Chapter 2 - The St. Jude’s Confession
The corridors of St. Jude’s Hospital smelled of institutional bleach, old floor wax, and the quiet, pervasive despair of a Sunday night shift. Spencer walked down the dim hallway of the geriatric ward, his bespoke wool overcoat swishing around his knees, his presence commanding an instinctive deference from passing nurses and residents.
Room 412 was a cramped, sterile space lit only by the pale, flickering blue light of a wall-mounted television playing a silent news broadcast.
Florence lay propped up against a stack of pillows, an oxygen cannula resting gently beneath her sharp nose. Her skin was the color of parchment, her hands gnarled by decades of arthritis, but her eyes—dark, luminous, and startlingly sharp—snapped straight to Spencer the moment he pushed the door open.
"You look just like him," Florence rasped, her voice dry as autumn leaves. "Richard had that exact same predatory slant to his jaw. Thought he owned the world, too."
Spencer closed the door softly behind him, pulling up a hard plastic chair beside the bed. He didn't offer empty pleasantries. He was a man who dealt in facts, leverage, and absolute truths.
"Mabel tells me you have things to say about my father," Spencer began, keeping his tone measured. "And about a connection between our families that stretches back thirty years."
Florence let out a dry, rattling cough that made her frail shoulders shake. She reached out a trembling hand, her fingers gripping the coarse fabric of the hospital blanket. "Your father was a proud man, Spencer. But pride makes monsters out of men. Back when I worked at the Warren estate as a young woman—long before you were born, back when your older brother Julian was just a toddler—your father had a housekeeper named Elena. My sister."
Spencer listened in silence, his expression unreadable.
"Richard Warren didn't care about vows or social status," Florence continued, her chest heaving slightly as she fought for breath. "He took advantage of my sister. When she got pregnant, he panicked. He didn't want a scandal that could tank his shipping contracts or ruin his political ambitions. He paid her off, forced her to sign a gag order, and shipped her off to a rundown cottage on the other side of the county with a small trust fund that dried up within a decade."
"That child..." Spencer murmured, a chill creeping down his spine.
"A girl," Florence said, a fierce light burning in her dark eyes. "Her name was Clara. My niece. Your half-sister, hidden away in the shadows of the Warren fortune. Clara grew up knowing who her father was, watching him from afar, hating the name that gave her nothing while you and Julian inherited empires. Clara had a daughter—Charlee."
Spencer’s breath caught in his throat. The chaotic tangle of hazel hair, the fearless defiance in a seven-year-old’s eyes, the way she had looked at him as if he were a puzzle she had already solved—it all clicked into a terrifying, coherent pattern.
"Clara passed away two years ago," Florence whispered, tears finally pooling in the corners of her ancient eyes. "I took Charlee in. We lived hand-to-mouth in that abandoned building because the trust fund Richard set up was legally locked behind ironclad confidentiality clauses that made it impossible to touch without exposing the family name. But someone knew. Someone in your inner circle knew about Charlee... and knew about the baby."
Spencer’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Who?"
Before Florence could answer, the heart monitor beside the bed let out a sharp, erratic stutter. The steady green line on the screen spiked violently, turning into jagged, frantic mountains.
"Florence!" Spencer shouted, leaping to his feet and hitting the emergency call button on the wall.
The door burst open instantly as a team of three nurses and a frantic resident rushed into the room, shoving Spencer aside.
"Code blue! Clear the room, sir! Please, you need to step back!" a nurse yelled, slamming the privacy curtain shut.
As Spencer was pushed out into the hallway, his phone vibrated violently in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting a call from Mabel or Viktor, his chief of security. Instead, it was an unknown, restricted number.
He swiped the screen and pressed it to his ear.
May you like
"Mr. Warren," a distorted, synthesized voice hissed through the speaker. "Enjoying your family reunions? I'd advise you to check the security feeds at the mansion right now. While you're playing doctor at the hospital, someone is finishing what was started in the dumpster."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
