An image floated up in my memory immediately: Marcus, my older brother.
Ex-military, just like our grandfather. Tough. A man of few words, reliable as a rock. He lived in the neighboring county, worked for a private security firm, and unlike me, hadn’t lost touch with the skills Grandpa had taught us.
“Olivia,” I turned to my daughter. “You have to tell me everything from the beginning, but first we will contact Uncle Marcus. Remember him?”
She nodded weakly. “The one who taught me to shoot a slingshot.”
“Exactly.” I tried to smile. “He will help us.”
We drove in the dark along deserted country roads. Ahead was my house. Wooden, old, but sturdy. And in the attic, under a layer of dust, stood a trunk that my brother and I had brought after Grandpa died. A trunk with things that might prove more useful than I had thought all these years.
I took out my phone and, without slowing down, typed a message to my brother: Marcus, need your help. Remember what Grandpa Nick taught us? Now is our turn.
We reached my house on the outskirts of the village when night had finally taken over. The stars spilled out onto the sky, bright and cold. The October air smelled of decaying leaves and the first frosts.
The old log house met us with silence. I helped Olivia out of the car, almost carrying her onto the porch. She could barely move her legs but held on stoically. My girl had always been strong. In childhood, falling off a bicycle, she would get up silently, wipe her knees, and ride on. But now even she was struggling.
“Just a moment, honey, just a moment.”
I sat her on the sofa in the living room and rushed to the fireplace. It was chilly in the house. I had left in the morning and hadn’t had time to heat it. I skillfully started a fire with prepared wood chips and birch logs. Soon the fire crackled merrily, casting reflections on my daughter’s pale face.
“Let’s look at your wounds,” I said, turning on the table lamp.
In the bright light, Olivia looked even worse. The bruise under her eye was rapidly turning black. Her lip was split, a deep scratch on her cheek. I carefully helped her take off her coat. Every movement caused her to groan. Under her thin blouse, bruises were visible.
Her right arm hung limply.
“Fracture,” I stated, gently palpating the wrist. “Most likely simple, without displacement. Need to immobilize it.”
My first aid kit had everything necessary. Thirty years working as a nurse weren’t for nothing. I treated all visible wounds with antiseptic, applied a splint to her wrist, gave her painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
“Thank you, Mom,” Olivia whispered when I finished. “You always know what to do.”
I smiled bitterly. Did I? My only daughter lay before me, beaten, broken, and the enemy wasn’t some street thug, but a powerful businesswoman with massive connections. What could I oppose against her money and influence?
“The phone,” I remembered. “You mentioned evidence.”
Olivia pointed to her bag—expensive leather with gold hardware. Inside, I found the latest model iPhone in a cracked case. The screen, fortunately, was intact.
“Code 1989,” Olivia said. “The year you moved into this house.”
I unlocked the phone, involuntarily noting that for her password, she chose a date important to both of us. Despite the luxurious life in her husband’s mansion, she hadn’t forgotten her roots.
“Gallery,” she prompted. “Folder ‘Documents for Gavin’.”
I found the folder. Dozens of photos of accounting reports, payment orders, contracts. At first glance, ordinary business papers, but I understood that Olivia had seen something important in them, something for which Lucille Sterling had taken such a risk.
“Explain what’s here,” I asked, sitting down next to my daughter.
“The Hope Foundation,” Olivia began quietly. “Lucille is its director and founder. Every year, tens of millions of dollars pass through the foundation for the treatment of sick children, for supporting nursing homes, for building playgrounds. Everything official, everything transparent.”
She paused to sip water from the cup I handed her.
“Two weeks ago, Gavin asked me to help with documents for the foundation’s annual report. He’s on the board of trustees, but honestly, never really looked into it. Just signed where his mom pointed.”
I nodded. That was in Gavin’s spirit. Handsome, charming, but an absolutely spineless man, living his whole life at his mother’s direction.
“I started going through the documents and noticed something strange,” she continued. “Large sums, from five to fifteen million, were regularly transferred to accounts of firms with names like ‘Consulting Inc.’ or ‘Business Analytics’. But there were no detailed reports on these services.”
“And when I looked for information on the firms themselves… shell companies, I guessed?”
“Exactly,” Olivia nodded. “Created for money laundering. I checked the databases. They were all registered shortly before receiving money from the foundation. The founders? People with lost passports, deceased, or completely unaware of their participation. Classic straw men.”
“And the money?”
“The money went to accounts in offshore zones.”
“And you asked your mother-in-law about this?” I shook my head. “Olivia, didn’t you realize how dangerous that was?”
“I realized.” She smiled weakly with broken lips. “But I decided to give her a chance to explain. I’m a member of the family, after all. Thought maybe there was some reasonable explanation.”
I sighed. My naive, kind girl always believed in the best in people, even when the evidence spoke to the contrary.
“And what did she say?”
“Nothing.” Olivia grimaced in pain. “At first, she turned pale, then pulled herself together. Said I misunderstood everything. That it was a complex financial scheme for tax optimization, completely legal. Then she suggested we drive out of town. Said she would explain everything in detail without prying ears.”
“And you went?”
“Yes.” She lowered her eyes. “Stupid, right? But I thought she was still my husband’s mother. The grandmother of my future child.”
I froze. “You…”
Olivia nodded, covering her stomach with her healthy hand. “Twelve weeks. We hadn’t told anyone yet, wanted to wait for the second trimester. Gavin was so happy.”
My heart squeezed with pain and rage. Lucille Sterling beat a pregnant woman—her own daughter-in-law, who was carrying her grandchild—and all because of money.
“She knew about the baby?”
“Yes.” Olivia swallowed. “I told her in the car. I thought it would stop her. But she… She laughed. Said that with my ‘dirty blood’, I have no place in their family. That my child would spoil their impeccable lineage.”
I closed my eyes to hold back tears of rage. My grandmother, despite the color of her skin and the prejudice she faced, was a highly educated woman who played the piano and raised a family of patriots. And this arrogant upstart…
“She stopped the car near the woods,” Olivia continued in a quiet voice. “Said she wanted to show me the plot they were buying. We got out, and then she… I didn’t even have time to understand what was happening. She hit me with something heavy on the head—a tire iron from the trunk, I think. And then…”
She trembled, remembering.
“She was like a lunatic. Kept repeating about my blood, about how I wanted to destroy their family, disgrace them, take their money.”
I hugged my daughter, trying not to touch the injured places. She buried her face in my shoulder and cried soundlessly.
“She would have killed me if not for a phone call,” whispered Olivia. “Someone called her. She got distracted, started saying she was already coming, that everything was in order. And then she just got in the car and left. Left me to die from the cold and wounds.”
The phone in my pocket vibrated. A message from my brother: Leaving now. We’ll be there by morning. Don’t call anyone. Turn off the phones. They can track them.
I felt a surge of relief. Marcus was always a reliable rear guard. If anyone knew what to do in such a situation, it was him.
“Your phone needs to be turned off,” I told Olivia. “And mine too.”
“In the car,” she suddenly remembered. “Under the seat. Gavin insisted on repairing your Chevy at their service center three months ago. They could have…”
“I understood immediately,” I finished. “A tracker.”
They had been watching me all this time.
“Wait here.”
I got up and headed for the door. Outside, it had gotten even colder. The stars seemed especially bright in the moonless sky. I crouched down near the car, shined the flashlight from my phone under the chassis, and indeed—a small black box attached to the frame under the driver’s seat.
I ripped it off and examined it. A professional GPS tracker. Returning to the house, I put the device on the table.
“You were right,” I told my daughter. “They were watching me. They know where you live.”
Olivia tried to sit up straighter but winced. “We need to leave here.”
I shook my head. “No, that would be logical, but that’s what they expect. We will stay here. Marcus will arrive soon, and we will decide what to do next.”
I took the battery out of Olivia’s mobile, then turned off my phone as well. We could no longer be tracked.
In the meantime, I walked over to the old dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. “We’ll need this.” From under a stack of old sweaters, I pulled out a worn holster with a pistol. My grandfather’s service 1911, which he had officially registered back in the day. I kept the permit current, although I hadn’t taken the weapon out once in all these years.
“Do you know how?” Olivia opened her eyes wide.
“Yes.” I checked the magazine, the safety. “Grandpa taught me, and Marcus refreshed my skills a couple of years ago.”
I placed the pistol on the table next to the tracker. Two symbols of our new situation. We were prey, but prey that could fight back.
Olivia leaned back on the pillows I had placed behind her back. Her face was exhausted, but something new appeared in her eyes. Not just fear, but determination.
“We need a plan,” she said. “I have the documents, but that’s not enough. They can deny everything. Say I forged them or misinterpreted them.”
“Marcus will help,” I said, sitting down next to her. “He knows people who have access to databases. If we can trace the movement of money, it’s not that simple.”
Olivia shook her head. “The scheme is complex. Shell companies, offshore accounts. It takes time and resources we don’t have.”
“Then we’ll have to act differently.” I looked thoughtfully out the window. Behind the glass, the darkness thickened, becoming almost tangible. Somewhere out there, a hundred miles away, in a luxurious mansion on the riverbank, sat a woman who tried to kill my daughter.
“Tell me everything you know about Lucille Sterling,” I asked. “About her habits, fears, weaknesses.”
“Why?” Olivia shuddered. “You’re not going to…”
“No.” I shook my head. “We won’t stoop to her level. But we need to understand who we are dealing with.”
Olivia looked at me for a long time, then nodded. “She fears exposure more than anything in the world. Her reputation is her god. The charity foundation, social projects, interviews in glossy magazines—it’s all her way of showing herself in a certain light.”
“In reality, what about her husband? Your father-in-law?”
“Arthur Sterling.” Olivia laughed joylessly. “A big businessman, head of a holding company. In public, a model family man, father, and husband. In reality, he lives separately, has a mistress younger than me, and never interferes in his wife’s affairs—provided she doesn’t create problems for the business.”
“And Gavin, your husband?”
Olivia’s face twisted with pain, and I realized it wasn’t a physical injury. “Mom, he loves me, honestly. But he will always be on his mother’s side. He grew attached to her in a way no one could cut. He’s forty years old, and he still calls her to find out what tie to wear to a meeting.”
I squeezed her healthy hand. “Is that why you don’t want to go back?”
“Yes.” She lowered her eyes. “If I end up in the hospital, Gavin will take me home. And there, Lucille will finish what she started, and no one will stop her.”
A heavy sigh escaped my chest. My girl had fallen into a golden cage from which she could not escape now.
“We need to turn to someone Lucille can’t silence,” I said, thinking aloud. “Someone she fears or cannot control.”
Olivia thought for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Arthur Sterling,” she whispered. “Her husband.”
“She can do whatever she wants as long as it doesn’t harm the business. But if a scandal with the foundation surfaces, it will hit the holding company’s reputation,” I picked up.
“And then he will intervene,” Olivia nodded. “He’s not the most pleasant person, but he’s a pragmatist.”
“If choosing between his wife and business, he will choose business,” I finished. “Good thought. But how to get to him? Surely he’s surrounded by security and secretaries.”
“I have his personal number.” Olivia smiled weakly. “Gavin called him in front of me once. I memorized it, never thought it would come in handy.”
I nodded. The plan was beginning to take shape, but first, let’s wait for Marcus. I looked at the clock. He had another six hours to drive.
“You need to rest.” I helped my daughter lie down more comfortably, adjusted the pillows. Her eyelids were growing heavy. The effect of painkillers and the tension of the last few hours was taking its toll.
“Mom,” she caught my hand as I was about to leave the room. “Thank you.”
“For what, daughter?”
“For not asking why I married such a weakling.” She smiled bitterly. “For not saying ‘I warned you’.”
I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “We all make mistakes, honey. The main thing is to fix them before it’s too late.”
When she fell asleep, I went out onto the porch. The night was cold and clear. The stars, bright and dispassionate, looked at me from above. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
I inhaled the frosty air deeply. I thought about my grandmother, Zora—a proud Black woman who, despite the strict social codes of her time, lived with her head held high. About her pride and strength, which she passed on to my mother and from her to me.
About the “dirty blood” Lucille despised so much. Today, that blood boiled, and it would rage until justice triumphed. Not for revenge, but for the protection of my daughter and her unborn child.
The tracker I removed from the car was still working, blinking a small red light. I put it on a stump near the house. Let them think I’m here. Let them come. I will be ready.
“And the baby?” Marcus asked when he arrived.
She instinctively covered her stomach with her hand. “Seems to be okay. No bleeding, no severe pain in the lower abdomen, but a doctor’s examination is needed.”
Marcus exchanged glances with me. We both understood how risky going to the local hospital was, but leaving Olivia without medical help was impossible.
“I have a doctor friend in Springfield,” said Marcus, referring to his time in the service. “He can be trusted, and he’ll come here. No need to go anywhere.”
“Thank you,” Olivia said quietly, then suddenly tensed. “The phone… they can listen to your conversations.”
“Don’t worry.” Marcus showed her new burner phones. “We’ll use only these. And I’ll call the doctor from a pay phone in the next town over.”
He walked to the window, lifted the edge of the curtain.
“We can’t stay here,” he said, peering into the dawn. “The house is too open. The woods come right up to the north side. Ideal position for observation and attack.”
“But where do we go?” I looked around the room in confusion. “Can’t go to a hotel, need ID. To friends? We’ll put them in danger.”
“Grandpa had a hunting cabin,” Marcus said thoughtfully. “About twelve miles from here, deep in the woods. Remember?”
I nodded. A small log cabin on the shore of a forest lake where Grandpa took us fishing. I hadn’t been there in fifteen years, but I remembered the place well.
“You can only get there on foot or by an off-roader,” Marcus continued. “No roads, only forest trails. Ideal hideout.”
“But Olivia…” I worried. “She won’t be able to walk.”
“We’ll take your Chevy,” he decided. “We’ll just leave the tracker here in case they are tracking the car via satellite, and we’ll leave at twilight to make it harder to be seen.”
I agreed. The plan was risky, but logical. The cabin was far from civilization. No one would look for us there.
“What about the evidence?” asked Olivia. “The foundation documents?”
Marcus sat down next to her and carefully studied the photos on the phone. “Impressive,” he admitted. “But you’re right. This isn’t enough. We need confirmation from independent sources: bank statements, registry data, confirmation of the shell company’s activity.”
“Do you have access to such things?” Olivia asked hopefully.
Marcus smiled mysteriously. “Not me, but I know people who do. Former squad mates who now work in structures with access to databases. For a certain fee, they can help.”
“How much do you need?” I was already calculating how much money I had saved up.
“Don’t worry about the money.” Marcus waved it off. “I have savings, and this is an investment in our family’s future.”
He took a laptop out of his bag and turned it on. “Offline,” he explained. “Doesn’t connect to the internet directly. Safe.”