Chapter 3 - The Blackout
For eleven months, Julian’s emails had been sparse, his phone calls practically nonexistent. Beatrice had always claimed it was a communications blackout due to the sensitive nature of his mission. I had spent countless nights crying into my pillow, terrified he was dead, completely unaware that his own mother was paying to keep him in a war zone.
“We have to get him back,” I panicked, standing up. “If she’s paying contractors, who knows what kind of danger she’s put him in!”
“Sit down, Lily,” Grandfather commanded gently. He picked up his gold-plated desk phone. “Julian is a Major in the United States Army. But I am Winston Sterling. I fund half the defense lobbyists in Washington. Beatrice played a dangerous game, but she is playing checkers. I play chess.”
I sat in stunned silence as Grandfather made three phone calls. The first was to a sitting U.S. Senator. The second was to a four-star general at the Pentagon. The third was to his private aviation company.
“A private jet is wheels-up for Germany,” Grandfather announced, hanging up the phone. “Julian’s unit is currently at Ramstein Air Base for debriefing. He will be on that plane by midnight. He will be home tomorrow.”
I burst into tears of sheer relief.
But as the adrenaline faded, a new, terrifying thought crept in. “What has Beatrice told him about me?”
Grandfather sighed heavily. “If she forged documents claiming you were unfit, she likely sent those same documents to him. She probably told him you abandoned the baby, or that you were institutionalized. We must be prepared, Lily. He has been fed a steady diet of poison.”
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“Then we give him the antidote,” I said, my voice hardening. I looked at the mountain of forged documents. “I want to press charges. Every single one. Wire fraud, forgery, child endangerment, conspiracy.”
“Oh, we will,” Grandfather smiled, a terrifying, predatory grin. “But first, we are going to let Beatrice build her own gallows. She thinks she has won. We are going to let her step onto the stage before we pull the trapdoor.”
