I still remember the day my phone rang. It was the wedding photographer, panic in his voice: “Sir, I noticed something terrible! Come immediately and don’t tell your daughter!” My heart sank. Could it be a mistake, or something far worse? When I arrived, he handed me the album, his hands shaking. And there it was… something in the pictures that made my world stop. I knew life would never be the same again.
The October rain beat down on the glass windows of my penthouse overlooking Boston Harbor. I, Arthur Sterling, sat in a leather armchair, swirling a glass of 30-year-old Scotch.
My daughter, Sarah, had just gotten married 48 hours earlier. It was the Boston Globe’s “Wedding of the Year.” Sarah, the sole heiress to the Sterling pharmaceutical empire, had married Daniel—a young, handsome, and suspiciously perfect neurosurgeon.
I’d had Daniel investigated. His background was spotless. Orphaned at a young age, a Harvard graduate with a full scholarship, no debt, no criminal record. I was comfortable entrusting my daughter to him.
Ring… Ring…
The landline rang. It was 2 a.m.
I picked up. On the other end was Leo, the veteran photographer who had been taking pictures of my family for the past 20 years.
“Mr. Sterling…” Leo’s voice was shaky, urgent, and filled with gasps. “I know it’s late, but… you need to come to my studio right now. Don’t tell Sarah. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Leo, are you drunk?” I frowned.
“No, sir. I’m editing wedding photos. I’ve enlarged the RAW files to process the details. And I see… I see something wrong. You’ll have to come see for yourself. God, I hope I’m wrong.”
My heart sank. A cold unease crept up my spine, colder than the rain outside. I pulled on my coat, grabbed my pistol, and ran into the night.
Leo’s studio was in the SoWa arts district, dark except for the pale blue light from a giant computer screen.
Leo greeted me with a pale face. He didn’t say anything, just led me to the screen.
“These are photos taken during the ceremony,” Leo said, his hand shaking as he moved the mouse. “Daniel asked me to take a macro shot of their hands to capture the moment the diamond ring slid onto Sarah’s finger.”
On the screen was a beautiful photo. Daniel’s hand was holding Sarah’s. The ring sparkled.
“Look closely at Daniel’s shirt cuff,” Leo whispered.
He zoomed in 400%.
Daniel’s shirt cuff had been pulled up a little from the ring. Beneath the gold cufflink, a small part of his inner wrist was exposed.
There was a tattoo.
It was very small, the ink faded, indicating it had been done a long time ago. But the monstrous resolution of the 100 megapixel camera revealed it all.
It was a series of numbers: 10-24-98.
And next to the number was a tiny symbol: A Mockingbird with a broken wing.
My world stopped. The imaginary glass in my hand shattered.
I backed away, hitting the desk.
“Do you know what it is?” Leo asked, afraid of my reaction.
I knew. I knew too well.
October 24, 1998.
That was the day I made the darkest “deal” of my life to save Sterling Pharmaceuticals from bankruptcy. I hired a group of mercenaries to burn down the warehouse of our competitor, Horizon Corporation. The fire got out of control. The entire family of Horizon’s chairman, Robert Vance, died in the fire.
The police ruled it an accident.
But there was one detail that was never made public. Robert Vance had a 6-year-old son named… Gabriel. The child was presumed to have burned with his parents, though his body was never found in the ashes.
And the Vance family crest? A starling.
Daniel was no nameless orphan.
Daniel was Gabriel Vance.
He didn’t die. He survived, changed his name, changed his appearance, and spent the last 25 years climbing the social ladder, just to get close to my daughter.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
“There’s more, sir,” Leo swallowed. “I thought the tattoo was a coincidence. But then I checked the photos from the reception.”
Leo moved on to the next photo.
Context: Sarah and Daniel cutting the wedding cake. Both were smiling brightly. Daniel was whispering something in Sarah’s ear. A romantic moment.
But Leo zoomed in on Daniel’s face. From this angle, Sarah couldn’t see his face. But the camera lens could.
Daniel’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. His eyes were fixed on the camera – or rather, on me, sitting at the far end of the photo at the front table.
There was a hatred in his eyes, a cold madness that made me shiver.
And his hand.
Leo switched to another photo taken at the same moment, but from the left-hand angle.
Daniel’s right hand held a knife to cut the cake.
His left hand was around Sarah’s waist.
Leo zoomed in on the left hand.
In Daniel’s palm, neatly hidden by the fabric of Sarah’s wedding dress, was a tiny syringe tucked between his fingers.
The tip of the needle was lightly touching Sarah’s hip.
“Oh my God…” I gasped, my throat tight. “What is he doing to her?”
“I don’t know,” Leo said, sweating. “But look at this last photo. It was taken as they got into the car to go to the airport for their honeymoon.”
Daniel
waving to everyone.
But in the back window, where Sarah was sitting… she wasn’t waving.
Her head was pressed against the window. Her eyes were closed.
Everyone thought she was tired from the long wedding.
But Leo zoomed in on Sarah’s neck.
A tiny red mark, like a mosquito bite, right where the needle from the previous photo had touched.
And on Sarah’s wrist, the Apple Watch was glowing.
Leo manipulated the contrast to read the text on the tiny watch face.
Heart rate: 38 BPM (A heart rate that is dangerously low, the level of someone in a coma or near death).
My daughter wasn’t sleeping. She was dying.
And she was on a private plane with my worst enemy.
“Call the FBI,” I yelled, rushing to the door. “Have them stop that plane!”
I knew what Daniel—or Gabriel—was doing. He was a neurosurgeon. He knew how to kill without leaving a trace. He injected Sarah with a drug that slowed her heart rate, causing slow respiratory failure. When the plane landed on the private island in the Maldives, Sarah would “pass away in her sleep from exhaustion.” He would play the role of the grieving husband, cremate her immediately, and inherit the entire Sterling fortune I had just transferred to Sarah as a dowry.
I called the family private pilot. No answer.
I called Sarah. The number.
I drove like crazy to Hanscom Field, a private airport.
But when I arrived, the runway was empty. The family Gulfstream G650 had taken off four hours ago.
I collapsed on the cold tarmac. I was defeated. The past had returned and taken away the only thing I loved.
But my phone vibrated.
A text message from an unknown number.
I opened it. It was a photo.
The photo showed Sarah lying on a hospital bed… in a state-of-the-art operating room.
And Daniel was standing next to her, still dressed as a groom, but holding a scalpel.
Below it was a text message:
“You burned my house down. I won’t burn yours down. I’ll take her heart. Literally. Because your daughter needs a new heart, right, Arthur?”
I was stunned.
Sarah had a congenital heart defect. She was on the heart transplant waiting list. Daniel knew that.
I looked at the photo again. The back window wasn’t the night sky of the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the lights of Boston.
He hadn’t gone to the Maldives. He was still here. Where had he taken her?
I remembered Daniel’s profile. He worked at the old St. Jude Hospital – which was abandoned for redevelopment. He had said he liked the quiet there for his research.
I drove to the abandoned St. Jude Hospital. I broke through the door.
I ran down the dark hallway, reeking of old antiseptic.
At the end of the hallway, surgical lights shone from operating room number 4.
I kicked open the door, gun in hand.
“Put the knife down, Gabriel!” I roared.
The sight before me stunned me.
Sarah was lying on the operating table, wires tangled, the heart monitor beeping… beep… faintly.
Daniel (Gabriel) stood there, scalpel in hand. But he wasn’t operating on Sarah.
He was cutting open his own chest.
Blood stained the groom’s white shirt.
“You’re late, Arthur,” Daniel said, his voice weak but calm. He turned to look at me, his face pale from blood loss. “I didn’t mean to kill her.”
“What the hell are you doing?” I lowered the gun, utterly bewildered.
“I’m Gabriel Vance. You killed my parents. You robbed me of my childhood. I swore to get back at you in the most painful way.”
He coughed, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
“What’s the most painful way? Kill your daughter? No. That’s too easy. The most painful way… is to force you to watch your daughter survive on the heart of an enemy.”
Daniel pointed to the monitor.
“Sarah had a heart attack right after the wedding. Her medication is no longer working. She needs a heart transplant immediately, tonight, or she’ll die. There are no suitable donors.”
He smiled, a wild smile.
“But I’m a match. I did the HLA test six months ago. My heart is a perfect match for hers.”
He injected himself with anesthesia. He set up the machines to perform the automated organ harvesting procedure (an experimental system he was researching).
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because while she lives with my heart in her chest,” Daniel said, his eyes beginning to blur. “You will never forget me. Every time you hold your daughter, you will hear my heartbeat. Every time you see her smile, you will remember that you owe her life to the child you tried to kill 25 years ago.”
“And Sarah…” he looked at his comatose wife with a heartbreaking tenderness. “She is the only one in your rotten family who is not guilty. I love her. That is the only part that was not part of the plan.”
Daniel collapsed to the floor.
His heart monitor ran a straight line.
Beep beep……..
At the same time, the medical team Daniel had secretly called in earlier rushed in. They did not know the story. They only saw a doctor who had committed suicide to donate his heart to his wife.
They rushed Daniel and Sarah’s bodies into an emergency transplant.
A year later.
Sarah had made a full recovery. She was rosy and healthy as ever.
She didn’t know the truth. She only knew that Daniel had died in an accident shortly after their wedding, and that his heart had saved her. She worshipped Daniel like a saint.
Every Sunday, I sat down to dinner with Sarah.
“Listen, Dad,” Sarah said, placing her hand on her left breast. “His heart is beating so hard. I feel like Daniel is still here, right next to us.”
I looked at my daughter, smiling awkwardly, but inside I was shattered.
Each thump… thump… thump… beat from her chest sounded like the ghost of Gabriel Vance.
He had won.
He had turned my greatest love—my daughter—into my eternal prison. I couldn’t tell Sarah the truth, because it would break her heart (literally and figuratively).
I would have to live the rest of my life looking into my daughter’s eyes and seeing the soul of her enemy feeding her. That would be the most cruel revenge no prison could ever give.
I looked up at the wedding photo hanging on the wall. In it, Daniel was smiling, a look that penetrated my soul. And I knew that smile would haunt me until my last breath.
