Chapter 7 - Alden’s Stand
Three weeks post-surgery, the physical reality of reconstruction set in with a grinding, unglamorous cruelty.
The external fixator frame was a relentless taskmaster. Every pin site required cleaning twice a day with sterile saline and chlorhexidine to prevent bone infections. The skin around the metal rods was permanently inflamed, tight and hypersensitive. Every time Fallon tried to transfer from her hospital bed to a wheelchair, the sudden shift in hydrostatic pressure sent a surge of hot, throbbing blood down into her foot that felt like boiling oil being poured through her veins.
Yet, through every single agonizing transfer, through every sweat-soaked physical therapy session in the hospital’s rehabilitation gym, Alden was there.
He had moved his operations desk to a small rented office space two blocks from the hospital, splitting his days between managing container logistics for the Puget Sound shipping lanes and sitting in the corner of her room with his laptop, reviewing technical schematics while she slept.
He never treated her with the sickening, patronizing pity her parents had weaponized. When she struggled to hoist herself onto the parallel bars, his hands were there—strong, steady, and impersonal—giving her only the exact percentage of assistance she needed to avoid falling, while forcing her to bear the rest of the load herself.
“Come on, Fallon,” he would say, his voice calm and unyielding. “Two more steps to the end of the mat. Your tibia is healed to forty percent load capacity. The telemetry says the bone graft is vascularized. Trust the steel.”
And Fallon, teeth clenched, sweat dripping from her jaw onto the rubber floor mats, would force her trembling left leg forward, swing the heavy carbon-fiber frame through the air, and plant her heel with a grunt of defiance.
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, the door to Fallon’s room was pushed open without a knock.
Eleanor walked in first, followed by Stellin.
They looked as though they had aged ten years in three weeks. Eleanor was wearing no makeup; her designer trench coat was wrinkled, and her eyes were bloodshot behind oversized tortoiseshell glasses. Stellin’s shoulders were slumped, his tie missing, his expensive leather briefcase scuffed at the corners.
Behind them stood Sutton.
Sutton was unrecognizable. Her famous honey-blonde hair was pulled back into a hasty, greasy ponytail. She wore an oversized gray hoodie, sweatpants, and sneakers with no socks. The manicured influencer glow had vanished, replaced by the hollow, haunted look of an animal that has realized the trap has closed around its leg.
Alden immediately stood up from his desk in the corner, closing his laptop.
“Out,” Alden said, his voice flat and dead.
“Alden, stay out of this!” Eleanor cried, her voice cracking with hysterical strain. She rushed to the foot of Fallon’s bed, her trembling hands clutching the metal footboard. “Fallon! You have to call them off! You have to stop this immediately!”
Fallon did not move. She remained seated upright in bed, a textbook on structural aeronautical mechanics open across her lap, her pen poised over a notebook.
“Stop what, Eleanor?” Fallon asked. Her tone was so quiet, so devoid of emotion, that it caused Stellin to stop two feet inside the room, an uneasy look flashing across his face.
“The FBI came to my office yesterday morning, Fallon!” Stellin said, his voice dropping into a frantic, pleading hush as he leaned forward. “They served three federal grand jury subpoenas on AeroRisk Horizons. They seized my personal servers! They froze the domestic family accounts! Do you know what that means?! I can’t make payroll! I can’t pay the mortgage on our house!”
“That isn't your house, Stellin,” Fallon said coolly. “The house in Bellevue was purchased with the proceeds from AeroRisk’s 2023 distribution—money that you channeled through an offshore trust using my forged signature as the primary grantor.”
Stellin’s face went dead white. “Fallon... we’re your parents. Everything I did, I did to build a family legacy! To ensure that Sutton had a business foundation, that we were all protected!”
“You stole four hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the equity in my home to pay for a destination wedding at a cliffside resort,” Fallon said, her gaze turning to Sutton. “And your daughter rewarded me by shoving me down thirty stone steps so she could get clicks on an internet application.”
“It was an accident!” Sutton screamed, stepping forward, her face contorting with rage and tears. “You know it was an accident! I was trying to adjust your dress! Why are you doing this to me?! Richard’s family filed for an annulment! The resort sent us a bill for sixty thousand dollars in property damages because of the canceled bookings! My management company dropped me! People are outside my apartment taking pictures of me throwing out the trash! I have nothing! Do you hear me?! I have nothing!”
Fallon looked at her younger sister. For years, she had felt a deep, instinctive need to protect Sutton—to shield her from the harsh realities of a world that didn't hand out gold stars for simply existing. But looking at Sutton now, she saw no remorse. She saw no grief for the sister whose leg was held together by external scaffolding.
She saw only the furious, wounded entitlement of a toddler whose toy had been taken away.
“You have exactly what you built, Sutton,” Fallon said softly. “You built a brand out of air, vanity, and cruelty. When you take away the air, there’s nothing left to stand on.”
“You jealous, crippled bitch!” Sutton lunged forward, her hands clawed, aiming directly for Fallon’s face.
Before Sutton could cover half the distance, Alden moved.
He didn't shove her. He stepped into her path with the immovable mass of a freight dock loader, catching Sutton by both wrists in an iron grip and executing a clean, controlled rotational pivot that sent her stumbling back into her father’s chest.
“Touch her,” Alden said, his voice dropping into a register so dark and lethal that even Eleanor took an involuntary step toward the door, “and I will personally ensure that the county prosecutor in California upgrades your reckless endangerment charge to felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In this state, an unprovoked attack on a post-surgical patient in an ICU is an automatic strike. Do you want to spend the next five years in a women’s correctional facility in Corona, Sutton? Because I will sign the complaint this afternoon.”
Sutton began to wail—a loud, ugly, theatrical sob, burying her face in Stellin’s chest.
“Fallon, please,” Eleanor begged, sinking down onto her knees beside the bed, tears finally streaming down her face, ruining what little composure she had left. “We have no money left. The lawyers are demanding a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer just to handle the grand jury inquiries. If you don't withdraw the complaint with the FAA and the bank, your father is going to prison. I will lose our home. We will be out on the street.”
Fallon closed her mechanical textbook. She set her pen down with deliberate care on the bedside table.
May you like
Then, she looked down at the woman who had given birth to her, who had watched her bleed on the travertine floor of a luxury hotel and complained about the dry-cleaning bill for Italian silk.
“You won't be on the street, Eleanor,” Fallon said, her voice dropping into a cadence that carried the finality of a steel vault door swinging shut. “The bus lines in Bellevue run every fifteen minutes. You’re tough. You’ll figure it out.”
