Chapter 4
I didn't touch the report.
For six months, no one in this hospital had dared to mention Emma Lawson's name in front of me.
Now it lay on the conference table like a loaded weapon.
I looked at Ethan.
"Who authorized this?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
Dr. Lang cleared his throat before the conversation could spiral further.
"The Emma Lawson case has attracted renewed attention."
"Renewed by whom?"
Silence.
No one answered.
The hospital's legal counsel lowered his eyes. The HR director busied herself rearranging the papers in front of her. Even the department chiefs, people who had watched me perform impossible surgeries for years, suddenly found the tabletop fascinating.
That silence told me everything.
This meeting had been planned long before I walked through the door.
I opened the file.
The first page was familiar.
Patient history.
Pre-operative assessment.
Consent forms.
The second page wasn't.
Someone had highlighted a paragraph in yellow.
Attending Surgeon: Dr. Ivy Carter.
Beneath it, another sentence had been circled in red ink.
Delay in recognizing postoperative complications cannot be ruled out.
I frowned.
"I've never seen this version."
Ethan leaned back in his chair.
"It's the official review."
"No."
I flipped another page.
"It isn't."
The report I had signed six months earlier contained twelve pages.
This one had nine.
Three pages were missing.
The pages that documented the anesthesiologist's notes, the medication timeline, and the equipment malfunction reported during surgery.
Without them, the report painted a very different picture.
A picture in which every mistake belonged to me.
I slowly raised my eyes.
"Who altered this file?"
Dr. Lang answered before Ethan could.
"No one altered anything."
"Then where are the missing pages?"
"The committee decided they weren't relevant."
I almost laughed.
"They weren't relevant?"
"The equipment failure wasn't relevant?"
"The medication records weren't relevant?"
"The anesthesiologist's statement wasn't relevant?"
Every question made the room quieter.
No one challenged me.
Because they knew I was right.
Dr. Lang folded his hands.
"This isn't a criminal investigation."
"Not yet."
"We're conducting an internal review."
I closed the file.
"Based on incomplete evidence."
"We're following procedure."
"No."
I stood.
"You're following someone's instructions."
The words landed harder than I expected.
Several department heads exchanged uneasy looks.
One of them—Dr. Patel from Neurology—started to speak before stopping himself.
He knew something.
He simply wasn't willing to say it.
A knock interrupted the tense silence.
The conference room door opened.
Melissa stepped inside, carrying a tablet.
"I'm sorry to interrupt."
Dr. Lang frowned.
"We're in the middle of a meeting."
"I know."
She hesitated before looking directly at me.
"This concerns Dr. Carter."
She placed the tablet on the conference table.
"The hospital's public relations office needs an immediate response."
Dr. Lang's expression changed.
"What happened?"
Melissa tapped the screen.
A local news channel filled the display.
The anchor was standing outside St. Gabriel Medical Center.
Behind her, dozens of reporters crowded the entrance.
A banner stretched across the bottom of the broadcast.
Wedding Scandal Raises Questions About Star Surgeon's Professional Judgment
The footage switched.
My wedding.
The cathedral.
Then the photograph of Adrian and me outside the ICU.
The anchor continued speaking.
"Sources inside St. Gabriel Medical Center claim Dr. Ivy Carter has become emotionally unstable following today's highly publicized wedding incident. Hospital officials are reportedly reviewing whether she should continue treating patients."
Emotionally unstable.
I felt my fingers tighten against the edge of the table.
This wasn't gossip anymore.
Someone had turned it into a public narrative.
Then the broadcast changed again.
The anchor looked down at the paper in her hand before making one final announcement.
"We've also learned that the hospital will hold a press conference tomorrow morning regarding the controversial death of patient Emma Lawson."
Every face in the conference room froze.
Except Ethan's.
He looked at me with the same calm expression he'd worn at the altar.
Only now did I understand.
The wedding hadn't been enough.
He intended to bury my career with it.
No one spoke after the broadcast ended.
The silence in the conference room was heavier than any accusation.
I looked from Dr. Lang to the legal counsel, then to the department chiefs who had worked beside me for years. Every one of them had seen me spend nights in the operating room, miss holidays, cancel vacations, and choose patients over everything else.
Not one of them questioned the story the media had just told.
It was astonishing how quickly a reputation built over a decade could begin to crumble.
Dr. Lang finally broke the silence.
"The Board believes tomorrow's press conference is necessary."
"For whom?" I asked. "The hospital or the patient?"
"The public deserves transparency."
I couldn't help letting out a quiet laugh.
"Transparency?"
I slid the altered report back across the table.
"You remove three pages from a surgical record, leak stories about my private life, then call it transparency?"
His expression hardened.
"Be careful what you're implying."
"I'm not implying anything."
I met his eyes.
"I'm saying it directly."
The meeting ended ten minutes later.
Not because anyone had reached an agreement, but because there was nothing left to discuss.
The decision had already been made before I walked into that room.
I stepped into the hallway, feeling dozens of curious eyes follow me.
Staff members pretended to study charts whenever I looked their way. Conversations stopped the moment I approached, only to resume in hushed voices after I passed.
The wedding had turned me into gossip.
Tomorrow's press conference would turn me into a headline.
"I'm driving you home."
Adrian's voice came from behind me.
I turned.
He was still wearing the same gray maintenance uniform, his ID badge hanging neatly from his chest as though the entire afternoon had been perfectly ordinary.
"I'll be fine."
"You've been awake for almost twenty hours."
"So have most surgeons."
"Most surgeons aren't being set up."
His words stopped me.
I searched his face.
"What did you say?"
"I said you're being set up."
"You sound awfully certain."
"I am."
"How?"
For the first time since we'd met, Adrian didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he looked down the corridor toward the conference room to make sure no one was listening.
"Because reports don't rewrite themselves."
"And stories don't reach the media this fast unless someone planned them."
Everything he said matched my own thoughts.
Too closely.
I studied him more carefully.
"You're surprisingly familiar with how hospitals handle internal investigations."
"I've worked here a long time."
"Cleaning floors doesn't teach someone about legal procedures."
A flicker crossed his eyes.
Gone almost instantly.
"You hear more than people think."
It was a reasonable explanation.
Maybe even the correct one.
But it wasn't the whole truth.
I could feel it.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it wasn't another gossip notification.
It was an email from the hospital's electronic records department.
System Alert: Access Log Available
I frowned.
Access log?
Without thinking, I opened the attachment.
A list of usernames and timestamps filled the screen.
Every employee who had opened Emma Lawson's medical record during the past six months.
I scrolled slowly.
My own name.
The review committee.
Medical Records.
Hospital Legal.
Then, near the bottom of the list, one entry made my breath catch.
User ID: A.BROOKS
Access Time: 2:17 a.m. — Three Nights Ago
I looked up so quickly that my neck hurt.
Adrian was standing less than three feet away.
His employee badge read exactly what I already knew.
Adrian Brooks.
I held the phone between us.
"Would you like to explain why you accessed Emma Lawson's file three nights before anyone reopened the case?"
For the first time since he had asked me to trust him...
Adrian didn't answer.