Eight Chances, All Spent

Vanessa Langley lay on my operating table, pregnant for the eighth time by the man she'd grown up with. This time, I didn't break down the way I had the previous seven. Instead I calmly closed the incision and went over the aftercare with her. Seven times I'd performed the procedure on my own wife because she was carrying another man's child. I had long since become the joke of the hospital, the story everyone traded over coffee. From getting pregnant by him to pressuring me into ending it, she always had a reason she considered perfectly respectable. This time, Vanessa's eyes reddened and she caught my sleeve. "Adrian, someone drugged Damian. I couldn't just leave him... "Don't worry, I'll end the pregnancy. You're my husband. You're the only man I'd ever have a child with." Even the nurses talked during the procedure, wondering whether I'd fold the way I always had, worn down by a few soft words and a few tears. But nobody knew we'd signed an agreement before the wedding. I gave Vanessa eight chances to get it wrong, and she had used them all. The agreement took effect, and every asset in her name passed to me. Chapter 1 As I had after the previous seven procedures, I carried the white medical transport case into her hospital room. The moment Vanessa saw me, she pushed herself upright. There was no hiding the urgency in her voice. "Adrian, did they collect the baby's blood?" That was the only question she ever asked after one of these procedures. Damian Voss suffered from an inherited blood disorder. She always claimed everything she did was somehow for my sake. The truth was simpler. She kept conceiving with Damian so a private lab could try to study the baby's blood to find a cure. She wanted a ready and continuing supply of material for Damian's treatment. I said nothing and placed the case in the exact spot she had designated. Before Vanessa's eighth termination, we had once expected a child of our own. When she was three months pregnant, she ended that pregnancy for Damian. When I learned the truth, we had a terrible fight. I ran from the house during the argument and was struck by a car, nearly losing the use of my right hand. It took almost three years of painful rehabilitation before I could operate again. Back then, Vanessa held me while her whole body shook with sobs and swore, "Adrian, it will never happen again. We'll still have a child of our own." I believed her. That had been my mistake. When I remained silent, impatience flashed openly in her eyes. Erin Cassidy, one of the younger nurses, read the tension and hurried to reassure her. "Ms. Langley, don't worry. Dr. Pierce arranged everything exactly as you requested." Only then did Vanessa relax, relief loosening her face. Several consecutive surgeries had left me exhausted. I didn't have it in me to keep performing this miserable play, so I turned to leave. Vanessa suddenly called me back, her eyes reddening. "I'm sorry, Adrian. I swear this is the last time. Once I've recovered, we'll try for a baby immediately. All right?" I stopped walking. A baby? After eight terminations, the lining of her uterus was dangerously scarred and fragile. Without the years I'd spent managing her treatment and carrying her through every procedure, she'd have lost any chance of ever bearing a child. At that moment, the door slammed open. Damian rushed in with his face flushed and swung a fist at me. "You monster. She's your wife, and you still put her through this? How many times has it been? Do you understand what you've done?" I straightened the glasses knocked crooked on my face and raised my own fist. Before I could strike back, a blunt impact exploded against the back of my head. I turned and saw Vanessa gripping the metal water pitcher she had smashed into me. Warm blood ran down the back of my scalp. She jumped from the bed and spread both arms protectively in front of Damian. "Enough. Adrian, how long are you going to keep causing scenes? Why would you hit Damian? You know he has a serious medical condition and stress can trigger a crisis. Do you have any professional ethics at all? How can someone who attacks a patient call himself a doctor?" The accusations came down on me all at once. I clamped a hand over the wound, my eyes burning. But it hurt less than what she'd done to me, over and over, for years. My throat tightened as I forced out each word. "He hit me first." She came back at me even more sure of herself. "So what if he hit you? You ended the pregnancy I was carrying, and that child was his too. You killed his child." Yet every time, she had knelt before me and begged me to arrange the procedure. Looking at that righteous face, I lost whatever strength I had left to defend myself. She had flipped victim and villain too many times for me to bother. Blood kept dripping between my fingers, and Erin turned white with alarm. She hurried over with a wheelchair. "Dr. Pierce, you're badly hurt. Let me take you for treatment." I was about to sit when Damian suddenly groaned. He sagged weakly into Vanessa's arms. The instant the wheelchair reached me, Vanessa seized it and pushed it toward Damian. "Damian, sit down. I'll take you to a doctor." Erin blocked her, visibly distressed. Chapter 2 "Ms. Langley, that wheelchair was brought for Dr. Pierce. You can't..." Vanessa glanced at me as though offering charity, then snapped at the nurse. "Can't you see who the patient is? He's a doctor. What could possibly be wrong with him? Keep interfering and I'll file a complaint accusing this hospital of discriminating between patients, refusing emergency care, and making sick people compete for equipment." I watched her guard Damian with that fierce, desperate care. I could no longer remember the last time she had defended me that way. The room went rigid. Vanessa pushed the wheelchair away by force. Erin looked at me pleadingly, and I answered quietly, "It's fine. I'm not dead yet." The moment my wound was dressed, Vanessa sent someone over with a thermos. A handwritten note was clipped to the lid. [I'm sorry, Adrian. Damian just lost a child and isn't emotionally stable. Please be patient with him. After all, I agreed to the procedure for your sake.] [Damian isn't feeling well, so I'm staying with him. I'll come back later.] I unscrewed the lid and found shrimp bisque. A bitter smile touched my mouth. She had forgotten that shellfish sent me into anaphylaxis. Years earlier, I'd eaten some by accident. Hives swallowed my body, my throat closed, and I nearly suffocated. Vanessa had seen me struggling and rushed me to the emergency department with tears in her eyes. She knelt before the physician and cried like a child. Only a few years had passed. Everything changed after Damian returned from overseas. I went back to our silent home and began sorting through the things we had collected over the years. I reread the love letters Vanessa had once written, each line burning with devotion. My heart wouldn't stop shaking. I thought that if she came home that night and apologized sincerely, I wouldn't have to be completely ruthless. A divorce would be enough. I could support myself. I waited in the living room all night. She never returned. The next morning, I saw Damian's latest post. The center image in a nine-photo carousel showed a brand-new luxury sports car. The caption read: [A gift from Vanessa. She said it was compensation for ending our baby. Since her apology was so sincere, I forgive her.] In the photograph, he and Vanessa pressed their faces together and smiled brightly. The comments had exploded. Several mutual friends recognized Vanessa and condemned Damian for pursuing a married woman. An account using Vanessa's unmistakable profile photo replied beneath them. [He isn't the third party. The person who is unloved is the real outsider. Make another defamatory comment and I will involve counsel and law enforcement.] She had stayed away all night. That final post extinguished the last warmth remaining inside me. I calmly finished my resignation letter and left for Ridgewater University Hospital. At the hospital entrance, Vanessa approached with her face flushed. She didn't even notice the bandage around my head before demanding, "Did you arrange yesterday's viral post? Because of you, everyone is attacking Damian. I want you to apologize to him immediately." She thrust a feed full of hostile comments into my face. I looked at her and found the entire accusation absurd. Damian himself had reposted his boast publicly to attract attention. Now that the public had turned on him, the blame somehow belonged to me. A colleague once defended me, and Vanessa came to the hospital every day to create scenes. She publicly abused him and spread sexual rumors so viciously that his marriage nearly collapsed. After that, no one dared speak for me. Who would risk becoming her next target? A mocking smile touched my mouth. "You should ask Damian. Who else has access to his account?" Something clicked behind her eyes, and she froze. She walked several steps away, then hurried after me. "Are you still angry because I didn't come home last night?" I didn't answer. Her voice slid into the soft register she always used when she wanted to be forgiven. "I stayed away because I was afraid of waking you. You work so hard. If I came home late, you wouldn't sleep well, and I couldn't bear that." The first time she said those words, I had been deeply moved. Then I found out what those nights she supposedly spent away to protect my sleep really were. She was sitting beside Damian's mother in the hospital because she couldn't bear to let Damian wear himself out. She took on every unpleasant task herself, night after night, so he wouldn't have to. After that, the excuse was just an insult. Only after a long silence did Vanessa notice the bandage near my temple. Her gaze flickered, and she seemed ready to speak. Then her phone rang sharply inside her pocket. She looked at the screen, and her expression changed. "Damian? Don't panic. I'm coming." She didn't finish a single sentence to me. She gripped the phone and hurried away. For one foolish moment, I had believed she might finally trust me. Less than an hour later, Damian posted again. [Thank you, Vanessa, for the villa. She told me not to argue with small-minded people, so I'll behave.] I opened his profile, deleted him, blocked the account, and felt nothing. Chapter 3 The next day, I was packing when Dr. Marcus Feldman, our department chair, called. By the time I reached the hospital, a crowd had gathered outside the administrative office. Objects came flying at me before I understood what was happening, and someone raised a bottle of acid and threw it. I twisted aside, but droplets struck the back of my hand and burned immediately. "Butcher! My child took the medicine you prescribed and ended up in intensive care. Give me my child back." The father's screaming filled the corridor. My mind went blank. I had always been meticulous in my work and had never made a medication error. How could a child have received the wrong drug and deteriorated badly enough to require intensive care? Ignoring the chaos and the pain in my hand, I demanded the security footage. The recording showed Damian secretly removing the medication I had prescribed and replacing it with another bottle. Cold went through me, and I headed straight for his room. Vanessa was spooning broth into his mouth with extraordinary tenderness. "Damian!" Vanessa stood immediately and placed herself between us. "What are you doing?" She stood over him like a shield, as if she thought I might put a hand on him. She still hadn't noticed the fresh chemical burn on my hand. I swallowed my rage and held the video up in front of her. Vanessa glanced at it, but her face remained strangely indifferent. "Damian didn't do it deliberately. He probably picked up the wrong medication by accident. "You're the attending physician. Ultimately, you're responsible for what reaches the patient. Consider this a lesson. No one died, so in a way, you should be grateful to Damian." Anyone with eyes could see he'd swapped the bottles on purpose to frame me. Yet Vanessa lied without hesitation to protect him. "Fine. We'll let the police and the hospital's compliance office decide." The instant I mentioned the police, Damian dropped to his knees in front of me and began sobbing. "Adrian, I truly didn't mean to do it. The bottles looked similar, and I mixed them up. Please don't call the police." Vanessa pulled him upright and glared at me. "Adrian, do you have to be this vindictive? If you report him, report me too. I was the one who asked him to retrieve the medication. "Medication mistakes happen in hospitals. If you turn this into a criminal matter, you'll destroy him. Is that what you want?" Then she snatched the bottle from my hand. She raised it high, determination hardening her expression. "You claim the child became sick because of this bottle? Then I'll destroy it. Without the physical evidence, let's see what you can prove." My stomach dropped. "Don't." The bottle also contained the compounded medication being used to reduce scarring in her uterus. The formula was difficult to prepare. If it was destroyed, her remaining chance of carrying a pregnancy could truly disappear. But she had already brought her arm down without hesitation. "Crash." The bottle shattered. Tablets scattered across the floor. She ground them beneath her shoes until they became dirty powder. Something in my chest went under her heel with them. When I looked at her again, she was holding Damian tightly against her. Everything boiling in me drained away at once. I took one slow breath, and my voice became frighteningly calm. "All right, Vanessa. I hope you never regret this." Chapter 4 After leaving the hospital, I called Dana Kessler, my attorney. "When does the transfer agreement take effect?" "Tomorrow at nine in the morning. The escrow agent will release the trust assets into the accounts you designated." After ending the call, I booked a flight out of Crestland. My phone vibrated with a message from Vanessa. [Adrian, please stop being angry. I'll spend whatever it takes and use every connection I have to settle the hospital issue.] [You'll remain the attending surgeon, and no one will be able to remove you, as long as you don't hurt Damian.] I didn't answer. I deleted every way she had of reaching me. Early the next morning, I left for the airport with my suitcase. Vanessa appeared without warning and clamped a hand around my wrist. "Was this your doing?" Before I could answer, two of her security men forced me into the back seat of a vehicle. They drove me to Hawkridge Gorge Adventure Park and dragged me from the car like a dead body. "You released the security footage, didn't you? Adrian, when did you become so disobedient? I told you I would handle your problem. Why did you still smear Damian publicly? "Since you refuse to stop acting on your own, you'll spend some time on the bungee platform and learn to calm down." I stared at her. I hadn't released the footage. She refused to hear any explanation and ordered the men to restrain me. The harness tightened, and they suspended me beyond a platform hundreds of feet above Mirrorfall Reservoir. Terror came over me in a wave. Vanessa knew I was terrified of heights. When I was a child, someone resentful of my father's promotion kidnapped me and threw me from a building. An airbag broke my fall, but the weightlessness and the certainty that I was about to die haunted me for years afterward. She knew every detail. "No. Vanessa, I'm afraid. Please." I struggled desperately. She walked to the edge and looked down at me with a cold face. "Adrian, when you do something wrong, you accept punishment. "Do you know Damian nearly jumped from a hospital roof because of what you did? If I hadn't found him, he would be dead. "I told you how important he was to me. Why did you insist on hurting him?" She raised one hand. A second later, the crew released me. The cord around my ankles snapped tight after the plunge and brutally arrested my fall. Then it wrenched me upward again. I barely finished coughing after striking the reservoir's surface before the next violent drop began. They ran it again and again until I lost count. At the edge of consciousness, my phone received a final automated message. [Mr. Pierce, the agreement became irrevocable at 9:00 a.m. today. The trust interests and property identified in the agreement have been transferred to your designated accounts.] A bitter smile pulled at my mouth. Vanessa appeared satisfied when she finally turned away. "Leave him there overnight. Lower him after he's had time to think." She departed with the others. The moment her vehicle disappeared, one of the remaining men began sawing through the suspension line with a knife. The rope grew thinner. Then it broke. My body plunged toward the reservoir. Water forced its way into my ears, nose, and lungs. Was I finally going to die? The next morning, at Ridgewater University Hospital, Vanessa was still at Damian's bedside after sitting with him all night. After he fell asleep, she rubbed her forehead. "Bring Adrian down. One night should have been enough to make him understand." At that moment, Grant Mercer, her assistant, rushed in with panic across his face. "Ms. Langley, Mr. Pierce is missing. We found only a severed line at the platform. There is no sign of him. "And the bank's legal department sent an emergency notice. At nine yesterday morning, every account, ownership interest, and asset covered by your trust agreement was transferred out. The affected accounts are empty." The bowl slipped out of Vanessa's hand, and every trace of color drained from her face.