Chapter 7 - The Ghost of St. Jude's
The color drained entirely from Ren’s face. She stared at the shattered ceramic shards on the floor as if she had just seen a ghost.
"How... how do you know about St. Jude's?" she whispered, her voice trembling for the first time since they had met.
"We own half the healthcare infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest, Ren," Aldrich said gently, leaning forward on his cane. "When a senior trauma nurse vanishes off the grid without a trace, leaving behind an award-winning career and a sealed investigation file... the Steel intelligence network notices."
Orion stood up quickly, stepping around the table to stand beside her. "Ren, what aren't you telling us? What is St. Jude's hiding?"
Ren backed away, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth, tears finally spilling over her eyelashes. The walls of her carefully constructed sanctuary suddenly felt like they were caving in.
"It wasn't an accident," she choked out, her voice breaking. "Three years ago... a senator's son was brought into our trauma bay. He was high, drunk, and driving a sports car that plowed into a family minivan. Three people died on impact. A little girl survived, but she was bleeding out on our table."
She looked up at Orion, her eyes swimming with agonizing memories.
"The hospital director—a man tied directly to your syndicate's political pockets—ordered us to stop treating the little girl," Ren sobbed, gripping the edge of the counter. "He told us to falsify the tox screen for the senator's son, cover up the crash, and let the child die so there'd be no witnesses to the murder charges."
Orion’s expression darkened into an absolute, freezing mask of fury.
"And you refused," Orion stated, already knowing the answer.
"I threw the director out of the trauma bay, locked the doors, and saved that little girl's life," Ren whispered, her voice shaking violently. "But by morning, the girl and her mother were 'transferred' to an undisclosed facility and never seen again. The hospital board stripped my license, threatened to charge me with medical malpractice and treason, and told me that if I ever spoke a single word about what happened... I would end up at the bottom of the Puget Sound."
The cabin fell into a dead, suffocating silence.
Caesar walked over, pressing his massive head against Ren’s knee, letting out a soft, comforting whine as if he understood her pain.
Orion clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white. The cold, ruthless underworld boss was gone, replaced by a man looking at a woman who had sacrificed everything for a stranger's child.
"Who was the director?" Orion asked, his voice deathly quiet.
"Dr. Harrison Cole," Ren whispered.
Aldrich Steel leaned back in his chair, a grim, terrifying smile touching his lips. "Harrison Cole. A man whose medical foundation has been laundering money for our rivals for a decade."
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Orion stepped closer to Ren, reaching out to gently grasp her trembling shoulders. His gray eyes burned with an intensity that brooked no argument.
"You ran because you thought you were hiding from monsters," Orion said softly, his voice steady and absolute. "You were wrong, Ren. You were just waiting for someone with the power to tear those monsters down."
