The phone rang again. This time it was Marcus, that man from Savannah.
«Elias, how’s it going? You didn’t change your mind, did you?»
«No. Why? Is there a reason?»
«There are calls. A lot of calls. Old man Silas Sterling is already contacting everyone he knows, trying to figure out where the leak came from. His son, apparently, still doesn’t know. He’s still partying somewhere, not even answering his phone.»
«That’s good.»
«Listen, I want you to understand one thing. What I set in motion can’t be stopped now. It’s like a snowball that starts rolling, gathering more and more snow, and in the end, it becomes an avalanche. The Sterlings are going to be shaken hard and deep. IRS, FBI, investigation. Things are going to come out that no one is going to like. I’m ready.»
«Are you ready for the fact that this might also affect your daughter? After all, she was part of that family too.»
Elias was silent, reflecting on the question. He hadn’t thought of that before, but now he understood that Marcus was right. Maya was Julian’s wife. Formally, she could also be affected if joint accounts, properties, or financial operations came to light.
«She is a victim, Marcus, not an accomplice. Any decent investigator will see that.»
«Fine, if that’s the case. But if I were you, I’d look for a good lawyer just in case.»
«Lawyers cost money. I don’t have any.»
«You will. I’m going to transfer something to you. Don’t argue. You saved my life. I have the right to spend part of mine in gratitude.»
The call ended. Elias put his phone away and looked at the hospital building, massive and indifferent under the light of the street lamps.
Somewhere up there on the third floor, his daughter was fighting for her life, while at some other end of the city, her husband was still enjoying his impunity, not knowing that the world around him was already on fire.
He went back inside and found a quiet corner in the lobby where he could sit and wait. There was nothing to wait for except news from the doctors, but he couldn’t leave the hospital. Physically, he could, of course, but his soul wouldn’t let him.
Too many years he had been far away when he should have been close. Now he would be here, even if it meant sitting on a hard plastic chair all night and listening to a homeless man snoring in a corner of the lobby.
The clock read 9:30 in the evening when Vera found him again. She had a strange expression on her face, both scared and excited.
«Have you seen the news?»
«No. What happened?»
She handed him her phone. On the screen was the news feed, and the first article made him read intently.
«Real estate mogul Silas Sterling, owner of Sterling Mall Group, detained for questioning in relation to an investigation into major financial maneuvers. According to sources, it involves millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks in the construction of public infrastructure projects.»
Elias handed the phone back to the nurse. «They work fast.»
«You did this?» Vera asked.
«I only made a call. The rest was done by people who for many years collected information and waited for the right moment.»
«But why? You could have just gone to the police, filed a report about the beatings.»
«And what would have happened? The report would have landed on the desk of some investigator who’s friends with Julian’s uncle at the DA’s office. They would have filed it, lost it, forgotten it. And in a week, Julian would have taken my daughter out of the hospital and finished killing her. No, Vera. Reports work against common people. People like you and me. But not against those with money and connections. For them, another method is needed.»
«What method?»
«Publicity. When every newspaper is writing about you. When your face is on every news site. When journalists dig into your past and find things even you had forgotten. Then no connection helps. Because all your friends in power instantly become ex-friends. They don’t want their names appearing next to yours. They turn their backs on you, pretend they never knew you, and then you’re left alone against the system that used to work for you.»
Vera looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. This quiet, exhausted man with weathered hands and sunken cheeks turned out to be someone very different from what he appeared at first glance. Behind his calm facade was a person who knew how to think several steps ahead and wasn’t afraid to play big.
«You are a dangerous man, Elias.»
«I’m just a father who had his daughter taken from him, and a man who has two or three months left to live. What makes me dangerous isn’t my character, but the circumstances.»
«What did you say? Two or three months?»
He realized he had spoken too much, but he didn’t try to deny it. What was the point of hiding what would soon be obvious?
«Cancer, stage four. I flew to the city to say goodbye to Maya, not to get revenge on her husband. That’s just how things turned out.»
Vera remained silent for a long time. Then she sat down next to him, in the adjacent chair, and said in a low voice, «My father died of cancer when I was 20. He also worked in the trades. He also didn’t have time to do many of the things he wanted. I understand better than you think.»
They sat together in the silence of the lobby. Two strangers brought together by someone else’s misfortune. Outside the hospital windows, the city night flowed on, indifferent and infinite.
Somewhere far from there, the empire of the Sterling family was collapsing. The houses of cards of reputations were falling. Phones were ringing that no one wanted to answer. And here, in an intensive care room, a young woman named Maya continued her silent struggle for the right to breathe.
Around midnight, Elias’s phone rang again. The number was unknown, but something prompted him to answer.
«Elias Vane.»
«Yes, this is Assistant District Attorney Martinez, Special Crimes Unit. We would like to invite you to give a statement. Tomorrow at 10 in the morning. I’ll dictate the address to you.»
He noted the address on a napkin, hung up, and allowed himself a smile. The machinery had been set in motion. The official machinery of justice, which normally works slowly and with creaks, but when it finally accelerates, it doesn’t stop.
The Sterlings thought they were above the law. They were wrong. No one is above the law when the law is backed by public attention and journalistic investigations.
Vera went back to her floor, promising to let him know if Maya’s condition changed. Elias was left alone in the semi-empty lobby between plastic chairs and vending machines. He didn’t sleep all night. He just sat and thought, replaying the events of the last few hours in his mind.
In the morning, he would testify before the DA, tell everything he knew, show the video, give the dates of the hospitalizations, and then he would return here to wait for his daughter to open her eyes, if she opened them at all.
Near dawn, he finally drifted off and had a strange dream. He was back in Savannah in 2007, in that accident that changed his life. The technical building was on fire. Black smoke was pouring out. People were screaming and running everywhere.
He ran inside because someone said people were still trapped. He found a man unconscious, pinned under a fallen beam. He carried him out on his back, even though the man weighed more than he did. He brought him out to the air, laid him on the ground, and then the building behind them finally collapsed.
That man lost a leg, but he survived. Elias suffered burns and lung problems that perhaps led to his current diagnosis. And the man he saved became someone very different. Someone who knows how to gather information and wait. Wait 17 years for the right moment to pay his debt.
Elias woke up because someone was shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Vera. Her face was pale, but her eyes were shining with something like hope.
«She regained consciousness for a moment, literally a minute. But she asked for you. She asked if her daddy was here.»
Elias jumped up so fast his head spun. He grabbed the back of the chair so as not to fall, and followed the nurse with legs that wouldn’t obey him.
His heart was beating somewhere in his throat, preventing him from breathing. She had regained consciousness. She was asking for him. She remembered him.
At the door to the intensive care unit, he stopped to catch his breath. Then he pushed the door open and entered.
Maya lay on the bed with her eyes closed. But something had changed in her face. It wasn’t as gray as the day before. And when he sat by her side and took her hand, she weakly squeezed his fingers in response.
«Daddy?» she whispered without opening her eyes.
«I’m here, Maya. Daddy’s here. I’m not going anywhere.»
A tear rolled down her cheek and disappeared into the pillow. Elias leaned closer, feeling his own eyes sting treacherously.
«Forgive me, Daddy, for everything. For those words. For the silence. I was such a fool.»
«There’s no need. Rest. Recover your strength. We’ll talk later. We have plenty of time.»
He lied. Of course, he didn’t have much time. But she didn’t need to know that. Right now, she only needed one thing: To know that her father was near. That she was loved. That she was no longer alone.
Maya sank back into sleep, but her fingers didn’t let go of his hand. And Elias sat by her side without moving, without letting go of her hand, watching as a new day dawned outside the window. A day in which everything would change definitively.
At that same moment that Elias was sitting by his daughter’s bed, holding her hand, a very different scene was unfolding 30 miles from the hospital. The mansion in Buckhead was flooded with lights. Music was thumping so loud it could be heard from neighboring properties.
And by the heated pool, a group of a dozen people had settled in, clearly not planning to end the party before dawn. Julian Sterling, 32 years old, heir to the Sterling Real Estate Empire and husband of the woman who, at that moment, was fighting for her life in intensive care, lay on a lounge chair with a glass of champagne in his hand, watching as two models in bikinis played some silly game with a ball.
He was drunk, but not too much. Just enough to feel a pleasant relaxation and not think about anything serious. And plenty of serious things had accumulated lately.
Maya was back in the hospital. Those bruises again, the doctor’s questions again, the need to call his father and ask him to handle it again. But his father always handled it, and everything always ended fine.
A few calls, an envelope to the right person, and suddenly «domestic accident» or «consequences of a fender-bender» appeared in the paperwork. The system worked like clockwork, and Julian had long since stopped worrying about those trifles.
One of the models, a long-legged blonde named Courtney, approached his lounge chair and sat next to him, shaking drops of water from her tanned shoulders.