Chapter 3 - Behind Closed Doors at St. Vincent
"Boss, do you want us to clear the floor?" my head of security, Marcus, murmured quietly over my shoulder, his hand instinctively hovering near his concealed holster.
I raised my left hand without turning my head, keeping my eyes locked on the fragile woman sitting across from me.
"Not a single person moves unless I give the order," I replied, my voice dropping back into the cold, authoritative register that made grown men tremble.
I stepped closer to Sophie, kneeling down on the polished linoleum floor until my eyes were level with hers.
"Get up," I demanded softly, my fingers reaching out before I could stop myself to gently touch the edge of her blanket. "You shouldn't be sitting out here in a drafty hallway like this. Where is your private room?"
Sophie let out a faint, dry laugh that sounded like autumn leaves scraping against pavement.
"Private rooms are for people who matter, Ethan," she whispered, her eyes drifting away toward the flickering neon lights outside the window. "And besides... my insurance ran out three weeks ago."
Those words hit me with the force of a high-caliber round to the chest.
Insurance?
My wife—a woman who had shared a name that could buy out half the commercial real estate in Illinois—was rationing her hospital stay because of insurance?
"Don't talk nonsense," I growled, my jaw tightening until the muscles ached. "You are coming with me right now."
"I'm not your wife anymore, Ethan," she reminded me, turning her gaze back to meet mine with a quiet, devastating firmness. "You made sure of that when you signed those papers without a second thought."
Before I could answer, a harried-looking doctor in a white lab coat hurried down the hallway carrying a heavy manila folder.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw my security detail blocking either end of the corridor, his eyes widening in sheer terror as he recognized my face.
"Mr... Mr. Moretti," the doctor stammered, pulling off his stethoscope with trembling fingers. "I... I didn't know you were visiting someone on this ward."
I stood up slowly, towering over the physician, my presence instantly radiating the suffocating pressure of a mob boss backed into a corner.
"Explain to me right now why my wife—why Miss Sophie Moretti is sitting alone in a public hallway wearing a patient gown," I said, each word spaced out like a death sentence.
The doctor swallowed hard, glancing nervously between me and Sophie, who shook her head slightly in silent warning.
"Mr. Moretti, your ex-wife was admitted through the emergency ward six days ago suffering from severe internal hemorrhaging and acute renal failure," the doctor blurted out, unable to withstand the dark fury in my eyes. "She underwent emergency surgery to remove a ruptured ectopic mass left untreated from her previous complications, coupled with severe systemic exhaustion."
The world around me seemed to tilt on its axis.
Ectopic mass?
Internal hemorrhaging?
May you like
While I was sitting in mahogany boardrooms closing multi-million-dollar logistics deals, my wife was slowly dying alone in her apartment.
"Get her into the finest VIP suite on the top floor within sixty seconds," I ordered, my voice dropping to a terrifying, lethal whisper. "And if she doesn't have the absolute best surgical and postoperative team in the state of Illinois attending to her by the time I walk through those doors... consider your medical license the least of your concerns."
