Manchester, the Jordan family home.
Valentine's Day. Cheerful decorations draped across the usually quiet house, lending a rare warmth to the place. Then a scream shattered the twilight.
"Ahhh—"
A sickening thud. A heavily pregnant woman tumbled down the staircase!
Gasps filled the air as everyone rushed over.
Michael Jordan, the family patriarch, holding the highest status in the Jordan family home, dropped to his knees beside her, voice tight with panic. "Hannah, are you okay?"
Blood pooled beneath her legs. Her face was a mask of terror as she sobbed, "Michael, it hurts so much... our baby... please, save our baby!"
Mrs. Jordan, mother of Michael Jordan, was beside herself, wailing over and over, "What happened?!"
Tears streaming, Hannah lifted her gaze to the top of the stairs.
Everyone followed her look. There, clutching a worn teddy bear, stood a tiny girl—maybe three and a half years old.
Mr. Jordan, father of Michael Jordan, shouted furiously, "Did you push Hannah?"
The little girl bit her lip. "It wasn't me, I didn't do it..."
Hannah, still crying, tried to sound gentle. "No... Father, it wasn't Avani's fault. She's just a baby, she doesn't understand. She didn't mean to…"
Her words only seemed to hammer the blame onto little Avani.
Michael Jordan's eyes narrowed into slits. He didn't ask another question. "Someone lock her in the attic. I'll deal with her when I get back!"
As the chaos scrambled to get Hannah to the hospital, little Avani was dragged upstairs, one tiny shoe slipping off along the way. Defiance burned in her face. She didn't beg. She didn't cry.
The attic was dark and cramped—no light, no heat. Cold enough that shadows seemed like monsters waiting to pounce.
Avani hugged her teddy bear tight and curled up in a corner. It was so cold...
She hadn't pushed anyone. So why did nobody believe her?
The old saying about the late winter chill biting down to the bone proved true as the wind howled outside, slipping through the window cracks and piling layer after layer of icy air onto little Avani.
A day and a night slipped by.
No one checked on her. No one knew she hadn't eaten since the day before, when Hannah had punished her. Now she drifted in and out of a daze.
Mr. Jordan had declared she wouldn't leave this room until she admitted what she'd done!
"Mama..."
Little Avani's lips had turned blue from the cold. She shivered, murmuring with her eyes squeezed shut, "Mama... Avani did nothing wrong. Avani won't say sorry..."
She knew her mother had died a year ago.
After Mama passed, her father found someone new. And fast—that someone was already carrying a baby...
The woman had two faces. Sweet as pie when people were watching, a demon the second they were alone.
"Mama..." Little Avani clung to her stuffed bear's ear, then slipped into darkness.
She didn't know how long had passed when the door burst open.
Michael stood there, face twisted with rage. He grabbed the unconscious girl, dragged her down the stairs, and threw her into the snow-covered yard!
The freezing shock yanked Avani back to consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open with raw effort...
"Daddy... I'm hungry..." she breathed, purely on instinct.
Michael sneered. "You killed Hannah's baby, and you've got the nerve to say you're hungry? How did I end up with such a wicked daughter!"
Avani's eyes went blank. She couldn't speak.
Her blank expression only stoked his fury. Who was she putting on a show for?
So young, and already so vile.
"A father's got to discipline his child! If you can hurt your own sibling now, what won't you do when you're grown? If I don't teach you a lesson today, I might as well stop calling myself your father!"
He snatched a broom from the corner, snapped off the head, and raised the handle.
The pole—thick as two fingers—came down with a sickening smack on little Avani's body. She screamed.
"Do you admit you did wrong?!" Michael's eyes blazed.
"It wasn't me, really... it wasn't me!" Avani bit her lip, defiance etched deep into her face.
Michael's fury swelled. "If it wasn't you, did she just throw herself down the stairs? She was six months pregnant—what possible good would a fall do her?"
He thought of Hannah in the hospital, hemorrhaging, doctors issuing two critical notices. And still she'd pleaded with them not to blame Avani—'she's a child without a mother, she's just scared of losing love when the new baby comes.'
The more he thought, the hotter his anger burned. The stick rose and fell with every word. "You're still lying! Still lying!"
Each word landed with another brutal strike.
He beat her so viciously he didn't even notice his phone slip from his pocket until Avani lay motionless in the snow. Only then did he stop.
"You'll kneel right here until Hannah is out of the hospital!"
He yanked off his tie, tossed the stick aside, and stormed off.
He'd been under mountains of pressure. A massive issue at the company had him begging for help for half a month with nothing to show for it.
Now Hannah had fallen, lost their six-month-old baby—the Jordans' hoped-for heir. Everything was crashing down at once.
No wonder his rage exploded—he took it all out on little Avani.
Avani's teddy bear had been destroyed in the beating. She tried to push herself up, but collapsed back into the snow with a thud...
She thought maybe she'd just die out here.
If she died, maybe she'd see her mama again?
At that moment, a hazy voice echoed in Avani's ear:
[Little Avani, call your uncle!]
[Your uncle's name is Koen Ward, and the number is (202) 418-7359...]
"Call..." Avani forced her eyes open to glimpse a black cell phone lying in the snow. Survival instinct kicked in. She crawled toward it with everything she had left.
"202..."
Her hands trembled, stiff and clumsy. It felt like an eternity just to press those numbers...
**
Meanwhile.
Washington D.C., a historic mansion.
Mr. Ward's voice carried hard authority:
"Another year's gone by. Koen, did you finally make chief physician this year?"
The Ward brothers kept their faces controlled, though Koen rubbed the back of his neck, awkward.
Abruptly, Mr. Ward changed gears, voice sharp as a blade:
"And your sister? It's been four years, and you still haven't found her?"
The brothers' expressions shifted in an instant. Each of them pressed their lips into a tight line. The earlier indifference shattered, replaced by a heavy sadness.
Their sister, Fiona Ward, had been diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia as a child. Blood transfusions, infection control, bone marrow transplants...
The Ward family had fought for her, cared for her, for twenty years. But the disease only worsened, gnawing away at her memory until pieces of her mind simply... vanished.
Four years ago, she disappeared without a trace.
Koen Ward—top physician at the Cancer Hospital—had been in charge of her treatment.
The day she vanished, he'd been pulled away for one critical patient. Just that once... and she was gone.
For four years, guilt and regret had eaten him alive. His once unstoppable medical genius had stalled, rusted.
The Ward family's only daughter. Her disappearance left the matriarch bedridden, and Mr. Ward seething with a bitterness that never cooled.
Every member of the family carried that stone in their chest.
Koen, the eldest, head of the Ward Business Empire, worked himself past exhaustion, his health crumbling, kept upright by pills.
The second son, Griffin Ward, an ace pilot with S-Airways, failed his psych evaluation. He'd been on leave for four years now, trying to piece himself back together.
The third son...
The study fell into a suffocating silence.
Then Cristian's phone rang, slicing through the quiet like a blade.
