Chapter 2 - The Locked Laundry Room
The service elevator descended beneath the ballroom.
Thomas rode beside me.
Sophia remained in my arms.
Two security officers followed us.
Victoria stayed upstairs, but I knew she was already calling attorneys, board members, and anyone else she believed she controlled.
Thomas pressed the basement button.
His hand shook.
“How long?” I asked.
He did not pretend to misunderstand.
“Five months.”
I turned toward him.
“You watched my wife and daughter live in a hotel basement for five months?”
His face tightened.
“Mrs. Sterling said Elena was under psychiatric supervision.”
“Did she look supervised when she searched garbage for food?”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“No.”
The elevator doors opened.
The basement corridor smelled of detergent, steam, and damp concrete.
Sophia pointed past the linen carts.
“There.”
A gray steel door stood at the end of the hall.
A keypad glowed beside it.
I tried the handle.
Locked.
I looked at Thomas.
“Open it.”
“I do not have the code.”
One of the guards stepped forward.
“I do.”
Victoria had ordered hotel security to restrict access to the room.
Only four employees knew the code.
The guard entered six digits.
The lock clicked.
Heat rolled into the corridor.
The room beyond had once been used for linen storage.
Industrial washers shook the walls.
A bare mattress lay near a utility sink.
A small lamp rested on an overturned crate.
Elena sat on the floor beside it.
For one impossible second, I did not recognize my wife.
She had lost weight.
Her dark hair had been cut unevenly at her shoulders.
A purple bruise spread along one side of her jaw.
Her right ankle was wrapped in a dirty bandage.
She looked toward the door.
“Grant?”
The sound of my name in her voice broke something inside me.
Sophia struggled from my arms.
“Mommy.”
She ran across the room.
Elena caught her and began crying.
I dropped beside them.
“What did they do to you?”
Elena looked at Thomas and the guards.
Fear crossed her face.
“We need to leave.”
“We are leaving.”
“No.”
“You do not understand.”
“She has papers.”
“What papers?”
Elena pulled Sophia against her.
“Victoria had a doctor declare me incompetent.”
“She said you requested it.”
“I never did.”
“She took my phone.”
“She canceled our lease.”
“She told the school I withdrew Sophia.”
“She said if I fought her, she would prove I was an unfit mother and send Sophia into foster care.”
I looked around the room.
A plastic container held two apples and a bottle of water.
A child’s blanket lay beneath a laundry table.
“You slept here?”
Elena nodded.
“Not every night.”
“Sometimes they let us use a staff room.”
“Who hit you?”
She did not answer.
Sophia did.
“Uncle Marcus.”
My younger brother.
The man I had left in charge of Sterling International while I worked overseas.
I stood so quickly that the crate beside me overturned.
Elena caught my sleeve.
“Grant, wait.”
“There is more.”
She reached beneath the mattress and removed a sealed hotel envelope.
Inside were copies of bank transfers.
Every monthly payment I had sent appeared on the first page.
Each payment had been redirected within twenty-four hours.
The receiving account belonged to the Victoria Sterling Children’s Foundation.
The final page showed something worse.
A twenty-million-dollar transfer from Sophia’s inheritance trust.
May you like
The authorization carried my signature.
It was a forgery.
