Then my phone started vibrating.
Once.
Twice.
Ten times.
Twenty-three missed calls.
All from unknown numbers.
Daniel looked at the screen.
I guess they've already discovered something.
I assumed it, too.
More than a thousand miles away, the chaos had just begun.
The commercial jet landed in New York at 5:47 p.m.
Ethan Walsh was the first to come down.
He was thirty years old, an inherited fortune that appeared regularly in financial magazines and a disease that very few people knew.
Advanced infiltrative cardiomyopathy.
Complicated by extremely rare vascular malformation.
Two European medical centers had refused to operate.
Three American surgeons said the same.
The conventional intervention had an unacceptable likelihood of ending in massive bleeding.
I had developed a hybrid technique that could give it a real chance.
That's why the Walsh had looked for me.
And that's why Ethan was traveling that day with several members of his team.
Upon getting off the plane, his administrator Marcus Reed immediately checked his phone.
I had received a bank notification.
Transfer received: $3,000,000.
At first he thought it was a mistake.
Then he saw the sender.
Amelia Hart.
And the message:
LOOK FOR SOMEONE BETTER.
Marcus was paralyzed.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ethan.
He returned the money.
-Who?
Marcus looked up.
“Dr. Hart.
Ethan frowned.
Wasn't he on this flight?
"No.
Then call her.
“He doesn’t answer.
Marcus scored again.An automatic recording informed him that the number was not available.
He tried another one.
Locked.
Another.
Locked.
Ethan's expression changed.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.
—Marcus.
I told him I had to be in the hospital tonight.
“How did you tell him?”
Marcus didn't answer.
It didn't take.
Ethan had known his administrator for years.
I knew perfectly well how he talked to people he considered inferior.
Did you threaten her?
I just reminded him who is paying for the operation.
Ethan closed his eyes.
“You’re an idiot.
“Sir...
“I told you that you didn’t use that tone with her.
Ethan knew something Marcus had forgotten.
Amelia Hart didn't need her money.
He had done surgeries free for years.
He refused billionaire patients if he did not consider the procedure ethical.
The only reason he had accepted his case was because his younger sister, Claire Walsh, had personally traveled to Chicago.
Claire hadn't taken lawyers.
No checks.
No bodyguard.
He had only sat in front of me for forty minutes and had spoken of his brother.
