Chapter 3

Ethan, under pressure from his mother, finally made a reluctant concession, though it was clear he didn't believe Sarah was in any real danger.

He likely thought Eleanor was being overly dramatic, or that Sarah had somehow manipulated her too.

"Fine," he'd probably grumbled to Eleanor, "I'll send someone to check on her. But this is the last time she pulls a stunt like this."

His "help" was a cruel joke, based on his warped perception that Sarah was faking her agony.

Sarah, fading in and out of consciousness, felt Eleanor' s hand on her forehead.

"Eleanor," she whispered, her voice barely audible, "the trust... the papers we signed... for the children..."

It was a desperate, final plea, a plan they' d made in secret weeks ago, a contingency for a horror Sarah had prayed wouldn't come to pass.

A fund, legal arrangements to protect her children if she couldn' t.

"If anything happens... please... protect them."

Her past life, the loss of her first twins, flashed before her eyes. She couldn't let it happen again, not entirely.

Eleanor' s face was etched with a grief that mirrored Sarah' s own.

The matriarch, usually so controlled, looked utterly heartbroken.

She had always felt a debt to Sarah' s father, Mr. Miller, a man who had saved the Sterling family from ruin at great personal cost.

"I will, Sarah," Eleanor vowed, her voice thick with emotion. "I will see your children are provided for. And Ethan... if he continues this monstrous cruelty... he will no longer be my son."

It was a radical commitment, a severing of the deepest ties.

Eleanor squeezed Sarah' s hand, a silent promise of action.

"I have to go now, to set these legal measures in motion immediately. Before he can stop it."

She rose, a queen preparing for war, and left Sarah to her fate, but with a sliver of hope for her children.

Hope, however, was a fleeting thing in Ethan Sterling' s world.

Instead of the promised medical aid, one of Ethan' s stoic security guards returned a short while later.

He didn' t bring a doctor or paramedics.

He carried a small, brown cardboard box.

He dropped it unceremoniously beside Sarah.

Inside: a roll of cheap bandages, a small bottle of generic aspirin, and a note.

"Mr. Sterling trusts this will suffice for your... theatrics."

The cruelty was breathtaking. It was a final, devastating blow, a message of utter contempt.

Sarah stared at the box, a fresh wave of despair washing over her. This was Ethan' s "care."

Her loyal personal assistant, Maria, who had somehow managed to bypass the security cordon, found her then.

Maria' s face was a picture of horror.

"Mrs. Sterling! Oh my god!"

Maria tried to staunch the bleeding with her own scarf, her hands trembling.

"I' m calling an ambulance from a private service... a hospital in the next state. They won' t know... Ethan won' t know..."

But Sarah was too weak. The world was spinning, darkening at the edges.

The effort to speak, to even acknowledge Maria' s desperate attempt, was too much.

She felt herself slipping, the pain receding into a distant hum.

Then, blackness.

She awoke with a gasp, shivering.

Cold. So terribly cold.

She wasn't in the hotel suite anymore.

Ethan' s staff had moved her. To a room in one of the sprawling Sterling mansions.

It was sparsely furnished, the air frigid, the windows barred like a cell.

Ethan stood over her, his face a thundercloud.

"So, you finally decided to wake up from your little act?" he sneered.

"Faking a collapse to disrupt Chloe' s press appearances? Pathetic, even for you."

His accusations were relentless, baseless, fueled by his paranoia.

"And colluding with my mother? Trying to steal my son' s inheritance for your bastards?"

Chloe appeared at his side, her eyes wide and tearful, a perfect portrait of wounded innocence.

"Ethan, darling, don't upset yourself," she murmured, clinging to his arm. "She' s just... unwell. Perhaps the stress of my good fortune was too much for her."

Her words were honey-laced poison, designed to stoke Ethan' s rage.

"Eleanor even called me," Chloe continued, her voice trembling, "accusing me of... of dreadful things. She said Sarah was dying. But you' re not dying, are you, Sarah?"

She subtly reinforced Ethan' s belief that Sarah and Eleanor were scheming together.