Semua Bab The Debt He Can't Collect: Bab 51 - Bab 60

Emma stood in the doorway, calculating distances and probabilities.Victoria Chen was fifteen feet away, still tied to the chair. Victoria Hartman stood behind her, gun steady at Victoria Chen's temple. No visible exits except the door Emma had just entered through.The room was empty except for the chair, some scattered debris, and a single window overlooking the river. Late morning light filtered through the broken glass, illuminating dust particles suspended in stale air."The USB drive," Hartman said. "Place it on the floor and slide it toward me."Emma pulled out the drive, crouched slowly, and sent it skittering across the concrete. It stopped three feet from Hartman's position."Good. Now tell me—did you come alone?""Yes.""I don't believe you." Hartman's voice remained pleasant. Conversational. "Dr. Lawson, you've proven remarkably resourceful. I suspect you have police positioned nearby. FBI perhaps. Someone ready to rescue both of you the moment I release Dr. Chen.""I came

Dr. Walsh signed Emma's discharge papers on day seven with the kind of reluctance usually reserved for releasing patients against medical advice."You're stable enough to continue recovery at home," Walsh said, emphasizing the word recovery. "But Emma, I need to be clear about limitations. No work for six weeks. No high-stress activities. No investigating pharmaceutical conspiracies or rescuing hostages or any of the other dangerous behaviors you've demonstrated this month.""Understood," Emma said, pulling on the clothes Sophie had brought from her apartment. Regular jeans and a sweater felt strange after a week in hospital gowns."I'm serious. Your heart function is at fifty-two percent. That's borderline. One more major stress event could drop you below fifty percent, which means heart failure classification and significantly reduced life expectancy." Walsh handed Emma a thick packet of instructions. "Cardiac rehab starts Monday. You'll attend three times per week. Physical therapy

Emma wasn't supposed to attend the foundation hearing.Dr. Walsh had been explicit: no stressful activities for six weeks. A federal court proceeding about dissolving a conspiracy-tainted foundation definitely qualified as stressful.But at 9:15 AM, Emma found herself in the back of Damien's car heading toward the Southern District courthouse in lower Manhattan."You shouldn't be here," Sophie said from the front passenger seat. She'd tried to physically block Emma from leaving the apartment and had only relented when Emma threatened to take the subway alone."Rachel filed that motion because of work I started," Emma said. "I should be there.""You should be resting," Sophie corrected. "Your cardiac rehab session is in two hours. You're supposed to be conserving energy.""I'll sit quietly in the gallery. Observe only. No testimony, no stress." Emma knew she was lying even as she said it. If the hearing went badly, if the judge moved toward dissolution, she'd have to speak up.They rea

Emma's week of mandatory rest felt like the longest seven days of her life.No cardiac rehab. No physical therapy. No consultations, hearings, or investigations. Just rest, medications, and the relentless monotony of a body that refused to cooperate with her mind's demands.Day one, Emma slept fourteen hours. Her body, finally given permission to stop, simply shut down. She woke briefly to eat soup Sophie had made, took her medications, and fell back asleep.Day two, the new beta-blocker side effects hit. Fatigue so profound that walking from bedroom to bathroom felt like running a marathon. Dizziness when standing. A persistent low-grade nausea that made eating difficult."This is normal," Sophie said, reading the medication information sheet. "Your body is adjusting to the higher dose. Should improve in a few days."Emma spent most of day two on the couch, dozing and watching mindless television shows she couldn't follow. Her phone sat on the coffee table, notifications accumulating

Emma's recovery progressed in increments so small they were almost imperceptible day to day, but unmistakable week to week.By the end of November, she could walk fifteen minutes on the treadmill without her heart rate spiking above 105. Her shoulder wound had healed enough that physical therapy focused on rebuilding strength rather than managing pain. The medications had stabilized, side effects diminishing as her body adjusted.Dr. Walsh cleared her for limited activities outside of formal rehab—short walks, light household tasks, brief social engagements. Nothing strenuous, nothing stressful, but enough that Emma felt slightly less like an invalid.Damien had become a constant presence during recovery. Not hovering like Sophie, but there—bringing dinner twice a week, coordinating with Mitchell on foundation paperwork so Emma could review documents without the stress of actual meetings, just existing in her space without demanding anything.On the first Friday of December, he arrive