Chapter 17 - THE HOSTAGE BROADCAST
Victor’s transport vehicle was found beneath an overpass.
Two officers were injured but alive.
Vanessa’s restraints had been cut from the inside.
She had helped plan the escape.
They disappeared for six hours.
Then every screen inside Vale Health facilities turned black.
Victor appeared on the hospital network’s internal broadcast.
He sat inside an unknown office.
Vanessa stood behind him.
“The Vale family has spent decades pretending to own medicine,” he said.
“Tonight, patients will learn how fragile that ownership is.”
He claimed to have breached the network’s digital systems.
Ventilators.
Medication records.
Scheduling platforms.
Insurance approvals.
He threatened to shut down critical services unless the board transferred control of Vale Health to the Catherine Vale Medical Trust.
My mother’s trust.
The name made the demand look legitimate.
Victor wanted the world to believe he was completing her mission.
The hospitals shifted to emergency offline protocols.
Paper charts replaced digital records.
Backup generators isolated equipment.
My new patient-safety council had rehearsed cyberattack procedures only the previous week.
The system did not collapse.
Victor’s confidence weakened.
He changed the demand.
He wanted me.
One live broadcast.
One signature.
I agreed to speak but not to sign.
The federal cyber team traced fragments of his signal.
He was inside one of our facilities.
Possibly Beacon Crest.
The broadcast resumed.
Vanessa moved closer to the camera.
Her hair was uncombed.
The polished mistress from the NICU had disappeared.
“Emma, you think Grant betrayed you because he loved me.”
“He did not.”
“He loved himself.”
“I used that.”
“You used my children.”
Her expression shifted.
“I never touched Noah.”
“You helped people reach him.”
“I was supposed to destroy your family.”
“Instead, Grant destroyed mine.”
I almost pitied her.
Then I remembered the coat.
The smile.
The pharmacy badge.
“You chose every step.”
Victor struck the desk.
“Enough.”
He held up a trigger device.
Behind him, a glass wall revealed rows of oxygen tanks.
He was inside the central oxygen control room beneath Beacon Crest.
An explosion there could cripple the hospital.
More than eight hundred patients were inside.
Federal agents evacuated nearby floors.
Moving the NICU infants would be dangerous.
Noah had just undergone surgery.
Elise remained dependent on breathing support.
Victor knew that.
He had chosen the one location that turned my children into hostages again.
He demanded I come alone.
Theodore refused.
I looked at the monitors beside my twins.
“I am not asking permission.”
Lily caught my arm.
“You are their mother.”
“That is why I am going.”
My grandfather placed his cane across the doorway.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You taught me that people reveal themselves when they think you have nothing.”
“Victor thinks I have everything to lose.”
May you like
“He is right.”
“But he does not understand that fear can move in both directions.”
