The sunlight outside was blinding. Iris put her sunglasses back on.
She walked to the McLaren. Her hands were shaking now. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a hollow ache in her chest.
"Iris!"
Hunter ran out the front door. He stumbled down the steps.
He reached the car just as she opened the door. He grabbed the door frame, his knuckles white.
"Iris, wait. Please."
He was crying. Actual tears.
"I didn't know," he sobbed. "I swear to God, I didn't know. I thought..."
"It doesn't change anything, Hunter," she said.
"It changes everything!" he yelled. "I owe you. I owe you everything. I'll... I'll sign over my shares. Just... don't leave like this."
He was trying to buy her again. It was the only language he spoke.
"I don't want your money," she said. "I have my own."
"Then what do you want?" he begged. "Tell me what to do. I'll dump Dorothea. I'll kick Kamala out. Just come back. We can start over."
She looked at him. She looked at the man she had loved since college. The man she had gone to prison for. The man she had bankrupted herself for.
And she felt... nothing.
The anger was gone. The hurt was gone. There was just a vast, empty space where her love used to be.
"I want you to let go of the door," she said.
"Iris, do you hate me that much?"
She took off her sunglasses. She looked him in the eye.
"I don't hate you, Hunter," she said softly.
Hope sparked in his eyes.
"Hate requires energy," she said. "Hate implies that I still care. But I don't. I don't feel anything for you. You're just... a stranger I used to know."
The hope died. It was replaced by devastation.
"The opposite of love isn't hate," she said. "It's indifference."
She got into the car. She pulled the door shut. He let go.
She started the engine. She didn't look at him in the rearview mirror as she drove away.
Her phone rang. It wasn't Sienna. It was a number she didn't recognize.
She answered it via the car's Bluetooth.
"This is Gutierrez," she said, her voice automatically shifting. Harder. Professional.
"Dr. Gutierrez?" A deep, male voice. "This is Dr. Huy Frazier from Mount Sinai."
Her breath hitched. Frazier was the head of Trauma. Her mentor.
"Dr. Frazier," she said. "It's been a while."
"Too long, Iris," he said. "I got the notification last month. The board reinstated you, no restrictions. That old case was finally expunged. I've been waiting to make this call."
"I might be back in play," she said, her grip tightening on the steering wheel.
"I have a case," he said. "Complex trauma. High profile. No one else has the hands for it. The patient is... difficult. The family is worse."
"Send me the file," she said.
"It's already sent. Can you be here soon?"
She looked at the road ahead. It was wide open.
"I'm leaving Greenwich now," she said. "Frazier, I'll be there in thirty."
There was a pause, then a low chuckle on the other end. "Thirty minutes from Greenwich? I'll clear the emergency bay for you myself."
She shifted gears. The engine roared. She turned the car toward the city, toward the hospital, toward the life she was supposed to live.
Iris the wife was dead.
Dr. Gutierrez was awake.
Back in the suffocating silence of the Greenwich estate, Gigi Rutledge threw an old, yellowed copy of the Times onto the coffee table. It fluttered open, landing at Hunter's feet. The photo showed a chaotic scene of smoke and rubble. In the center, a slight, female figure in scrubs was carrying a wounded soldier, her face obscured by soot and blood. But on her wrist, clear as day, was a simple, woven bracelet Hunter had bought her at a street fair.
"That is Iris," Gigi said, her voice a rasp. "Six years ago, before she ever met you. She was pulling people out of the fire while you were deciding which tie matched your socks."
Hunter stared at the photo. It didn't match the image of the wife who quietly asked if he wanted cream in his coffee. The silence in the room was the sound of a dynasty beginning to crack.
