Chapter 13 - The Patriarch's Summons
"Get out of this ward before I call hospital security," I said, my voice dropping into a deadly, dangerous register.
Victoria laughed, a brittle sound that echoed off the glass walls of the incubators.
"Security? For a woman writing a million-dollar check to save this pathetic municipal department?"
"You don't care about these children, Victoria," Rowan spoke up, her voice surprisingly steady, though I could see her knuckles trembling against her clipboard.
"You only care about control."
"I care about debts being paid, darling," Victoria spat back, stepping closer until she was inches from my chest.
"Your little reunion party is over, Sebastian."
"Your father didn't just invite you to Greenwich tonight."
"He invited the Whitlow family attorneys, the press corps, and the head of the medical ethics board."
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit of cold dread.
"What did Richard do?" I demanded, fighting the urge to physically drag her toward the exit.
Victoria smiled, a venomous, triumphant grin that made my skin crawl.
"He reinstated the merger contract, Sebastian."
"Under the revised covenants of the Caldwell trust, if you do not attend the board dinner tonight and announce our formal reconciliation, Caldwell Therapeutics declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy tomorrow at dawn."
"Let it burn," I snarled without a second of hesitation.
"Let the entire corrupt empire collapse to the ground."
"Oh, it won't just burn your father, darling," Victoria whispered, leaning closer so only Rowan and I could hear.
"Caldwell Therapeutics holds the patents on the surfactant medications that keep every premature baby in this hospital alive."
"If the company liquidates, the production lines shut down for eighteen months during probate."
"Every baby born under thirty weeks in this city will pay the price for your cheap romance."
Rowan gasped, her medical mind immediately grasping the horrific reality of the threat.
Surfactant was the lifeblood of neonatology; without it, underdeveloped lungs could not expand.
A shortage would mean catastrophe across dozens of public hospitals.
"You monsters," Rowan breathed, horror washing over her features.
"He wouldn't dare pull the manufacturing licenses."
"Test him, Dr. Miller," Victoria replied smoothly, adjusting her diamond-encrusted watch.
"Eight o'clock tonight at the Caldwell estate."
"If Sebastian is not standing by my side with an engagement ring on my finger, your hospital supplies cease at midnight."
Victoria turned on her designer heels, her laughter trailing behind her as she strutted down the hallway.
The double doors slid shut, leaving a suffocating silence in her wake.
Rowan looked at me, her eyes wide with unimaginable terror.
"Sebastian... is what she said true?"
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"My father would sacrifice a thousand lives if it meant proving he could break my will," I confessed, my soul hollowed out with shame.
"Then you have to go," Rowan whispered, the words tearing through her throat like broken glass.
