1
Fiona
I would rather gouge out my eyes with a dirt-covered Barbie than get stuck in a tiny, cramped alcove with the most attractive doctor in the entire hospital.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t given the choice.
I walked down a quiet, abandoned hospital hallway at the end of a late shift, my comfortable shoes squeaking over freshly polished linoleum with each step, feeling exhausted and looking forward to hitting my bed so hard it broke, when a hand shot out from behind a pair of double doors and yanked me to the side. I stumbled and nearly screamed, but a rough hand pressed itself over my mouth. I turned, ready to kick whoever had the audacity to touch me like that directly in his or her private parts so hard their parents felt it, when I met Dean’s eyes.
Something about his gaze made me stop. So instead of making sure he’d never have children, I bit his finger.
His skin tasted like salt and soap.
He grunted and hissed but didn’t move. “Stop,” he whispered. “I’ll move my hand, just don’t be loud.”
I clenched my jaw harder and he sucked in a breath then dropped his palm away. I bared my teeth, ready to lay into him, but stopped myself.
He looked anxious, extremely anxious, and I’d never seen him sweat before since he first joined Mercy General. We were crammed together in a tight closet where they kept extra face masks and rubber gloves, the white and blue boxes stacked like bricks on a metal wire rack. Dean stood next to the open doorway, eyes wide, and he jerked his chin toward me.
I got the hint and stepped out of the way. “What the fuck, Dean?” I whispered, not sure why the hell I was going along with this insanity. Dean was a young, handsome neurologist, and one of the more serious people I’d met at Mercy General—which, despite being a hospital, was packed with some of the most insane humans I’d ever seen in my life.
He nodded toward the doorway and held a finger to his mouth then cupped his head. I understood what he was pantomiming, although I hated playing charades, and leaned toward the opening, listening.
I didn’t hear anything at first. But then the sound of a conversation drifted over toward us.
I couldn’t make it out at first. I caught tones, mostly, and they didn’t sound happy. I leaned closer and pressed myself against Dean. He gave me a look, but it wasn’t anger—more like he was curious about me. I was tempted to lop off his manhood but held back, since he’d probably start screaming and give us away. I heard footsteps, and the conversation got closer. I guessed it was happening around the corner, up near the elevators, right where I was headed a minute before.
“… not my decision,” a masculine voice said. It was low and had a very light South Philly accent, the sort of cliché thing I’d only ever heard in cheese steak shops that catered to tourists. “The boss wants what the boss wants.”
“Tell your boss that he’d better relax a little bit, or else our current situation won’t last.”
That second voice was definitely, without a doubt in my mind, the hospital administrator. Her name was Maria Dickens, and she was an asshole.
To be fair, most of the administration were. The hospital was technically a business, and there was a certain line most people shouldn’t cross, but the admins were happy to trample all over it. People weren’t dollars and cents, their worth wasn’t inherently tied into how much money they made, and yet the admins acted like if someone couldn’t pay, then they should be thrown out like trash to die on the street.
Maria was one of the worst about it. She seemed to delight in swooping down on unsuspecting patients and telling them that their insurance had lapsed, or refused to pay for treatment, or any number of tragic, horrible things, and she always did it with a smile.
I hated her. Really, really hated her.
“I understand that your arrangement with my boss is quite lucrative for you both, but remember who has the power here, Ms. Dickens.”
“And you remember, Mr. Lorenzo, or whatever your name is, that I’m not some pushover mark your boss can strong-arm. I run a major hospital, and I need to be able to plausibly explain why fifty thousand dollars suddenly disappeared out the front door.”
“You’re a creative woman, Ms. Dickens. So create.”
I glanced at Dean and his eyes were wide. He frowned at me, and I suddenly felt how close we were standing—inches separated our bodies as we both strained to listen to that conversation. My mind raced in a million different directions, trying to understand what the hell was happening. I knew Maria was a callous monster, but I had no clue she was straight up corrupt on top of that. If she was skimming money from the hospital, that meant she was skimming money from doctors, nurses, and sick people that desperately needed help.