Chapter 165

Chapter 165

A few hours later.

Adrian sat in the leather seat of a private jet cabin. The cabin pressure was steady. His breathing was not.

He was gripping the diagnosis report so hard his knuckles had gone white. The edges of the paper were crushed into deep creases.

Clinical diagnosis: [Advanced gastric malignancy with multiple lymph node metastases.]

The words were printed on the page. But he had already memorized every one of them.

Thirteen hours in the air. He hadn't closed his eyes once.

Every time he tried, all he could see was Elodie.

Three months ago. Garden Vista Estates.

Elodie was sitting on the living room couch. Her face was drained of color. She pressed her hand over her mouth, coughing violently. When she pulled it away, the tissue was stained a sharp, bright red.

He had been standing at the foot of the stairs. Impatient.

"Elodie, stop faking it. Chloe's wound is acting up and I don't have time to watch you perform."

He turned and walked away. The door slammed hard enough to shake the walls.

And six months before that. Elodie was making soup in the kitchen. The knife slipped and cut her finger. Blood ran freely.

She didn't make a sound. She just rinsed it quietly under the tap.

He walked past the kitchen and said coldly, "You can't even get a meal right. What exactly does the Stewart family keep you around for."

He had no idea. By then, the cancer had already eaten away at her so much that she barely had the strength to hold a knife.

Adrian yanked his tie loose. His collar fell open. His chest heaved.

Guilt and panic tangled together and tore his composure apart.

"Mr. Stewart." His assistant walked over and held out a glass of warm water. "We're about to land at the private airfield near Luminous City. There's an unusual blizzard. Flights in and out of Luminous City are severely delayed and ground traffic is nearly at a standstill."

"Get a helicopter."

"Weather conditions are too dangerous. Helicopters can't fly."

"Then we drive!" Adrian shouted. He knocked the glass out of his assistant's hand. It shattered on the floor. "Get in touch with the black market and mercenaries in the Amber District. Throw money at it. If ten million isn't enough, make it twenty. I need to get to St. Gallen Sanatorium. Now."

The jet touched down in the middle of the storm. The landing gear screamed against the runway.

The cabin door opened. Winds of minus four degrees Fahrenheit blasted snow and ice through the opening.

Adrian was wearing nothing but a thin suit jacket. He walked down the steps.

Eight heavy armored SUVs were waiting on the tarmac. Thick snow chains wrapped around every wheel.

Adrian pulled open a door and got into the back seat.

"Drive."

The convoy pushed into the blizzard. Visibility was under thirty feet.

They hit a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour. The vehicles fishtailed wildly across the snow-packed road.

Adrian stared out at the wall of white. His eyes were threaded with red.

Faster. Faster.

A heavy truck was blocking the road ahead.

The driver wrenched the wheel. The SUV screamed past the truck's rear end with inches to spare. The whole vehicle shook.

Adrian's head slammed into the window. The skin above his eyebrow split open. Blood ran down the side of his face.

He didn't wipe it away.

He couldn't feel it.

His mind held only two things. The date on that diagnosis report. And the blood Elodie had coughed into that tissue.

Three hours later.

St. Gallen Cancer Research Center.

The lead SUV rammed straight through the sanatorium's security barrier and skidded to a stop at the front entrance.

Adrian shoved the door open. Snow had settled across his shoulders. He walked into the lobby with a dozen men in black suits behind him.

Nurses and security guards rushed over immediately.

"Sir, this is a private medical facility. You need to show proof of appointment!" a guard shouted.

The bodyguards moved forward without a word. Clean and efficient. They had the guards pinned to the floor in seconds.

Adrian didn't look at any of it. He went straight for the director's office.

He kicked the double wooden doors open.

The director was behind his desk on a phone call. He shot to his feet, furious.

Adrian walked to the desk and leaned forward, both hands flat on the surface.

"Look up a woman named Elodie. Give me her room number." His voice was ice.

The director slammed his hand on the desk. "This is criminal. I'm calling the police!"

Adrian straightened up and tilted his head slightly.

His assistant pressed an expedited medical authorization form and a donation receipt onto the desk. The bodyguards filled the doorway.

"Look her up."

Sweat broke out on the director's forehead. He started typing.

"Seventh floor. VIP Room 7."

Adrian walked out.

The elevator climbed. The floor numbers ticked upward.

Adrian stood inside it. His legs were shaking and he couldn't make them stop.

He had moved cities and broken men in Harbor City. Right now it was taking everything he had just to stay upright.

He ran through it in his head, over and over.

He would push open the door and find Elodie. He would get on his knees. He would apologize. He would tell her exactly who Chloe really was. He would beg her to forgive him. He would fly in the best doctors in the world.

As long as she was alive. He would do anything.

The elevator opened.

Adrian walked to the door of VIP Room 7.

He raised his hand. Gripped the handle. His hand was shaking badly.

He pushed the door open hard.

He stepped inside.

The room was completely silent.

No beeping from medical equipment. No smell of antiseptic.

The wide hospital bed was empty.

Nothing on it but a set of white sheets, folded with neat precision.

Adrian's breath stopped.

He turned his head slowly, mechanically. His eyes moved across the empty room.

There was a sheet of paper on the bedside table.

He walked toward it. His steps unsteady.

Post-resuscitation transfer notice.

A red official stamp in the bottom right corner. Along the edge of the paper, a few drops of dried, dark red blood.

The sight of that blood cut straight through him.

His mind went blank. His chest collapsed inward.

He reached out to pick up the sheet.

"Don't touch her things."

A cold, quiet voice came from the hallway.

Adrian turned.

Lucas was in a light grey coat, hands in his pockets, walking from the far end of the corridor.

He stopped at the doorway and looked at Adrian standing there, frozen.

Lucas gave a bitter smile.

"You're too late, Mr. Stewart." His voice was calm.

"Yesterday afternoon, Elodie had a sudden massive hemorrhage." Lucas looked directly at him. "She was in resuscitation for ten straight hours. They used every unit of blood in the bank. She's not in this ward anymore."

Adrian's legs gave out. He went down on one knee.

The next second he was back on his feet, moving toward Lucas.

He grabbed Lucas by the collar with both hands and shoved him hard against the door frame.

"Where is she!" His eyes were red and raw. His voice was wrecked. "Tell me where she is!"

Lucas didn't fight back. He looked at Adrian with cold, flat eyes.

"Now you're in a rush?" A sharp, bitter laugh. "Where were you when she was alone in a hospital corridor waiting to die? Where were you when she was struggling in freezing water under that cruise ship? You were busy spending a hundred million dollars on a fake heiress. What right do you have to ask where she is?"

Something thick and metallic rose in Adrian's throat.

"Tell me." His voice had nothing left in it. Tears hit Lucas's jacket.

Lucas raised his hand and shoved him off.

He pulled a folded document from his pocket and threw it hard at Adrian's face.

"She left this for you."

The papers hit his cheek and scattered across the floor.

Adrian looked down.

The top sheet.

A formal refusal of visitation.