Chapter 7 Seven
THANE
When the heavy wooden door clicked shut behind me, my jaw clenched.
The sound, despite being soft, echoed down the sterile, brightly lit hospital hallway like a gunshot.
I stood there staring at the blank face of the wood. My hand hovered inches from the brass handle.
No one shut a door in my face. No one in this city gave me orders. I owned the ground this building stood on. I owned the air pumping through the vents. Yet, I had just been dismissed. Thrown out of a room like a misbehaving child.
My jaw clenched again, this time so hard my teeth ground together. It was a massive, unforgiving insult.
But underneath the anger, a dark, heavy heat began to spread through my chest. It was intoxicating. I felt my pulse hammering against the thick veins in my neck. For the first time in five years, the heavy, dead weight in my blood lifted.
I felt awake. I felt challenged.
She did not flinch when she looked at me. There was no fear in her. There was only ice.
I inhaled slowly, pulling the air deep into my lungs. I could still smell her. It crawled down my throat and settled in my stomach in a way that made my heart pound against my ribs in a way that felt entirely out of my control.
How could this happen? How could a woman I met ten minutes ago set a fire in my veins? I ran a heavy hand over my face, the rough stubble on my jaw grounding me in reality. I felt a twisted, heavy guilt rise up to choke me.
How can a stranger make me feel like I am cheating on a ghost?
Then, the image of the children hit me. The boy. Leo.
I leaned my shoulder against the cool wall of the corridor. The little boy had glared at me in the same fashion too. He had no fear either. But it was his eyes that dug into my brain.
Piercing, icy blue. They were my eyes.
I had looked into the mirror for thirty years. I knew my own face. I had a crazy feeling that that boy carried my blood. That somehow I had something with Idalia.
The thought didn't just terrify me, it sent a violent mix of terror and pure possessive instinct slammed into my chest. He was mine. I did not know how, and I did not know why, but I felt it deep in my bones.
I waited out there until the door yanked open. The sudden rush of air brought me back to the present. My mother marched out of the room.
Her face was flushed, mottled with an ugly, dark red rage. She gripped her leather handbag so hard her knuckles were bone white.
"I want her gone," Kimberly hissed, her voice vibrating with venom. She paced in a tight circle in front of me, her expensive heels clicking frantically against the floor tiles. "Do you hear me, Thane? I want that vicious thing out of this hospital before the sun goes down."
I watched her. I did not move. I just watched the frantic, erratic way her chest heaved.
"She is an arrogant brat," my mother continued, her voice rising in pitch. She waved a trembling hand toward the closed door. "She stood there and looked down at me like I was a peasant. Like I was nothing! I will not allow some foreign upstart to speak to me that way. She refused to treat me! Me! She thinks she can dictate terms to our family. You need to crush her, Thane. Ruin her career."
I studied the sweat gathering on my mother's forehead. The sheer panic hiding right beneath her anger. I took a slow step forward, cutting off her pacing.
"Lia," I said.
I kept my voice low. It was a single, heavy word. A name I had not allowed myself to speak aloud in five long years. It tasted like ash and regret in my mouth.
My mother froze. Her entire body locked up as if I had driven a steel spike through her spine. The color completely drained from her face, leaving her looking old and hollow. She stopped breathing. I watched her eyes dart to the left, then back to me. The silence in the hallway stretched tight enough to snap.
Then, she forced a wet, unnatural scoff from her throat.
"Who?" she asked, her voice shaking badly. She tried to arrange her features into a mask of confusion, but the edges were crumbling. "I do not know that name. Why are you bringing that up? We are talking about this terrible doctor."
I stared down at her. The air between us was heavy. I knew every tell she possessed. The erratic pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat gave her away. The slight tremor in her hands gave her away.
She was lying.
My mother, a woman who feared no one and respected nothing, was absolutely terrified of the woman sitting behind that wooden door.
We did not go home. I marched my mother straight up to the executive floor. The Chief of Medicine’s office was vast, lined with books and framed degrees, but it felt cramped the moment I walked in.
The Chief, a senior man with silver hair and a weak spine, stood up immediately behind his desk, sweat already forming on his brow.
"Mr. Devereux. Mrs. Devereux," he stammered, gesturing to the leather chairs. "Please, sit."
"We will not sit," my mother snapped, leaning over his desk. "You are going to fire Dr. Solene. Right this minute. Tear up her contract and find me a surgeon who knows her place."
The Chief swallowed hard. He looked at me for help, but I gave him none. I stood by the door, my hands in my pockets, observing everything coldly and silently.
"Mrs. Devereux, I assure you, Dr. Solene's bedside manner is... unconventional," the Chief pleaded, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. "But you must understand. I cannot fire her. She is not a regular employee. We begged her to come here. She is an independent contractor with a flawless global record."
"I do not care!" my mother shouted. "My son funds this entire wing! He will cut your funding to zero!"