Chapter 3 - The Cold War of Saint Jude's
By 2:00 AM, the VIP wing of St. Jude’s Hospital was under total lockdown.
Two armed private security guards—hired directly by Owen through his former private military network—stood at the entrance of Room 412. No one entered without clearance, not even the attending nurses, who had to be verified twice by the floor manager.
Inside, the room was dimly lit. Evelyn lay in the center of the mechanical bed, her right arm elevated on a pillow, wrapped in silver burn dressing. Her left hand rested gently on her stomach. The continuous thump-thump-thump of the fetal heart monitor was the only music she cared to hear.
The door clicked open. Owen stepped inside, holding two paper cups of cafeteria coffee and a thick yellow manila envelope.
“The police just left the lobby,” Owen said, setting a coffee cup on her bedside table. “Grant’s legal team met them downstairs. They’ve already submitted three different witness statements claiming Sloane Hart had a dizzy spell due to low blood sugar and tripped into you.”
Evelyn let out a bitter laugh. “Low blood sugar? She was wearing four-inch heels and carried a glass of champagne all night.”
“Doesn't matter,” Owen said, sitting in the armchair beside her. “The police chief in this district is on the Mercer Foundation board. He’s already classifying it as an unfortunate accident during a public demonstration. No arrests will be made tonight.”
“I didn't expect them to arrest her,” Evelyn said quietly, looking out the window at the falling snow. “Grant controls the police. He controls the local press. He even controls the doctor who delivered my first medical checks.” She paused, her eyes darkening. “Or at least, he thought he did.”
“What do you mean?” Owen asked, leaning forward.
Evelyn gestured toward the envelope in his hand. “Open it. I had my personal attorney drop that off at the front desk twenty minutes ago. I was keeping it in a safe deposit box until the baby was born, but... things have changed.”
Owen pulled the string on the yellow envelope and slid out a stack of financial documents, stamped with the seal of the New York State Banking Commission.
As he scanned the top page, his eyebrows raised. “This isn't a prenuptial agreement.”
“No,” Evelyn said, her voice dropping to a low, icy register. “When Grant proposed to me six years ago, my father made him sign a contingent trust deed. It stated that if Mercer Global ever used Caldwell land assets as collateral for foreign loans, fifty-one percent of Mercer Global’s voting shares would automatically revert to me upon the birth of my first living heir.”
Owen looked up, a sharp grin tugging at the corner of his scarred mouth. “A poison pill.”
“A nuclear option,” Evelyn corrected. “Grant thinks he’s been embezzling from my family trust. He thinks he’s been playing me for a fool while he spent weekends in St. Barts with Sloane Hart. But he didn't realize that every dollar he stole was tied directly to the share collateral.”
“Does he know about this clause?”
“He thinks my father destroyed the only original copy before he died,” Evelyn said. “He doesn't know I found it tucked behind a painting in our summer house three months ago.”
Before Owen could answer, the door handle rattled aggressively from the hallway. Shouted voices echoed through the heavy door.
“I am her husband! You have no right to keep me out of this room!”
Grant’s voice was laced with frantic rage. Seconds later, the door swung open, despite the two security guards attempting to block the threshold.
Grant burst into the room, followed closely by his mother, Eleanor Mercer—a woman who looked as though she had been carved out of marble and wrapped in vintage mink.
“Evelyn!” Eleanor snapped, stepping past her son and sweeping into the room with an aura of supreme authority. “This circus has gone far enough. The media is swarming outside the hospital entrance! There are rumors circulating on social media that Sloane pushed you!”
“It’s not a rumor, Eleanor,” Evelyn said evenly, not even bothering to sit up straight. “She pushed me. Grant watched.”
“Nonsense!” Eleanor snapped, waving a manicured hand in dismissive frustration. “Sloane is a family friend! She was startled by that ridiculous blacksmith demonstration. You lost your balance because you’re eight months pregnant and insistence on wearing those absurd heels—”
“I was wearing flats, Eleanor,” Evelyn interrupted, her eyes narrowing. “And your son stepped backward when I caught on fire.”
Grant’s face turned an ugly shade of crimson. He stepped up to the foot of the bed, pointing a finger at Evelyn. “Listen to me carefully, Evelyn. You are making a massive public relations nightmare out of nothing. Sloane is already crying in the car downstairs, terrified you’re going to ruin her reputation. You will sign a press statement in the morning stating that this was a tragic misunderstanding, or so help me God—”
CRACK.
The sound echoed through the hospital room like a gunshot.
Owen hadn't used his sword. He had simply stood up and driven his right hook directly into Grant’s jaw.
Grant stumbled backward, slamming into the wall, blood instantly welling from his lower lip. Eleanor shrieked, clutching her pearl necklace in absolute horror.
“Touch her, threaten her, or speak to her like that again,” Owen said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he wiped his knuckles with a handkerchief, “and I won't wait for the lawyers.”
Grant touched his bleeding lip, staring at Owen with pure venom. “You’re crazy. You’re both crazy! You think you can destroy us? Mercer Global owns this town!”
“You used to,” Evelyn said, her voice cutting through the tension like a straight razor. She reached into her blanket and pulled out a small black tablet, sliding it across the bed sheets toward Grant.
Grant looked down at the screen.
Displayed on the monitor was a live broadcast of the Wall Street Journal’s early morning financial wire. The headline read:
FACING MASSIVE FORECLOSURE: MERCER GLOBAL ACCUSED OF $300M FRAUD AS CALDWELL TRUST INITIATES IMMEDIATE FORECLOSURE.
Grant’s breath hitched. His face drained of all color, turning as white as the hospital sheets. “How... how did you...”
“I didn't send them the audit, Grant,” Evelyn said, a cold, dark smile appearing on her lips for the very first time. “You did. When you gave Sloane access to the company’s internal servers last week, she sold your transaction history to a short-seller firm in Chicago.”
Grant whipped his head around, staring at the door as if he could see Sloane sitting in the limousine downstairs. “She... she wouldn't...”
“She did,” Evelyn whispered. “She didn't push me to protect your marriage, Grant. She pushed me because she knew that if I died tonight, the police would investigate you for murder—and she would walk away with thirty million dollars from her short position on your stock.”
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The silence in the room was deafening.
Grant stood frozen, realizing in one terrifying instant that the trap he had spent five years setting for his wife had just snapped shut around his own neck.
