Semua Bab The Debt He Can't Collect: Bab 31 - Bab 40

Damien sat in his home office at 6:47 AM, the city still dark beyond his windows, and stared at the spreadsheet that had kept him awake all night.He'd started this audit twelve hours ago, immediately after leaving Emma's apartment with her words still ringing in his ears. *I don't believe you.* The look on her face when she'd closed the door—not anger anymore, but something worse. Disappointment. Betrayal. The death of whatever trust they'd managed to build.He deserved it. All of it.But deserving Emma's anger didn't mean he could let her destroy herself chasing answers he already had.So Damien had come home, poured himself three fingers of scotch he hadn't touched, and opened the files he'd been avoiding for five years. The complete financial records of Cross Medical Innovation Fund. Every transaction. Every wire transfer. Every payment his father had authorized and every one Damien himself had signed off on in the eighteen months before he'd understood what he was really approvin

They chose a coffee shop three blocks from the archive.Not because it was convenient, but because it was public. Witnesses everywhere. Security cameras. No chance for the conversation to become something it shouldn't.Emma sat with her back to the wall, positioned so she could watch both entrances. Old habit from too many nights in the ER, learning to read a room for danger. Damien sat across from her, careful to maintain distance. Victoria claimed the third chair, her tablet already open, diving straight into business like personal feelings were irrelevant.Maybe they were. Maybe everything between Emma and Damien had always been about the foundation, the trials, the debt of damage that could never be fully repaid.Emma's coffee was too hot. She wrapped her hands around the cup anyway, needing something to hold that wasn't her phone with its unanswered messages from Sophie asking if she was okay.She wasn't okay. She was sitting in a coffee shop with the man who'd surveilled her med

Damien made it to his car before the carefully maintained control shattered.He sat in the driver's seat, hands gripping the steering wheel, staring at nothing. Emma's words echoed in his head on an endless loop. You're just a more self-aware version of the same thing.Was she right? Had he spent five years telling himself he was different from his father while using the exact same tools, the same foundation, the same infrastructure that had destroyed lives?Damien's phone buzzed. Victoria: Did you give her the files?He typed back: She doesn't want them from me. Send her everything you have. Make sure she knows it's from you, not me.The response came quickly: Damien, this isn't about ego.It wasn't. It was about Emma being willing to listen to Victoria when she wouldn't listen to him. About using whatever channels actually worked instead of insisting on being the hero of his own redemption story.Damien started the car, pulled into Manhattan traffic, and drove on autopilot while his

The Connecticut estate appeared through morning fog like something from another era.Emma pressed her forehead against the car window, watching the iron gates swing open as Victoria's security system recognized the vehicle. Sophie sat beside her in the back seat, exhausted from their predawn escape from the city. Neither of them had slept more than an hour."It's beautiful," Sophie said quietly.Beautiful was an understatement. The property sprawled across what looked like fifty acres of wooded land, the main house a three-story colonial with white columns and black shutters. Gardens stretched in every direction, meticulously maintained despite the house appearing empty.Victoria pulled the car around to a side entrance. "My grandmother left it to me when she died. I've kept it maintained but haven't stayed here in years. Too many memories."Emma climbed out stiffly, her legs protesting after the two-hour drive. Her chest felt tight despite the beta-blocker she'd taken an hour ago. St

Emma's shift at Manhattan Memorial started at 7 AM the next morning.She hadn't planned to work. Should have been in Connecticut helping Victoria map the seventeen trials, coordinating with Sophie on participant outreach, preparing for tonight's meeting with Sarah Chen. But after the phone call with Victoria about Nathan Cross and the pediatric trial, Emma couldn't sit still.She needed to be in her hospital. Needed to see Rachel's trial firsthand. Needed to understand how a legitimate researcher could be caught in Webb's network without knowing it.Needed to prove to herself that not everyone involved was corrupt. That some people were just victims of a system designed to obscure the truth.The ER was typical morning chaos when Emma arrived. Cardiac event in Bay 3. Possible stroke in Bay 5. A construction worker with a compound fracture waiting for orthopedics. Emma fell into the rhythm of emergency medicine like muscle memory, the familiar controlled crisis grounding her after weeks