Chapter 3Never Beg Twice

Tyler erupted into hysterical, theatrical laughter, clutching his stomach as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.

He pointed a finger directly between my eyes.

"Listen to this! You hear this, Tess? The guy who called me a homewrecker has an escort on speed dial playing tough guy on the phone! 'Dismantle your family’s life!' Who talks like that? Did you hire an off-Broadway actress to read lines for you, Luke?"

I looked at him without blinking.

"Ms. Hawkins is Arthur Hawkins’s daughter and chief operating officer of Hawkins Global. She does not bluff. She can, and will, wipe out your father’s logistics firm by tomorrow afternoon."

Tyler’s laughter grew louder, more frantic, bouncing off the gate walls. He turned and threw an arm around Tess’s shoulder, shaking his head.

"Tess, you need to call a psychiatric ward. Your boyfriend has completely detached from reality. He’s having a full-blown psychotic break to cover up an affair! Man, I feel so bad for you. You gave this guy everything."

Danielle folded her arms, shaking her head in disgust.

"Honestly, Tess, look at him. If we hadn't bumped into him at the terminal, he’d be sleeping with some Seattle call girl by midnight. Are you really going to let him stand here and humiliate you like this?"

Tess’s face was twisted with fury, her jaw trembling.

"Ms. Hawkins is the patient’s family," I said, trying to reach for my device. "Give me the phone back, Tyler. The jet is waiting."

Before I could close my fingers around the casing, Tess lunged.

She ripped the phone straight out of Tyler’s hand, raised it above her head, and slammed it down with all her strength against the granite flooring.

CRACK.

The OLED screen shattered into an intricate web of dead pixels and white lines. The casing split open along the seam.

"You bastard!" Tess’s voice cracked, tears of rage brimming in her eyes. "I supported you through two years of surgical fellowship! I let you sleep through our anniversaries! And you’re flying across the country to fuck someone else? Tell me the truth, Luke! When did it start? How many weekends did you spend with her?"

My hands shook, not from fear, but from the terrifying realization of how deep their delusion went.

"There is no affair!" I shouted, the noise around us dropping into dead silence as other travelers stopped to watch. "I am a liver and biliary specialist! A man is dying! Stop touching my property!"

I dropped to one knee, reaching out to collect the broken phone to retrieve the SIM card.

A heavy leather boot crashed down onto the back of my right hand.

The sole of Tyler’s designer wingtips ground hard into my metacarpal bones, grinding the skin against the cold stone floor. A sharp, blinding pain shot straight up my forearm.

"Tess is my sister, you piece of garbage," Tyler snarled, putting his full weight onto my hand. "You think you can cheat on her and just walk away? Not on my watch."

My right hand. My dominant operating hand. The fingers I needed to manipulate the micro-forceps and catheter wires.

Adrenaline surged through my veins. With a feral roar, I twisted my left arm around, slamming my shoulder into Tyler’s knee. He stumbled back with a curse, releasing the pressure on my fingers.

I grabbed the broken chassis of my phone and pushed myself up from the floor.

Tyler didn't stop. Stepping forward with the momentum of his recovery, he threw a closed-fist right hook directly into the bridge of my nose.

The sound was like dry kindling snapping under a boot.

Blood flooded down into my mouth, warm, metallic, and choking. My vision blurred behind a bright flash of white stars.

"You want to hit back, doctor?" Tyler yelled, swinging a wild left that caught me across the cheekbone, splitting the skin under my eye. "Let’s see if your little Seattle bitch wants you when your face looks like roadkill!"

I stumbled backward, my shoulders hitting the departure board frame.

Through the haze of blood and tears, I looked toward Tess.

She was standing three feet away. Her arms were crossed over her chest. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of shock crossed her features—then it smoothed out into a cold, self-righteous mask. She didn't move an inch to stop him. She watched me bleed with the passive cruelty of someone observing a stray animal being disciplined.

Tyler lunged again, landing two more heavy, clumsy blows to my ribs. I collapsed onto my side, coughing up blood, my satchel slipping from my shoulder and spilling onto the floor.

Beside my hand lay the secondary aluminum medical case—the sealed, temperature-controlled container holding the custom-molded biliary stents and micro-guidewires I had personally prepped at Mass General’s lab that morning.

Tyler’s eyes zeroed in on the brushed-metal lockbox.

A vicious, predatory grin spread across his face.

"What do we have here?" Tyler said, stepping over my legs and picking up the case by its steel handle. "The sex toys you packed for the weekend? What’s inside, Luke? You like getting tied up in hotel rooms while Tess pays your rent?"

He hoisted the case high above his shoulders.

My heart stopped.

"Don't!" The scream tore from my throat, raw and panicked. "Tyler, don't drop that! Those are custom-molded stents! If you break the sterile seals or crack the alloy cores, they can’t be used! It takes forty-eight hours to re-fabricate them!"

Tyler sneered, his eyes dancing with spite.

"Keep crying, Luke. Let’s show the whole airport what kind of dirty freak you really are."