"We're shouldering enormous risk, all to clean up the mess these two made. So, Dean Edwards, I can handle the fallout.
"But Chad Armstrong isn't the only one who needs to face consequences."
I pressed both hands flat against the desk. "If you don't deal with Nellie Sullivan properly, this will happen again.
"And next time, I'm not sure I'll be able to save this hospital."
The dean's expression turned grave.
Nellie was her protégée, someone who'd been at her side since medical school.
But when the hospital's core interests were at stake, even a protégée had to be dealt with.
Especially now, when she still needed me to save Ms. Henson's brother, Gregory.
"That ungrateful wretch! She thinks my patronage gives her license to do whatever she wants!"
She slammed the agreement down on the desk.
"You have my word. Not only will I block the research fellowship she's about to apply for, I'll kill her promotion report too.
"After this, she'll be stuck doing grunt work on the ground floor. She'll never get near a core position in this hospital again."
I let the corner of my mouth curl upward.
And signed.
This meant that Nellie's meteoric rise from her previous life, the trajectory from research fellow all the way to academician, was now severed.
Permanently.
From morning to night.
Gregory's vitals gradually returned to normal levels.
My scrubs were drenched with sweat. The moment I stepped out of the operating room, my legs buckled and I collapsed to the floor.
It took an entire bottle of glucose solution, forced on me by a colleague, before I slowly regained full consciousness.
The colleagues who'd been in the operating room with Chad earlier grabbed my hands, tears streaming down their faces.
"Thank you, Dr. Delgado. Without you, we wouldn't know how we'd ever move forward from this..."
"Seriously. Edna Henson is a maniac. If her brother had died on our table, our families wouldn't have been safe either..."
I reassured them, one by one.
Finally, I could go home and get some real rest.
The moment I stepped into the underground parking garage, footsteps echoed behind me. I whipped around.
No one.
I muttered under my breath, turned back, and kept walking.
Then everything went black.
Some kind of gas flooded through my nostrils and into my lungs. My consciousness dissolved completely.
When my eyes opened again, my right hand was chained to a table. In the dim light, I could barely make out the silhouette of the figure standing before me.
"Nellie!"
The hand gripping mine went rigid.
I was strapped to a chair. I thrashed wildly against the restraints.
"Nellie! It's you! I know it's you!
"Whatever you're planning, we can talk about this! Please... let me go. I saved Chad's life!"
The figure in front of me paused.
When she spoke again, all that came out was a sigh.
"No. You may have spared him from Edna Henson's punishment.
"But you still left him looking incompetent and dishonorable.
"I'm sorry. If you truly want to help him, you'll have to lose a hand.
"That way, no one will think you performed the surgery. They'll believe the one who pulled off that miracle was Chad.
"I'll handle the colleagues. I'll delete your surgical records too. Thomas, just this once... do this for him."
My eyes went wide. "Nellie!"
The cleaver rose high above me. I fought against the chains with everything I had.
"I'm a surgeon! If you take my hand, how am I supposed to live?!"
The blade stopped mid-swing.
The dim yellow light caught a flicker of hesitation in her eyes.
"I'll take care of you for the rest of your life, Thomas."
"Wait!"
I screamed. "If you cut off my hand, your career is over too!"
She shook her head slowly.
"Thomas, Dean Edwards is my mentor. She won't let things spiral that far.
"Don't worry. I have the connections to stay in medicine. I'll protect you for the rest of your life."
