Chapter 2 - The Man Behind The Bloodstained Watch
The photograph was still on the table.
Nobody touched it.
Nobody breathed.
At least that was what it felt like.
The trauma room that had been filled with alarms, footsteps, and urgent commands had become completely silent.
The only sound was the patient’s heartbeat returning on the monitor.
Weak.
But alive.
I stared at the photograph.
My hands were still covered with blood.
Not just his.
Mine too.
A small cut from the emergency procedure had opened along my glove.
But I barely noticed.
Because the woman in that picture was me.
Three years younger.
Standing outside the courthouse on a rainy afternoon.
The same black coat.
The same hospital ID hanging around my neck.
The same exhausted expression I remembered having every day during the investigation.
But I had no memory of anyone taking that picture.
"Where did you get this?"
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
The man who had placed it on the table did not answer immediately.
He was the tallest of the four.
Early forties.
Cold eyes.
A scar across his left eyebrow.
He looked at me the way people looked at locked doors.
Like he was trying to figure out how to open them.
"His name is Adrian Vale," he finally said.
I looked toward the patient.
The wounded man.
The stranger who somehow knew my name.
"The man on that bed?"
The man nodded.
"Yes."
"Why does he know me?"
No answer.
That was when Dr. Whitfield stepped forward.
"Enough."
His voice returned.
The authority returned.
Like the last five minutes had never happened.
"This is a hospital, not a courtroom."
Nobody looked at him.
That bothered him more.
"You all need to remember who is in charge here."
I almost laughed.
Almost.
Because ten minutes earlier, he had been the only person everyone listened to.
Now everyone was looking at the nurse he had tried to remove.
The patient moved slightly.
His eyes opened again.
This time they were clearer.
Focused.
Dangerously aware.
He looked at me.
Not at the doctors.
Not at the men standing behind him.
Me.
"Quinn Parker."
The way he said my full name made my stomach tighten.
"You remember me."
It wasn't a question.
I stepped closer.
"No."
His expression changed.
Not anger.
Disappointment.
Like he had expected something different.
"You should."
"I've never met you."
The room became tense.
One of the men in suits looked toward him.
"Boss..."
Adrian lifted one hand.
Weakly.
But everyone stopped.
Even injured, even barely conscious, he controlled the room.
That was the first thing I understood about him.
The second was worse.
Everyone was afraid of disappointing him.
"You saved my brother," Adrian said.
My chest tightened.
The words hit harder than I expected.
Because suddenly I knew what this was about.
The courtroom.
The photograph.
The sentence written on the back.
She knows why my brother died.
Three years earlier.
I had been assigned to a case involving a young man named Luca Vale.
Twenty-seven years old.
Brought into St. Vincent after a nightclub shooting.
I remembered that night.
I remembered every detail.
The blood.
The panic.
The family members screaming outside the emergency room.
I remembered the doctors trying.
I remembered the moment we lost him.
But there was one thing I did not remember.
I did not remember anyone named Adrian Vale.
"I never treated your brother alone," I said.
Adrian watched me carefully.
"No."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"You didn't."
A pause.
"You were the only one who told the truth."
The room shifted.
I looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
Before he could answer, Dr. Whitfield interrupted.
"Patient needs imaging immediately."
I turned.
"Not until we finish stabilizing him."
Whitfield looked at me.
The old anger returned.
"You are not making decisions."
I looked around.
The residents were watching.
The nurses were watching.
The bodyguards were watching.
And for the first time in years, I didn't feel invisible.
"I made the decision that kept him alive."
His face hardened.
"You were lucky."
"No."
I pointed toward the monitor.
"I was correct."
The room went quiet again.
Whitfield stepped closer.
"You should be careful, Nurse Parker."
Something about the way he said it bothered me.
Not because it sounded threatening.
Because it sounded familiar.
Like I had heard those words before.
Three years ago.
During the investigation.
A doctor telling me to be careful.
A lawyer telling me to stop asking questions.
A supervisor telling me my concerns were creating problems.
I looked back at Adrian.
"What happened to your brother?"
Nobody answered.
Not even him.
That silence told me more than words could.
Finally, Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
"Luca didn't die because of his injuries."
My heartbeat changed.
"What?"
"He died because someone made sure nobody looked deeper."
The monitor continued beeping.
Slow.
Steady.
But my thoughts were racing.
I remembered Luca.
The official report.
The conclusion.
Complications.
Unavoidable.
A tragic outcome.
That was the phrase they used.
Unavoidable.
A word hospitals loved.
A word that turned mistakes into accidents.
A word that protected people.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
Adrian opened his eyes.
"Because someone tried to finish what they started tonight."
The room went colder.
I looked at the abdominal wound.
The car accident.
The piece of metal.
The timing.
"Your crash wasn't an accident?"
One of the bodyguards moved toward the door.
"No one leaves," he said.
Everyone looked at him.
Adrian did not correct him.
That frightened me more.
Dr. Whitfield immediately reached for his phone.
"I am calling security."
The bodyguard looked at him.
"You should."
There was no emotion in his voice.
But Whitfield stopped.
I hated that.
I hated that a hospital room had suddenly become something else.
A place where power mattered more than rules.
I removed my gloves.
"Someone needs to explain what is happening."
Adrian looked at me.
"You were fired three years ago."
The sentence froze me.
Nobody knew that.
Not like that.
My official record said I resigned.
A mutual decision.
Professional disagreement.
A clean ending.
But it wasn't clean.
Three years earlier, after Luca Vale's death, I had questioned the medical report.
I had found inconsistencies.
Medication records that didn't match.
Missing timestamps.
A delayed response from the operating room.
I reported it.
Then everything changed.
My supervisor told me I had misunderstood.
The hospital board told me there was no evidence.
And six months later, my contract was not renewed.
Everyone called it a coincidence.
I never believed that.
"You know about that?"
Adrian nodded.
"I know everything."
The words should have scared me.
Instead, they made me angry.
"Then tell me the truth."
He looked at me for several seconds.
Then he said something I never expected.
"My brother didn't die because the doctors failed."
A pause.
"He died because someone inside this hospital wanted him dead."
The room went silent.
My eyes moved toward Whitfield.
He was standing perfectly still.
Too still.
And then I noticed something.
Something small.
Something everyone else missed.
The expression on his face.
Not confusion.
Not disbelief.
Fear.
A nurse rushed into the trauma room.
Her face was pale.
"Dr. Whitfield."
Everyone turned.
She held a tablet in her hands.
"We found something in the system."
Whitfield's expression changed.
"What?"
The nurse swallowed.
"The emergency timestamp from three years ago."
My breathing stopped.
Adrian looked at me.
The nurse continued.
"The file was accessed tonight."
Nobody spoke.
"By someone using your credentials."
The tablet screen faced us.
A name appeared.
May you like
And it wasn't mine.
It was Dr. Landon Whitfield.
