Chapter 3Operation Ruin My Unfaithful Wife

The murmurs among the hospital staff grew louder, the whispers turning into outright speculation.

"Why is she guarding the room like that?"

"Do you think she actually is the one stealing the equipment? Is she fencing it?"

Gary and Donna grabbed Giselle’s arms, trying to pull her away from the door. "Come on, let's go. We brought you lunch," Gary muttered.

But Giselle planted her feet, immovable. Her eyes darted wildly around the room behind her. "No. Mom, Dad, go home. I have... I have administrative things to finish here."

Donna yanked harder. "What is more important than your health? Get away from these gawkers and come eat!"

"I am not leaving!" Giselle screamed, her voice echoing off the linoleum, sharp and hysterical.

The entire corridor went dead silent. Even Donna stepped back, stunned. Everyone knew, in that exact moment, that something was horribly wrong.

And then, the crowd parted.

My mother, Dr. Evelyn Foster, Chief of Staff, walked through the corridor. She moved with the quiet, devastating authority of a woman who held hundreds of careers in the palm of her hand.

"Why is my surgical wing blocked?" she asked, her tone conversational but laced with absolute zero chill. "Has everyone forgotten we have patients?"

Giselle seemed to shrink three inches. "Dr... Dr. Foster."

My mother ignored her entirely, turning her sharp gaze to Dr. Aris. "Report."

Aris quickly and quietly summarized the security code, the broken door, and Giselle’s erratic behavior. As he spoke, my mother’s expression darkened, the planes of her face settling into something glacial.

She turned to Giselle. Every word she spoke was a meticulously placed strike.

"Giselle," my mother said softly. "Look me in the eye and tell me there isn't someone hiding in my operating room."

A bead of sweat tracked down the side of Giselle's face. She let out a strained, unnatural laugh. "Evelyn, please. That's ridiculous. I was just... I was exhausted. I took twenty minutes between surgeries to close my eyes."

Donna, ever the defensive bulldog, stepped between them. "Now listen here, Evelyn. Don't you go listening to whatever crazy lies Cam is spinning. You know how hard my Giselle works! She's saving lives every day, she's so tired she barely comes home to your son! Is it a crime to take a nap?"

Donna shot me a desperate, heavy-lidded glare, practically begging me to play along and de-escalate.

My mother didn't blink. "If the room is empty, then step aside. Let security clear it. The safety of hospital inventory is non-negotiable."

It wasn't a request.

Giselle looked at me. For the first time in five years, the superiority in her eyes was gone, replaced by a naked, pathetic plea. She mouthed the word: Please, Cam.

I didn't hesitate. I shoved past her and kicked the already-broken door wide open.

The OR was a disaster zone. I stared at the wreckage, my voice echoing off the sterile tiles.

"You took off your underwear to take a nap?" I asked, pointing to the lacy scrap of fabric kicked beneath a surgical stool. "You put your scrubs on inside out? And you took a nap surrounded by... what exactly is this?"

The staff crowded the doorway. Gasps rang out. Scattered across the floor were half a dozen torn wrappers for ultrasound probe covers. Mixed in with them were crumpled wads of sterile gauze, soaked in fluids that didn't come from a surgery.

Giselle shuffled forward, her face the color of ash, trying to kick a wrapper under a cart. "This... this is just medical waste from the last procedure. The janitorial staff hasn't come yet."

I ignored her pathetic lie. My eyes locked onto the massive, stainless steel sterile supply cabinet in the corner. It was big enough to hold a person.

As I walked toward it, Giselle lunged at me, grabbing my waist. "Cam, stop! What are you doing?!" she screamed. "Those are imported sterile instruments! If you open that door, you contaminate everything! You can't take that responsibility!"

The more frantic she became, the colder I felt.

"Do whatever you need to do, Camden," my mother's voice rang out from the doorway, steady as a rock. "I will handle the fallout."

I grabbed a heavy IV pole and swung it like a baseball bat directly into the glass doors of the sterile cabinet.

The glass shattered into a thousand glittering pieces. Trays of expensive surgical instruments crashed to the floor with a deafening metallic clatter.

The cabinet was empty.

Instantly, Giselle’s posture shifted. The terror vanished, replaced by a surge of indignant, righteous fury.

"I told you!" she shrieked, pointing at the wreckage. "I told you I was just sleeping! But you have to be a paranoid psychopath! You just destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment! Are you happy now?"

Donna immediately piled on. "Look at the son you raised, Evelyn! Throwing a psychotic tantrum in public!"

Gary puffed up his chest, stepping toward me aggressively. "Giselle breaks her back every day, and instead of taking care of her, you throw dirt on her name? How is she supposed to show her face in this hospital after her own husband humiliated her like this?"