Chapter 3 - THE WEAPON OF SECRETS
The air in the study turned instantly frigid. Brooklyn covered her mouth in horror, while I felt a cold, sharp fury crystallizing in my chest.
"Poisoned?" I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. "She has been living under an overpass on Fifth Avenue. How could anyone poison her?"
"The chemical compound is called Thallium-93," Dr. Vance explained, displaying the molecular breakdown on her tablet. "It’s odorless, tasteless, and insoluble in water, but soluble in basic foods. In small doses over months or years, it mimics dementia, extreme exhaustion, and organ failure. Whoever was feeding her on the street was ensuring she would die slowly without drawing any suspicion."
I immediately called Marcus into the room. "Vance," I ordered my head of security, "I want round-the-clock armed guards outside my mother’s room. No one enters without my personal authorization. Screen every piece of food, every drop of water, every medicine."
"Understood, boss," Marcus said, his face hardening. "Where do we start investigating?"
"The street vendors," I said, my mind racing through the details of the Fifth Avenue overpass. "Rose told us she begged for food. Someone wasn't just walking past her—someone was delivering contaminated food to her under the guise of charity."
Leaving Brooklyn with my mother under heavy security, I took Marcus and two armed guards back out into the midnight streets of Manhattan. The overpass on Fifth Avenue was quiet now, swept by the cool night wind, but a few makeshift shelters remained scattered against the concrete walls.
We walked toward an old soup kitchen van parked two blocks away—a charity organization called Grace Foundation that frequently operated in that sector. As we approached, a middle-aged man in a faded jacket was loading empty metal soup vats into the back of the van.
"Are you in charge of food distribution here?" I asked, walking into the dimly lit alley.
The man turned around, startled. Recognition flashed in his eyes as he looked at my face. "Mr. Miller? Yes, I’m Thomas. I run the Grace Foundation nights. I saw the video today... was that Rose you took with you?"
"It was," I said, stepping closer. "Thomas, who provides the funding for your soup kitchen?"
Thomas blinked, looking confused. "We... we get private donations. But mostly, we receive daily catered food deliveries from a corporate sponsor. They’ve been sending us fresh meals specifically for the street homeless on Fifth Avenue for the past two years."
"Which corporate sponsor?" Marcus demanded, stepping forward intimidatingly.
Thomas reached into the van and pulled out a delivery clip-board. "A charitable wing under Sterling Holdings. They said they wanted to support the local community."
A brutal wave of revulsion swept over me. William Sterling hadn't just left my mother to rot on the streets—he had actively monitored her, ensuring she was kept in a state of physical and mental decay so she could never regain her memory or seek justice. He was murdering her by inches.
"Marcus, secure that clipboard and confiscate all remaining food samples from this van," I ordered. "We need physical evidence linking the Sterling charitable branch to the poison."
"Right away, sir."
Suddenly, the headlights of two heavy black SUVs flickered to life at the end of the alleyway. Engine revs roared through the narrow brick corridor.
"Boss, look out!" Marcus yelled, drawing his sidearm.
The two vehicles accelerated toward us, aiming to crush us against the brick walls. Marcus fired three shots through the windshield of the leading SUV, causing the driver to swerve wildly and crash into a row of industrial dumpsters with a deafening metallic screech.
The second SUV skidded to a halt, and four men in black tactical gear jumped out, drawing suppressed handguns. Alleyway gunfire erupted—bright muzzle flashes lighting up the darkness.
"Get behind the van!" Marcus yelled, firing back while pushing me toward cover.
I crouched behind the thick steel frame of the soup kitchen van as bullets whined off the metal plating. This wasn't just corporate rivalry anymore; this was an armed execution squad sent to wipe out any trace of the connection.
"Alexander Miller!" a voice shouted from behind the tactical team. A man stepped forward from the shadows—a high-ranking security chief I recognized from Sterling Enterprises, a man named Vance Vance. "You should have taken your mother and fled the country! You’re digging your own grave!"
I grabbed a metal crowbar from the open back of the soup van. As one of the tactical shooters moved past the rear bumper to flank Marcus, I stepped out from the shadows and swung the crowbar with all the strength and fury in my body, striking the shooter across the helmet. He collapsed to the pavement, dropping his automatic weapon.
I scooped up the fallen weapon, checked the magazine, and aimed over the hood of the van.
"I’m done running from you bastards!" I shouted, pulling the trigger and laying down suppression fire.
Caught off guard by a billionaire returning fire with tactical precision, the remaining attackers scrambled for cover. Within seconds, the distant sirens of NYPD police cruisers began to echo off the skyscrapers.
"They called the cops!" Vance yelled. "Fall back! Fall back!"
The surviving operatives scrambled back into the functioning SUV, reversed down the alley at high speed, and vanished into the grid of Manhattan traffic, leaving behind their wrecked vehicle and one unconscious operative.
Marcus rushed to my side, panting, his arm grazing a bullet flesh wound. "Sir! Are you hit?"
"I’m fine," I said, lowering the weapon, my chest heaving. "Search the driver of that wrecked SUV. Find his phone, his drive, anything that connects him directly to William Sterling."
Marcus checked the unconscious driver, pulling an encrypted satellite tablet from his vest. He pressed the thumb of the passed-out operative against the scanner, unlocking the screen.
"Boss," Marcus whispered, staring at the screen. "You need to see this."
May you like
I took the tablet. On the screen was a live video feed transmitted from inside my own home—a camera feed showing my penthouse living room, where my mother and Brooklyn were currently resting.
William Sterling was inside my home.
