Chapter 4 - THE LOCKET
“Move!” Simon barked, shoving the heavy metal door completely shut and throwing the deadbolt. “We have ninety seconds before they cut through that.”
Panic, cold and sharp, flooded Olivia’s chest.
Evan didn’t freeze. He slammed the steel briefcase shut, grabbed it, and sprinted toward the back room. “Leo! Get your coat, buddy! We’re going on a trip!”
Olivia spun her chair around. “Evan, they’ll take the prototype. They’ll take my father’s secret.”
“They’re not taking my son,” Evan yelled back, scooping the boy up with one arm. Leo clung to his father’s neck, his eyes wide but remarkably calm, as if they had practiced this.
“Out the back,” Evan said, pointing to a rusted loading dock door. “Simon, the release lever is on the wall.”
Simon holstered his weapon, sprinted to the wall, and yanked a heavy red lever. The loading dock door groaned, rolling upward to reveal an alleyway obscured by thick, falling snow. Sitting in the alley was a heavily modified, matte-black Dodge transit van with a mechanical lift.
“Go, go, go!” Evan shouted.
Olivia propelled her chair forward, her arms burning with exertion. She hit the ramp of the van perfectly, rolling into the dark interior. Evan threw the briefcase in next to her and strapped Leo into a seat. Simon jumped into the driver’s seat.
As the van's engine roared to life, the warehouse’s front door exploded inward with a deafening crash. Three men in tactical gear poured in, flashlights piercing the gloom.
Simon slammed the van in reverse, tires screaming against the snowy asphalt, before spinning the wheel and tearing down the narrow alleyway.
For ten minutes, the only sounds in the van were the roaring engine, the rattling chassis, and the ragged sound of Olivia’s own breathing. She gripped her wheels, her knuckles white.
She looked over at Leo. The boy was holding a small, worn plush bear, his knuckles white too.
“Are you okay, Leo?” she asked, her voice shaking.
The boy nodded slowly. “Daddy says bad men want to take his science project.”
Olivia looked up at Evan, who was staring out the back window, watching for headlights.
“My father sent a strike team,” Olivia said, the reality of it finally breaking through her shock. “He’s tracking my phone.”
She immediately dug into her purse, pulled out her sleek smartphone, and threw it hard against the metal wall of the van. It shattered.
“It’s not just the phone,” Simon called out from the driver’s seat, taking a sharp corner that sent them swaying. “Hartwell security tracks the GPS module in your chair’s battery casing. We need to ditch it.”
“I can’t walk, Simon!” Olivia cried out, frustration and helplessness boiling over.
“I know a place,” Evan said, unbuckling his seatbelt. He crawled toward her in the swaying van. “A clinic in South Boston. The doctor owes me. We can get you a manual loaner chair and rip the GPS out of yours. But Olivia…”
He hesitated, looking at her legs.
“What?” she snapped.
“If we go to this clinic, we can take an X-ray. I can prove to you that the rods are fracturing. But you have to trust me.”
Olivia closed her eyes. The burning in her leg was pulsing now, a steady, agonizing rhythm. Her whole life had been managed, controlled, and curated by her father. Every doctor, every scan, every therapist had been on his payroll.
“Do it,” she said.
Thirty minutes later, Simon parked the van in the underground garage of a dilapidated medical center.
Dr. Aris was an older, weary-looking man who clearly didn't want to be involved, but a sharp look from Evan kept him quiet. He helped transfer Olivia to an examination table and positioned the portable X-ray machine over her lower back.
“Hold still,” Dr. Aris muttered.
The machine clicked. A moment later, the image appeared on the glowing monitor on the wall.
Olivia stared at it.
Her spine looked like a fragile, segmented fossil, bound together by two thick white lines of titanium. But as Evan zoomed in on the lower lumbar region, the truth became undeniable.
Along the right rod, right where the burning sensation originated, was a jagged, dark line. A fracture.
“It’s breaking,” Olivia whispered, a tear finally escaping and tracing down her cheek. “My father knew. He let me suffer to protect his stock.”
“He did,” a voice said from the doorway.
Olivia gasped. Simon spun around, hand on his gun.
Standing in the doorway of the clinic was not a tactical team. It was an older woman with sharp features, dressed in an immaculate wool coat.
“Aunt Eleanor?” Olivia breathed.
Eleanor Hartwell, Richard’s sister and the Chief Financial Officer of Hartwell Development, stepped into the room. She looked at Simon’s gun without flinching, then looked at Olivia.
“Put the gun away, Mr. Simon,” Eleanor said tiredly. “I’m not here to hurt her. I came because I saw the GPS alert on the private server. I knew Richard would send his hounds.”
“You’re in on this?” Olivia asked, her voice cracking with betrayal.
“I’m trying to stop it,” Eleanor said. She walked slowly to the examination table and looked at the X-ray on the screen. Her face softened with deep, ancient grief.
“Your father is a desperate man, Olivia,” Eleanor said. “But you have the story wrong. He isn't protecting his company from a scandal.”
“Then what is he protecting?” Evan demanded, stepping forward.
Eleanor reached into her coat pocket. She pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver locket. It was beautifully engraved with a rose.
Olivia recognized it instantly. It had belonged to her mother.
“He’s protecting her memory,” Eleanor said gently, placing the locket in Olivia’s trembling hands. “And he’s protecting you from the truth of what she did.”
Olivia looked down at the locket. It felt freezing against her skin.
“What did my mother do?” Olivia asked.
Eleanor met her eyes, her own filled with tears.
“Your mother didn’t just discover the defective titanium, Liv. She’s the one who authorized its purchase. She took a massive bribe from the supplier to approve it, knowing it was flawed. When she tried to back out, they cut the brake lines on her car.”
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Eleanor took a ragged breath.
“Your father didn’t bury this to save his legacy. He buried it because if the truth comes out, the world will know your mother was a criminal. And he’d rather you hate him than hate her.”
