At twelve, my parents left me alone in a snowstorm and told me to go to a foster home because I didn’t belong to them. Years later, they showed up in the CEO’s office, acting like loving parents, praising my success, and I answered them with a line they never expected.
Chapter 1: Uninvited Guests
The 50th floor of the Vance Global Tower overlooked Chicago, reeling in a February snowstorm. Thick, reinforced glass separated the warmth and luxury inside from the -20 degree Celsius outside. But for me, Ethan Vance, the real cold was sitting right on the leather sofa opposite me.
“Ethan, son,” said Richard, his voice trembling with emotion (or perhaps from acting too convincingly). He wore a worn but meticulously laundered suit. “Your parents can’t believe it. Look at you. CEO of the largest logistics company in the Midwest. We’re so proud of you.”
Beside him, Linda—the woman I once called mother—was wiping away tears with an embroidered handkerchief. She wore a brown wool coat, the kind middle-class suburban women often wear to church on Sundays.
“I always knew you were special,” Linda sobbed. “From a young age, you were exceptionally intelligent. Even though we’ve been… apart for a while, not a day goes by that I don’t pray for you.”
I sat behind my dark walnut desk, my hand gently twirling my fountain pen. I didn’t offer them drinks. I didn’t smile. I just observed.
Twenty years. Twenty years had passed since that fateful night.
They weren’t here to visit me. They came because they’d seen my face on the cover of Forbes magazine last week. They came because they’d heard I’d just won a $500 million government project. They came because they were vultures sniffing out the money.
“How did you find me?” I asked, my voice calm, cold as a frozen lake.
“It was difficult, my dear,” Richard sighed, trying to sound austere. “Your parents are old. Their health is failing. When they saw you in the newspaper, your father cried. They took a bus all the way from North Dakota just to… see you one last time.”
“And to apologize,” Linda added, leaning forward. “For what happened back then. They were desperate. They thought sending you to orphanage was the best way to give you a future. They couldn’t afford to raise you. It was an act of love, Ethan. A painful sacrifice.”
Sacrifice. Love.
Those words triggered a slow-motion film in my head, sharp and brutal as if it had happened yesterday.
Chapter 2: The White Night in North Dakota
2004. Highway 83, the stretch through the desolate plains of North Dakota.
Christmas Eve.
I, Ethan, 12 years old, sat huddled in the back seat of a dilapidated old Ford pickup truck. The heating system was broken, and the cold air seeped through the cracks in the windows. My parents sat in the front, arguing fiercely about money. Numbers, debts, foul language.
Suddenly, Richard pulled over to the side of the road. Outside, a blizzard was raging. Visibility was reduced to just a few meters.
“Get out,” Richard commanded, without turning around.
“What?” I asked, my teeth chattering.
“I said get out!” He turned and roared. His eyes were bloodshot from alcohol and madness.
Frightened, I opened the door and stepped out. The snow lashed against my face like blades. The snow was knee-deep.
Linda got out too. She didn’t hug me. She threw a black plastic bag into the snow. Inside were some of my old clothes.
“Listen, Ethan,” she said, her voice colder than the storm. She pointed toward a dim light about two miles away. “That’s St. Mary’s Orphanage. Walk there.”
“But… why? Mom, I’m sorry if I ate too much…” I cried, clinging to her dress.
Linda pushed my hand away. She looked at me with a look of disgust, a look I never understood at the time.
“Don’t call me Mom. You’re not my child. You don’t belong to us. You’re just a burden. We’re out of money. Go there, tell them you’re a lost child. Never mention my name or Richard’s. If you come back, I’ll kill you.”
They got into the car. The engine roared. The pickup truck sped away, leaving me alone in the swirling white snowstorm. The small red taillights faded and went out, like my hope of survival.
I walked. I crawled. I fainted in front of the orphanage gate, my legs numb and almost needing amputation.
I survived that hell. I grew up with anger as the fuel that burned my heart. I studied like crazy. I worked like crazy. I became a monster in the business world just to prove that I could survive without them.
And now, they sit there, talking about “love” and “sacrifice.”
Chapter 3: The Curtain Falls
“Ethan?” Linda’s voice pulled me back to reality. “Did you hear me?”
“I heard,” I said. “You said it was a sacrifice.”
“That’s right,” Richard nodded repeatedly. “And now you’ve succeeded. You’re the pride of the Vance family. We don’t need much, just a little… support. Your father has lung disease and needs surgery. Your mother is in debt for rent.”
“How much do you want?” I asked directly.
They looked at each other. Their eyes gleamed with undisguised greed.
“$500,000,” Richard said. “For Dad’s medical treatment and to buy a small house for his retirement. That’s just pocket money, but for Mom and Dad it means a lot.”
lives. Then, we can make a happy family. “Your parents will cook for you, take care of you…”
I stood up, walked to the glass window, and looked down at the city.
“You’re right about one thing,” I said, without turning around. “That night, Linda said something I’ll never forget.”
“What was it, son?” Linda asked, her voice sweet.
“She said: ‘You don’t belong to us.'”
“Oh, she was just angry at the time…” Linda chuckled.
I turned back and pressed a button on my desk. The large screen on the wall lit up.
It wasn’t a business chart.
It was an old, yellowed police file, scanned and enlarged.
MISSING PERSON CASE FILE NO. 492-B. YEAR 1992.
VICTIM: WILLIAM STERLING JR.
AGE: 6 MONTHS.
[Image of a picture] A smiling newborn baby boy appeared on the screen.
Richard and Linda looked up at the screen. The smiles on their faces vanished. Their complexions changed from rosy to pale, then ashen.
“What… what is this?” Richard stammered, jumping to his feet.
“This is William Sterling Jr.,” I said, my voice low and menacing. “The only son of Chicago billionaire William Sterling. The baby who was kidnapped in 1992 right here in the park.”
I pointed to myself.
“And I… I am that baby.”
Linda slumped back into her chair. She clutched her chest, gasping for breath.
“You are not my parents,” I stepped closer to them. “You are Richard and Linda Gacy, an addicted and unemployed couple. In 1992, you kidnapped me from my stroller while the nanny was distracted.” “You were planning to demand ransom.”
“No… not at all…” Richard recoiled, bumping into the edge of the table.
“But you were scared,” I continued, each word like a hammer blow. “The case became too sensational. The FBI got involved. You didn’t dare call to demand the money. You were afraid of being caught. So you kept me. You changed my name to Ethan Vance. You used me to collect social security benefits and food stamps for ‘households with young children’.” “You raised me like a pet to make money from the government.”
“And when I was 12,” my voice cracked. “When I was too old for child support, and when you were broke from gambling losses… you decided to throw me away like expired goods in a blizzard.”
Richard and Linda trembled like leaves in a storm. The darkest secret of their lives, something they thought had been buried in the snow of North Dakota 20 years ago, was now right before their eyes, in the form of a powerful CEO.
“How… how did you know?” Linda whispered.
“When I became successful, I hired a private investigator to look into my origins,” I said. “I did a DNA test. I found my biological parents—Mr. and Mrs. Sterling. They cried their eyes out when they found me.” “But they passed away two years ago, leaving this corporation to me.”
“So… so you’re a billionaire from birth?” Richard laughed maniacally, a maniacal laugh. “Great! Then you owe us even more! We didn’t kill you! We raised you for 12 years! If it weren’t for us, you would have died or been sold somewhere! You owe us your life!”
His shamelessness made me nauseous. He kidnapped me, stole my childhood, stole my real family, abused me, abandoned me, and now he’s demanding “repayment.”
Chapter 4: The Twist of Justice
“Repayment?” I smiled. “Yes. I agree. I will repay you what you deserve.”
Linda’s eyes lit up. “Really, Ethan? Will you give me money?”
I shook my head.
“I won’t give you money.” “I’ll give you an answer.”
I pressed the button on my desk again. The office door swung open.
It wasn’t the secretary bringing tea.
It was four FBI agents in bulletproof vests, guns drawn, along with the Chicago Police Chief.
“Richard Gacy, Linda Gacy,” the chief agent shouted. “You two are arrested for child abduction, forgery, social security fraud, and premeditated murder (abandoning in a blizzard).”
“What? Murder?” Linda shrieked. “He’s alive!” “It’s right there!”
“Abandoning a 12-year-old child in a -20°C blizzard constitutes attempted murder under North Dakota law,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “And more importantly, there’s no statute of limitations for child abduction in this case because you fabricated my identity to cover up the crime.”
Cold handcuffs snapped onto Richard and Linda’s wrists.
“You framed me!” Richard roared, lunging at me but being tackled to the floor by the agents. “You tricked us into coming here!”
“I didn’t trick you,” I leaned down and whispered the words I’d prepared for 20 years into his ear. The answer to their initial insincere compliments.
“You praise my success? You say I’m your pride? Then listen: My greatest success isn’t being a CEO.” “My greatest success is that I’ve survived long enough to send you all to jail.”
“And as for the $500,000,” I straightened up. “I used it to hire the best lawyers in America. Not to defend me. But to ensure…”
“That the two of them would receive the harshest sentence, never to be pardoned, and would rot away in prison.”
Linda wailed and begged for my forgiveness. She called me her son, Ethan, William. But to me, she was just a ghost of the past.
Chapter End: Peace After the Storm
The police dragged them away. The office became quiet again.
I went to the window. The snowstorm outside continued, white and cold. But this time, I was inside, warm and safe.
I looked down at the street, where the police car was sirens blaring, taking the two kidnappers away.
I had found my real name again. William Sterling. But I kept the name Ethan Vance at work. Because that name reminded me of the boy who crawled through the snow, of an unquenchable will to survive.
I opened a drawer and took out an old photograph. A picture of my biological parents – Mr. and Mrs. Sterling. They were smiling. I smiled.
“I did it,” I whispered. “Justice has been served.”
I didn’t answer them with money. I answered them with the judgment of conscience and the law. I showed them that the child they abandoned in the blizzard years ago didn’t die. It became the storm, and today, that storm has returned to sweep them away.
I returned to my desk and signed a new grant document: “William Sterling Scholarship Fund for Abandoned Children and Victims of Abduction.”
That’s my revenge. To live well, to shine, on the ashes they left behind.
