Chapter 4

Before the locker room drama could wrap up, my pager went off violently, followed by an emergency call from the ER.

"Dr. Cross! Stat! Arthur Vance suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke! His vitals are crashing, and he specifically requested you to lead the surgery!"

Arthur Vance. The billionaire tech titan, the godfather of Silicon investments.

The exact high-profile investor Mark's company had been desperately begging to partner with.

Ignoring the searing pain in my back, I instantly switched to surgical mode. "Prep OR One immediately. I'm on my way."

Inside the operating room, the tension was suffocating.

Chloe, who happened to be on rotation as the circulating nurse, was forced into the OR with the team.

She clearly hadn't recovered from the locker room incident. Her eyes were puffy, and her mind was completely elsewhere.

The surgery reached its most critical juncture.

Vance’s intracranial pressure spiked violently. Blood pooled, obstructing the surgical field.

"Hemostat! Hurry!" I barked, extending my hand.

Chloe was standing in the corner, secretly texting Mark on her phone. Startled by my shout, she grabbed an instrument in a panic and shoved it into my palm.

The moment my gloved fingers closed around it, I knew.

It was a Kelly clamp, not a hemostat!

At a moment where millimeters determine life or death, such an elementary blunder was practically murder.

"Are you blind?! I said a hemostat!" I snapped fiercely.

My shout rattled Chloe so badly her hands shook.

She fumbled, knocking an entire sterile tray off the cart. Metal instruments clattered across the floor.

Worst of all, her unsterile arm grazed the surgical drape, contaminating the sterile field!

Beep—beep—beep—

The monitors shrieked in emergency sirens.

Vance’s blood pressure plummeted; his heart rhythm went haywire.

The anesthesiologist yelled, "V-fib! Charge the paddles!"

Chloe was terrified out of her mind, frozen in place, trembling. "It wasn't me... I didn't mean to..."

"Get the hell out of my OR!"

I shoved her aside and instantly launched our emergency contingency protocol.

"Swap the drapes! Re-establish the sterile field! Charge to 200 joules!"

I forced my heart to stay cold and steady as adrenaline flooded my veins.

Relying on the muscle memory of thousands of neurosurgeries, I snatched Arthur Vance back from the brink of death.

Every suture, every cauterization was flawless.

Sweat dripped into my eyes, burning like acid, but I didn't dare blink.

Finally, after three agonizing hours.

The lines on the monitors stabilized.

I sank onto an operating stool, my hands trembling ever so slightly.

Arthur Vance was alive.

The moment I stepped out of the OR, before I could even strip off my surgical scrubs, Mark blocked my path with an entourage.

Beside him stood Hospital Chief Harrison and several senior executives from Mark’s firm.

"Chief Harrison, look at her!"

Mark pointed an accusatory finger at me. "Evelyn brought her personal grudge into the OR and deliberately harassed Chloe, triggering a near-fatal surgical crisis!"

"If she hadn't lost her temper, Mr. Vance would never have gone into cardiac arrest!"

Chloe stood beside him, weeping pathetically while holding up her phone with an audio recording.

It was the audio of me yelling at her in the locker room earlier, heavily cut and manipulated to make me sound like an unhinged, abusive bully.

Chief Harrison’s face was dark. "Dr. Cross, do you realize who Mr. Vance is? How could you bring personal drama into a life-or-death procedure?"

"This borders on gross malpractice! Mark's firm is one of our major corporate donors—we need an immediate resolution here."

Swayed by the multi-million-dollar pledge Mark’s company had promised, the Chief was already leaning toward suspending me and forcing a formal apology to Chloe.

Mark looked at me smugly. He leaned close to my ear, whispering low enough that only we two could hear:

"Babe, transfer the intellectual property rights of your neuro-interface patent to my name, and I'll convince the Chief to drop this."

"Otherwise, your career is finished. You'll take the fall for malpractice, and you might even end up in prison."

I looked at his twisted, greedy face and suddenly smiled.

A brilliant, blinding smile.

"Mark, do you really think you've already won?"

I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed a number right in front of everyone.

The personal line of Arthur Vance's chief executive secretary.

I hit speakerphone.

"Hello, Secretary Miller. Has Mr. Vance regained consciousness?"

"Someone nearly killed him on the table today. Also, regarding that multi-hundred-million-dollar tech contract—I don't think Mark's company deserves a single cent of it."

"Oh, and please inform Mr. Vance that the surgeon who just saved his life is currently being bullied into an apology."