Chapter 3 - The Secret Kept in the Dark
For three days, the Walker shack became a sanctuary. Lena used every drop of her remaining energy—and the few dollars she earned from scrubbing floors at a downtown diner—to buy powdered milk and basic supplies for the baby, whom the girls had named Leo.
They kept him hidden away from the prying eyes of neighbors and landlords. Lena knew that if she walked into a hospital or police station reporting an abandoned baby without resources, child services might separate her from her own twins, or worse, accuse her of involvement.
Meanwhile, Cleveland was turning upside down.
Every news channel featured a grim-faced Richard Sterling offering a five-million-dollar reward for the safe return of his infant grandson, Julian Sterling. Billboards from downtown to the suburbs flashed the baby’s initial birth stats and a plea for information.
Sitting in front of a flickering, secondhand television set wrapped in a blanket, June pointed at the screen. “Mom, look! That man looks like the baby!”
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Lena stared at the television. The billionaire’s face was etched with raw grief and fury. But beneath the televised pleas, dark currents were moving. The kidnapping hadn't been an accident of a random criminal; it was an inside job orchestrated by Richard Sterling’s own ambitious nephew, Marcus Sterling, who wanted to purge the bloodline to secure the corporate board succession.
And Marcus’s private investigators were rapidly tracing the digital footprints of the ransom drop—closing in directly on the east side of Cleveland.
