Chapter 1 - THE WRONG NUMBER AT 2:07 A.M.
“I’m not Marcus… but if you’re really scared, I’ll come.”
Daniel Hayes never imagined he would say those words at 2:07 in the morning, sitting on the faded sofa of his small apartment in South Boston, still wearing his work boots, his hands stained with grease.
The phone had chimed when the whole city seemed dead asleep.
Daniel was an industrial electrician and a single father to ten-year-old Lily. His wife, Sarah, had died of cancer four years earlier. Ever since, he had conditioned himself to wake up at any sudden sound—a cough, a creaking floorboard, a late-night call.
Tonight, though, Lily was sleeping over at a classmate’s house.
And the voice on the other end didn't belong to anyone he knew.
“Marcus… please. I’m at Massachusetts General. Room 608. I don’t want to be alone.”
Daniel frowned.
“I think you have the wrong number.”
Silence stretched across the line.
Then he heard a ragged, broken sob.
“Marcus?”
“No. My name is Daniel.”
The woman began to apologize in a rush, but her breathing was so shallow and frantic that Daniel felt a sharp knot twist in his chest.
He recognized that fear.
It was the exact same terror he had felt sitting beside Sarah during her final nights in a sterile room just like that.
“Listen to me,” he said gently. “I’m not Marcus, but I can come. Just hold on.”
Twenty minutes later, he was driving down Storrow Drive, wondering if he’d lost his mind.
When the automatic hospital doors slid open and the smell of antiseptic hit him, he almost turned back. He hadn't set foot in a hospital since his wife passed away.
Then he remembered the woman’s words.
I don’t want to be alone.
He took the elevator to the sixth floor.
The woman in Room 608 looked to be about thirty-two. She was pale, hooked up to multiple IV lines, with a soft scarf covering most of her hair.
“You’re not Marcus.”
“Told you I wasn't.”
She offered a weak, dry laugh.
“Then I am officially the most pathetic woman in Boston. I’m Renee Sterling.”
Daniel went still.
Sterling.
Sterling Global Technologies.
One of the largest satellite communications and aerospace technology firms in the country. Renee was the only daughter of the late tech mogul Arthur Sterling.
“Marcus was my boyfriend,” she murmured, staring at the ceiling. “We broke up a month ago. He left two weeks after my diagnosis.”
Daniel didn't know what to say.
A short while later, Dr. Elena Vance stepped into the room and asked to speak with Daniel outside in the hallway.
Renee suffered from severe aplastic anemia. Her bone marrow had virtually stopped producing blood cells. The current treatment cycle was failing. She needed a stem cell transplant—and tonight, a sudden spike in fever from an opportunistic infection was threatening to overwhelm her system.
“She specifically asked for you to stay,” the doctor said quietly.
Daniel went back inside.
“Why are you here?” Renee asked, watching him sit down in the visitor’s chair.
“Because once upon a time, I was the guy sitting alone in a hospital room.”
He didn't elaborate.
They talked for hours.
Daniel told her about Lily, her obsession with drawing power lines, and her endless quest to fix broken household appliances. Renee talked about her father, the 3,800 employees who depended on the company, and a board of directors that was using her illness as leverage to strip her of executive authority.
“Everyone disappears when you get sick,” she whispered. “Friends, partners… even family starts treating you like you’re already a memory.”
Daniel stayed right beside her until sunrise.
Renee made it through the night.
Before he left, she asked for his phone number. Daniel assumed that was the end of the strange, surreal encounter.
Three days later, a black Lincoln Navigator pulled up in front of his small electrical repair shop.
A suited driver stepped out and handed him a heavy cream envelope.
Inside was a written invitation.
Renee wanted to see him urgently at her estate in Beacon Hill.
The following afternoon, seated across from her in a sunlit drawing room overlooking the Public Garden, Daniel listened to a proposal so absurd he thought he had misheard her.
“I want to hire you for six months,” Renee said evenly. “To pretend to be my partner.”
Daniel let out a sharp laugh.
Renee didn't smile.
“I’ll pay you twelve million dollars.”
Daniel stopped laughing.
“Twelve million?”
“Yes.”
“To pretend we’re dating?”
“To make certain people believe I am no longer isolated.”
Daniel leaned back.
“You don't need a boyfriend. You need a lawyer.”
“I have eleven.”
“Then get a twelfth.”
Her mouth twitched.
“I need something lawyers can't provide.”
“What?”
“Someone nobody on my board owns.”
That sentence changed the room.
Renee explained that Sterling Global's board was preparing to invoke a rarely used incapacity provision. If enough directors declared her medically unable to perform her duties, operational control would transfer temporarily to Executive Chairman Victor Sterling.
Her uncle.
Arthur Sterling’s younger brother.
Victor had spent years waiting for Renee to make a mistake.
Now her illness had given him something better.
A deadline.
“You think having a boyfriend stops that?”
“No.”
“Then why me?”
“Because my father’s trust contains a personal continuity clause.”
Daniel frowned.
Renee explained that Arthur had distrusted Sterling Global’s board almost as much as he trusted his daughter. Under certain emergency conditions, Renee could designate an independent household representative to sit on the family trust’s oversight committee.
“It doesn't give you control of the company,” she said. “But it gives you access to documents Victor doesn't want an outsider seeing.”
“So this isn't really about pretending to date.”
“No.”
“What is it really about?”
Renee became quiet.
“I think somebody is trying to make sure I never recover.”
Daniel stared at her.
“That’s a very different conversation.”
“I know.”
“Have you told police?”
“I have suspicions, not evidence.”
“Your doctors?”
“Some.”
“Which suspicions?”
Renee reached toward a folder.
Then stopped.
“You haven't agreed.”
“And I’m not going to.”
Something like disappointment crossed her face.
Daniel stood.
“Renee, you called me because you were terrified. I came because nobody should die alone. That doesn't mean you get to turn me into a twelve-million-dollar chess piece.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He headed toward the door.
“Daniel.”
He stopped.
“I wasn't calling Marcus that night.”
Daniel slowly turned.
Renee's face had gone pale.
“What?”
Her fingers tightened around the folder.
“I knew Marcus’s number.”
Daniel said nothing.
“I dialed yours deliberately.”
Every instinct in him sharpened.
“How did you know my number?”
Renee looked directly at him.
“Because three weeks before I got sick, my father’s former attorney gave me a sealed file.”
She opened the folder.
Inside was a photograph.
Daniel recognized himself immediately.
But he wasn't alone.
Sarah stood beside him.
His dead wife.
The photograph was nearly twelve years old.
On the back, someone had written:
SARAH HAYES KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO ARTHUR STERLING.
Daniel felt the blood leave his face.
Renee whispered:
May you like
“Your wife knew my father.”
And suddenly twelve million dollars was the least important thing in the room.
