Chapter 2 - The Silence After|
The line went dead with a soft click.
The black screen reflected Catherine’s face—pale, hollowed out by pain, her dark eyes wide and fixed on the ceiling tiles above her head.
Across the room, her sister Rachel stood near the window, holding a lukewarm cup of hospital coffee. Rachel’s hand was frozen halfway to her mouth, her eyes fixed on Catherine with an expression that combined horror with a rage that had been brewing for eleven years.
"What did she say?" Rachel asked, her voice dropping an octave. "Catherine. What did she say?"
Catherine didn't answer. She let her arm fall back onto the mattress, her fingers slipping away from the glass screen.
A nurse in green scrubs moved quietly around the end of the bed, adjusting the IV drip, her eyes strictly averted. The hospital staff knew who Michael Harrison was. Everyone in Philadelphia knew who Michael Harrison was. The name carried a weight that made people lower their voices in elevators and clear out of VIP sections at high-end steakhouses.
He owned three hotels on the waterfront, two private clubs in Rittenhouse Square, and a logistics company that handled half the cargo coming off the Delaware River.
He also owned the city’s underground.
Men twice his age bowed their heads when he walked into a room. Judges hesitated before signing warrants with his family’s name on them. He was a man who could move mountains with a single quiet phone call from the back seat of a black Maybach.
And yet, at 3:07 a.m. on the stormiest night of November, he was in a penthouse suite somewhere in the city while his assistant explained that his daughter’s birth was an inconvenience.
Another contraction rolled over Catherine, sharp and unrelenting, tearing through her lower abdomen like a dull blade.
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She didn't scream. She didn't bite her lip.
She just stared at her phone until the screen went dark, watching her own reflection vanish into the glass.
