Chapter 2

On the drive home, I leaned against the window and let the wind dry the dampness at the corners of my eyes.

Daniel noticed. He reached over and squeezed my hand.

I shook my head — I'm okay.

Then the car lurched.

Thud.

The seatbelt yanked me back hard. Leo started to wail in his booster seat.

I fumbled with my belt and spun around to reach him.

"It's okay, baby, Mommy's here."

I looked up through the windshield.

A black Bentley was angled across the road in front of us. The same one that was supposed to still be parked outside our building.

Ethan pushed the driver's door open and got out. Whatever he'd been about to say died in his throat when he saw Leo shaking in my arms.

"Anna, I was just trying to stop you. I wasn't—"

I cut him off and looked straight at Daniel.

"Home. Now."

Daniel's jaw tightened. He cranked the wheel and eased us around the Bentley, one tire scraping against the curb.

In the rearview mirror I saw Ethan take a few stumbling steps after us. His voice came through the glass, torn ragged by the wind.

"Anna! At least tell me — is Dad okay?"

I closed my eyes.

I couldn't believe he had the nerve to ask me that.

When we pulled into the garage, I scooped Leo up and headed for the elevator.

Daniel parked the car but didn't get out.

"What's wrong?" I turned back.

He hesitated, then said it quietly.

"The hospital called me this morning. They want me to take some time off. Pull me off the rotation for a while."

Suspended.

I frowned.

Daniel wasn't the flashiest doctor on the team, but he was solid. Steady. In all the years he'd been there, there had never been a single complaint against him.

Which meant only one thing.

"The chief said I must have gotten on somebody's bad side," he added.

There was only one person that could be.

Ethan.

Nobody else would think to use something this petty to pressure me into giving in.

At home, after Leo was down for his nap, Daniel was still sitting on the couch, shoulders hunched.

I sat next to him. He pulled me into his arms and held on hard.

"Anna..."

His voice caught.

"I can't even imagine what those years with a brother like that were like for you."

Those years.

Honestly, a lot of it had gone blurry.

"I'm sorry he's dragging you into it."

Daniel shook his head.

"Don't be. Honestly? This just made up my mind. A friend of mine has been trying to get me into his private practice for years. I kept hesitating because the hospital felt safer. Not anymore."

He squeezed my hand.

"Anna, from here on out, we take care of our own. Just us."

I didn't say anything. I just leaned into his shoulder.

The next day was the anniversary of my father's death.

The students he had mentored and quietly supported over the years all came. The headstone was buried in flowers by late afternoon.

That evening I booked a private room at The Old Oak Tavern, the place Dad had loved for years, and we all had dinner together.

A few glasses in, the tension loosened.

Lauren, who'd been Dad's first protégée, finally set her wineglass down and looked at me.

"Anna. I have to tell you something."

"Ethan came back to the States last month. He couldn't find you. He reached out to me through the alumni association."

"Your number. He got it from me."

She barely finished before Connor slammed his glass down on the table.

"You gave it to him?"

"Don't you know he's the last person Anna and the professor ever wanted to see?"

Lauren grabbed his sleeve to shut him up, but Connor was already on a roll.

"I'm going to say it!"

"Back then, the professor skipped meals to keep him in that medical school. Anna dropped out of school to work so she could help send him tuition. She broke her back for years. Years."

"And what did he do? He turned around and got himself tangled up with the daughter of the man who destroyed his father. The professor's life was literally taken from him by what that boy did!"

The table went quiet. Every eye was on me.

I didn't say anything.

I just tightened my grip on the wineglass.

Finally, I shook my head.

"It's fine. Some people aren't worth the grief. That's what Dad always said."

Some kids come into the world just to collect a debt from you, my father had told me once, at the very end.

It's okay. You just walk away, and it's done.

As for everything Ethan had done —

It had been so long I could hardly remember it clearly anymore.

All I remembered was the beginning.

A woman named Vivienne.