Chapter 3

On the top-floor VIP isolation wing of St. Luke's First General Hospital, the sharp smell of rubbing alcohol mixed with the suffocating tension rolling off Ellwood Bond.

His personal assistant, Richard Sullivan, hurried past two rows of armed guards, holding a black classified folder sealed with wax in both hands.

Ellwood didn't wait for Richard to bow. He snatched the folder and ripped the security seal open with vein-roped fingers. His gaze dropped straight to the final conclusion line at the bottom of the page.

The rush sequencing from the American Genetic Bio-Lab read: Sample A (Ellwood Bond) and Sample B (Patient Clemmy) confirmed as direct lineal second-generation blood relatives. Match probability: 99.99%.

With his eldest son Bede missing overseas for twenty years and his second son Harvy lying brain-dead in a coma, this piece of paper hit the old man's chest like a bolt of lightning.

"God hasn't abandoned the Bond family! Harvy's bloodline isn't broken!"

Ellwood slammed the tip of his gold cane against the floor tiles, sending a sharp echo down the hallway. He spun around, his eyes blazing.

"Put this entire top floor under martial lockdown! Bring in our private security contractors. Anyone who steps foot in here without my written order is to be shot on sight!"

He jabbed a finger at Richard. "Get Aries on his private line right now! Tell him to drag himself out of whatever woman's bed he's in and get over here!"

At that exact moment, inside a private dining room at a three-Michelin-star French restaurant on Fifth Avenue, Ellwood's youngest son, Aries Bond, was lazily swirling champagne in a crystal flute.

Across the table sat Cher Mitchell, an influencer who played the pure society darling online. Dressed in a white lace dress, she leaned forward with a sweet smile.

"Aries, did you really talk to that Hollywood director about giving me the lead role?"

Aries offered a careless smirk, his fingers brushing the black obsidian stud in his left ear. "Long as it makes you happy, dropping twenty million bucks is nothing."

Suddenly, the encrypted satellite phone on the tablecloth buzzed. The red caller ID flashed: The Old Man.

Aries swiped the screen and held it to his ear. A roar loud enough to burst his eardrum blasted through the speaker.

"You useless brat! Get your ass to the top-floor ICU at St. Luke's Hospital in ten minutes! If you're one second late, I'll freeze every trust fund under your name and strike you from the family register!"

Click. The line went dead.

The lazy smile vanished from Aries's face. Since his second brother Harvy's fatal car crash, his father hadn't used that tone once.

"Sorry, top-level family emergency. Eat by yourself."

Aries grabbed his trench coat, stood up, and tossed a limitless black Centurion card onto the table without looking at Cher.

Cher's gentle expression cracked. She lunged across the table and grabbed his sleeve. "Aries! How could you do this to me and leave me here all alone..."

Aries yanked his arm free, his green eyes turning ice-cold. "Know your place. I don't have time to play house with you right now."

Ignoring her gasp, Aries strode out of the restaurant, jumped into his red Ferrari in the pouring rain, and floored the gas pedal all the way to the metal.

Twenty minutes later, Aries sprinted out of the hospital elevator and froze at the sight of twenty armed Blackwater mercenaries lining the corridor. Pale-faced, he ran to the end of the hall where his father stood.

"Dad! What happened? Did something go wrong with Harvy's life support?"

Without a word, Ellwood shoved the crumpled DNA report straight into his youngest son's chest.

Aries looked down at the "99.99% relationship match" and the attached photo of a baby girl who looked just like Harvy. His voice cracked. "Harvy... has a daughter out there? And she's two and a half?"

Ellwood pointed a shaking finger at the surgical tray holding the bloody nine-dragon jade. "Your brother wore that jade against his skin for twenty years. You tell me if it's real!"

Right then, the heavy lead doors of the operating room hissed open. The chief surgeon stumbled out soaked in sweat, pulled down his mask, and looked at them with dead eyes.

"Mr. Bond... the child's heart has stopped completely. We are calling the time of death."

Aries felt the blood rush to his head with a deafening roar. He lunged forward, grabbed the chief surgeon by the collar, and slammed the renowned doctor straight against the tile wall.

"You let my niece die? I'll tear this hospital to the ground! Get back in there and bring her back! If she doesn't wake up, your whole family is getting buried with her!"