Chapter 2Never Beg Twice

Your reservation has been successfully cancelled.

The notification banner sat at the top of the glass screen like an obituary.

Tess tossed the phone back toward my chest. I caught it reflexively against my ribs.

"Done," she said, crossing her arms over her cashmere sweater. "Now grab an Uber back to the apartment, unpack, and act like a grown man for once."

Tyler stood beside her, grinning, hands shoved casually into the pockets of his tailored joggers. He looked at me the way an Ivy League frat president looks at a drunk freshman sleeping on the lawn—pure, triumphant contempt.

I unlocked the phone instantly, my thumb flying across the keyboard to check the seat map.

Gone. The seat had been claimed by the standby queue within four seconds. The next three non-stop flights to Sea-Tac were fully booked across all cabins. Even connecting flights through Minneapolis and Salt Lake City showed zero inventory until late tomorrow afternoon.

Still, I pulled up the alternative carriers—United, Alaska, American. I refreshed frantically, praying for a last-minute cancellation.

Tess stepped forward, grabbing my forearm with enough force to dig her manicured nails through my cotton shirt.

"Luke! It’s a three-day weekend! I told you, we’ll take a trip somewhere else next month! Stop staring at your damn phone and making a spectacle of yourself!"

Tyler didn't wait. He reached down and yanked my leather satchel off my shoulder, unzipping the front compartment before I could pull away. His fingers fished through the interior pockets and came out holding my Massachusetts driver’s license, my hospital credentials, and my emergency medical registry card.

He held them up like trophies between two fingers.

"Why are you wasting your breath negotiating with him, Tess?" Tyler chuckled, his eyes bright with malicious amusement. "Take his Real ID, snap it in half, and let’s see him get through TSA security. That ends the conversation right now."

Peyton and Danielle exchanged a brief, startled glance. Even for them, destroying state-issued identification in an international terminal was crossing a line.

I locked eyes with Tyler, every muscle in my jaw aching from tension.

"Tyler, you destroy my government ID, you deliberately disrupt an inter-state medical emergency. If that patient dies because you held me on this concourse, you are looking at reckless endangerment and involuntary manslaughter charges. Put it back."

Tyler threw his head back and laughed, an ugly, grating sound.

"Listen to the melodrama! A junior hospital grunt lecturing people about the penal code! You don’t give a shit about any patient, Luke. You’re using medical ethics as an excuse to control your girlfriend because your ego can’t handle the fact that she’d rather spend four days in the mountains with me." He turned to Tess, holding out the plastic cards. "Your boyfriend is a spineless hack, Tess. You really picked a winner."

I turned directly to Tess.

"Tell him to give them back, Tess. I’m warning you for the last time. This is not about us. This is about a human being bleeding out in an operating room three thousand miles away."

Tess stared at the plastic card in Tyler’s hand. For a heartbeat, something like shame flickered behind her pale eyes.

Then Tyler sighed heavily, shifting the cards back toward his own chest with a sigh.

"You know what? Forget it," Tyler said, turning his back to her. "You make the call, Tess. If you believe me, you break it and we go have the weekend we planned. If you believe this pathetic sob story, I’ll cancel my boarding pass right now. I’ll go home, and you two can sit in Terminal B and hold hands. Your choice."

It was the same manipulative ultimatum he had used throughout our entire relationship. At dinner parties, at ski trips, at alumni mixers—Tyler would push until he created a crisis, demand that Tess choose between his lifelong friendship and her romantic relationship, and Tess invariably capitulated, only to circle back to my apartment later with half-hearted apologies and takeout food.

She did it again.

Tess reached out, took my driver’s license from Tyler’s fingers, and gripped it with both hands. With a sharp, sudden crack, the laminated polycarbonate snapped down the middle.

She dropped the two jagged halves onto the carpet, right beside the torn boarding pass.

"Now you can’t clear security," Tess said, her chest heaving slightly, her voice strained. "Can you finally let this go and get the hell out of here?"

Tyler grinned behind her, puffing his chest out like a rooster that had just cleared the yard.

I looked down at the broken plastic, then looked straight into Tyler’s eyes.

"You made her press the final cancellation button on my phone," I said quietly, the words dropping like stones into cold water. "And just now, you handed her the card so her fingerprints would be on the break. You’re terrified of taking the legal hit yourself, so you’re setting her up to take the fall if Swedish Medical files a federal inquiry, aren't you?"

In my past life, I had been too frantic, too devastated by their cruelty to notice the cold calculation behind Tyler’s actions. I had spent months blaming my own failure to de-escalate the situation.

Not this time.

Tess’s eyebrows knitted together, a flicker of doubt crossing her forehead.

Tyler’s smirk vanished instantly, replaced by a blotchy, furious red.

"You miserable piece of shit!" Tyler hissed, stepping into my personal space until his spittle hit my cheek. "You trying to poison her against me now? I’ve known Tess since we were in kindergarten! Our families have shared a summer cabin on Lake Winnipesaukee for twenty-five years! Even if she marries you, you will never, ever come before me!"

Tess turned on me, her features hardening into disgust.

"Luke! Did I not warn you about trying to drive a wedge between Ty and me? One more word out of your mouth, and I swear to God—"

"Tyler isn't your friend, Tess," I cut her off, my voice steady, slicing through her rising pitch. "A man who spends this much energy sabotaging your partner’s professional career isn't a confidant. He’s an insecure third party masquerading as a best friend because he doesn't have the courage to ask you out himself. He’s the other man. Nothing more than a glorified parasite."

Tyler’s face went completely pale.

"Who the fuck are you calling the other man?" he snarled, his voice rising to a shout. "Tess, slap this arrogant bastard! Shut his mouth!"

Tess raised her hand, her palm flat, swinging toward my cheek.

Before the blow could land, my phone in my pocket erupted into a high-pitched, insistent chime.

The caller ID displayed the Seattle private dispatch line: HAWKINS DIRECT (206) 555-8888.

I caught Tess’s wrist mid-air, shoved her backward, and accepted the call, pressing the phone hard against my ear.

"Dr. Mitchell," a crisp, razor-sharp female voice cut through the line, completely devoid of small talk. "Our Gulfstream G650 has cleared the tarmac at the Signature Flight Support FBO on the north runway. An operations escort is waiting at the VIP security access door next to Gate B4. Move now."

Before I could acknowledge the directive, Tyler’s hand whipped around from my blind spot, snatching the phone from my ear.

He pressed the speakerphone icon and yelled into the mic:

"Who the hell is this? Which one of Luke’s cheap little side-pieces are you? How many times have you two hooked up behind Tess’s back, huh? No wonder this dog was so desperate to catch the flight to Seattle—he had a hotel room booked with you!"

Tess froze. Her gaze swept over me, her eyes widening with a sudden, venomous clarity.

She believed him. Instantly, without a single shred of hesitation, she believed every word that came out of Tyler’s mouth.

On the other end of the line, the terminal noise seemed to vanish into an arctic silence.

Two seconds passed. When the woman spoke again, her voice carried the terrifying, frictionless authority of generational wealth.

"I don't know who you are," Victoria Hawkins said softly. "But if you delay Dr. Mitchell from boarding my aircraft for one more minute, I will dismantle your family’s entire life."