Chapter 6

Chapter 6: The Poison in the Ivy

The hospital cafeteria was a sea of blue scrubs and white coats, a place where the scent of burnt coffee and industrial lemon cleaner usually acted as a grounding force for me. It was the smell of my sanctuary. For five years, I had worked myself to the bone to belong here, to be a person who was defined by her steady hands and her medical degree, rather than the price tag a man had once placed on her womb.

I was staring at a bowl of wilted salad I couldn't bring myself to touch. My stomach was in knots, still reeling from the park encounter with Caspian. Every time the automatic glass doors hissed open, my heart did a frantic, jagged little dance. I kept expecting to see his towering frame, or worse, one of his black-suited shadows coming to reclaim "Vance property."

But when the shadow finally fell across my table, it was much smaller, sharper, and smelled of a perfume so expensive it made my throat itch.

"I heard a rumor that a ghost had come back to haunt the city," a sharp, melodic voice drawled. "But I didn't truly believe it until I saw the hospital payroll. Jade Miller. Or should I say... Doctor Miller? My, how the gutter has been polished."

I didn't need to look up to know who it was. That voice had haunted my nightmares during my first year of marriage. I looked up slowly, meeting the icy, sapphire eyes of Bianca Rossi.

She was exactly as I remembered—the "perfect" woman. She was draped in a cream-colored Chanel suit that cost more than my first two years of medical school. Her blonde hair was pulled into a sleek, aggressive ponytail, and her skin looked like it had never known a day of stress. She was the woman Caspian was supposed to marry—the one with the right bloodline and the right cold heart to match his own.

"Bianca," I said, my voice as flat as a heart monitor. I didn't stand up. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing me on my feet. "I’m on a fifteen-minute lunch break before I go back into surgery. If you aren't currently bleeding out, I don't have time for you."

Bianca let out a soft, jagged laugh and pulled out the chair opposite me. The metal legs screeched against the tile, a sound that set my teeth on edge. She sat down, crossing her legs with a practiced, predatory grace.

"Still as charming as a South Side stray," she murmured, leaning forward. Her eyes scanned my white coat, lingering on the 'Chief of Surgery' embroidery with a look of pure disgust. "Tell me, does the hospital board know the truth about their 'star' doctor? Do they know that before you were saving lives, you were nothing more than a paid pet for the Vance family? A common surrogate they dressed up in pearls and kept in a golden cage?"

I felt a cold shiver of rage, but I kept my hands beneath the table, gripping my knees so she couldn't see the slight tremor in my fingers. "The board cares about my 98% success rate in the OR, Bianca. They care that I can do things with a scalpel that no one else in this state can. They don't listen to the bitter gossip of a woman who was dumped five years ago."

Bianca’s expression didn't change, but her eyes hardened into flint. "Caspian didn't dump me. He had a duty to provide an heir, and you were the cheap, disposable tool he chose to get the job done. But now? Now the 'tool' has come back with a very expensive secret."

My heart stopped. The "Survival Game" had just turned deadly. I felt the air in the cafeteria grow thin, the noise of the other doctors fading into a dull roar in my ears.

"I know about the boy, Jade," she whispered, her voice dropping to a dangerous, silk-thin level. "I know about Leo. I saw the photos my investigators took at the park. He has the Vance eyes. He has the Vance chin. And most importantly, he has a claim to a legacy that belongs to my future children."

"Leave my son out of this, Bianca," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "I am warning you. I am not the nineteen-year-old girl you used to bully in the Vance ballroom. I have seen the inside of the human body. I know exactly how fragile people are."

Bianca leaned in even closer, the smell of her heavy floral perfume clogging my lungs. "Is that a threat, Doctor? How quaint. You think a medical degree makes you powerful? My father is the head of the Rossi Syndicate. We own the police in this district. We own the judges. And we certainly own the board of this hospital."

She tapped a long, manicured nail against the table. Click. Click. Click. "I could have your medical license revoked by sunset," she said, her voice light, as if she were discussing the weather. "A few well-placed phone calls about 'malpractice' suspicions... a little pressure on the hospital donors... and you’re back to scrubbing floors in the South Side, Jade. You’ll be lucky if you aren't in a prison cell."

She stood up, smoothing her skirt with a look of pure triumph. "Caspian belongs to the Rossi family by blood and by business. If you’re smart, you’ll take your brat and vanish again. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Because the next time I see you, I won't be using words. I’ll be using the Rossi 'methods' for removing pests."

She turned and walked away, her heels clicking a rhythmic, arrogant death march on the linoleum.

I sat there for a long time after she left. The half-eaten salad looked like ash. My sanctuary, the hospital I had bled and cried for, suddenly felt like a trap. Bianca wasn't just a jealous rival; she was the poison in the ivy, a representative of the dark "Mafia" world that Caspian had tried to keep me away from.

But then, I thought of Leo. I thought of the way he’d laughed at the park, and the way he looked up at me as if I were the strongest person in the world.

I wasn't going to run. Not this time.

I pulled out my phone, my thumb hovering over Caspian’s contact. I hated the idea of needing him. I hated that my "Doing Me To The Fullest" dream was being threatened by the very world I had escaped. But a doctor knows when a wound is too deep to treat alone. You need a specialist.

I didn't call Caspian. Not yet. Instead, I called the one person who knew exactly where the bodies were buried in the Vance estate.

"Arthur?" I said when the old family lawyer finally picked up. "This is Jade. I need you to meet me. And bring the original 'Breeding Contract' Caspian made me sign five years ago. I want the copy with his original signature."

"Jade? What is going on? Caspian is in a state of near-collapse since he saw you—"

"I don't care about his heart, Arthur," I interrupted, my voice as sharp as a needle. "Bianca Rossi just threatened my son and my career. She thinks she can use the Rossi name to erase me. She’s forgotten that I’ve spent five years learning exactly how to cut out a cancer."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to perform a surgery on this city," I whispered, watching my own reflection in the cafeteria window. I looked cold. I looked dangerous. I looked like a woman who was done surviving. "I'm going to use Caspian Vance as my scalpel, and I'm going to make sure the Rossi family never bleeds again."

I stood up, my "unshakable poise" returning with a vengeance. Bianca thought she could threaten my license? She didn't realize that a mother who has nothing left to lose is the most dangerous surgeon in the world.

It was time to go to the Vance Estate. Not as a wife, not as a vessel, but as the woman who was about to set their entire legacy on fire.