
Just as he pressed the call button, the surgical doors flew open behind him.
A pediatric nurse in bloodstained scrubs ran out, carrying a small, clear incubator on wheels, surrounded by three respiratory specialists manually pumping an infant-sized bag valve mask.
Inside the incubator lay a tiny, crimson-skinned infant, barely larger than two adult hands, completely motionless.
May you like
“Doctor!” Alvin called out, his heart seizing in his throat. “Is it my grandchild? Is it alive?!”
The nurse didn’t stop running toward the neonatal intensive care unit. “We have a pulse, Mr. Sterling! But he isn't breathing on his own! Pray for the next hour!”
