Chapter 2

Three in the morning.

The hospital corridor was dead quiet, broken only by the rhythmic beeping of cardiac monitors.

Suddenly, the steady rhythm spiked wildly.

Ethan's mother's condition was crashing.

The on-duty nurse burst out of the room, shouting, "Bed three family! The patient is in ventricular fibrillation! We need to resuscitate immediately!"

I shot up from the bench, my legs numb.

"Where's the doctor? Where's the lead surgeon?" I grabbed the nurse's hand.

Sweat poured down the nurse's face. "We can't reach Dr. Miller! His phone is turned off!"

My heart plunged into an icy abyss.

That was Ethan's mother.

As much as I despised Ethan, Mrs. Miller was innocent.

Over the past three years, she was the only one in that family who had genuinely treated me with warmth and love.

Knowing her son neglected me, she would always find ways to cook nourishing stews for me and sneak her pension money into my hands.

She would say, "Natalie, Ethan doesn't know how blessed he is. Let Mom make it up to you."

I couldn't just stand by and watch her die.

I immediately grabbed my friend's phone and dialed Ethan's number.

Once, twice, three times.

Finally, the call connected.

What came through the speaker wasn't hospital noise, but the sound of ocean waves crashing against rocks.

Along with a woman's breathless, breathy moans.

"Mmh... Dr. Miller... be gentle..."

Followed immediately by Ethan's furious, irritated roar:

"Natalie! Are you out of your mind?!"

"Calling me in the middle of the night from a burner number—what is wrong with you?"

I screamed into the phone, my voice cracking and trembling:

"Ethan! Your mom is dying!"

"She's on the crash cart! Heart failure! You're her lead surgeon, get back here right now!"

There was a second of dead silence on the line.

Then, a burst of mocking laughter erupted.

Chloe's voice chimed in:

"Wow, Natalie, you're quite the storyteller."

"Inventing sick curses about an elderly woman just to trick Ethan into coming home?"

"Mrs. Miller is in great shape! She sent me a SnapChat just two days ago saying she went out line dancing."

Ethan scoffed coldly. "Hear that, Natalie? Your pathetic lies make me sick."

"Even if something happens to my mother, it'll be because you worked her up!"

"Don't you dare call me again, or I swear I'll drag your entire family down to hell with you!"

Click.

He hung up without hesitation.

Right then, my friend's phone buzzed with a notification.

Ethan had just updated his Instagram story.

[Embracing the ocean, leaving the noise and the crazy woman behind. The moon looks gorgeous tonight, and you happen to be right by my side.]

Attached was an intimate photo of him and Chloe at an oceanfront luxury villa.

In front of a floor-to-ceiling window, the two of them were draped in bathrobes, their distorted, smug smiles reflected in glasses of red wine.

Staring at that picture, the tears wouldn't fall. Instead, I let out a laugh.

A laugh born from the absolute depths of despair.

Ethan, you just severed your mother's final lifeline with your own two hands.

I turned around and sank to my knees outside the operating room, clasping my hands together.

But I wasn't praying to any god.

I pulled out a backup phone and dialed a number I had kept hidden away for years.

"Professor Vance, I'm begging you. Please scrub in."

"Save my mother-in-law."

That was Professor Vance, the nation's foremost pioneer in cardiothoracic surgery, a legend who had retired his scalpel years ago.

He was also my mentor.

Ten minutes later, the roar of a helicopter echoed over the hospital's rooftop helipad.

The entire medical staff watched in utter shock.

They watched in awe as the living legend, flanked by an elite surgical team, stormed into the operating room.

The OR lights burned through the dark all night long.

And outside, I sat frozen like a stone statue.