20. Ethan
ETHAN
T he sky outside my apartment windows is beginning to pale, that slow bleed from indigo to gray that signals morning is on its way, but I’ve been here the whole night, pacing the same square footage like the walls might suddenly open up and give me more room to move.
I’ve made two cups of coffee and left both untouched.
I’ve taken a shower that did nothing to cool the heat still smoldering under my skin.
I haven’t called Ivy. Not because I don’t want to but because now I know too much.
The file Mason handed me sits on the kitchen table, thick and clinical, the paper worn at the edges from where I’ve flipped through it again and again.
He hadn’t said much when I got there—just slid the folder across the desk, cracked open a bottle of something dark and expensive, and sat back like he was waiting for the real reaction to hit.
“You’re gonna want to sit down,” he’d said. “Because this goes deep.”
And he wasn’t wrong.
Inside the folder were a series of spreadsheets, old insurance filings, flagged prescription logs, and an offshore holding account tied to a shell company registered under a subsidiary of Holt Enterprises.
The paper trail was fragmented, carefully constructed to evade scrutiny, but the pattern was there if you knew what to look for.
I’ve spent a decade working inside hospitals, seen the underbelly of the system up close—understaffed clinics pushed to the brink, drug reps offering incentives they shouldn’t, families handed bills for treatments that never should have been charged.
But this? This is something else entirely.
Three years ago, a small pharmaceutical firm called Auralis Therapeutics began pushing an experimental mood stabilizer under the guise of a research trial—approved for limited clinical use, but only under strict supervision.
The trial wasn’t public, the FDA filings were buried, but the kicker?
Auralis doesn’t exist anymore. It was dissolved eighteen months ago, just after several patients reported severe side effects that never made it into any official database.
And the signature on the paperwork authorizing the dissolution of the trial came from a man named Stuart Holt.
Daniel’s father.
The shell company, Garnett Biomedical Holdings, received quarterly “consulting” payments from Auralis before the shutdown.
Those payments were routed to properties across the northeast, including two in Valleria.
The names on those properties? One listed under Daniel Holt.
The other—quietly, discreetly—listed under someone who used to work for the Valleria General psych ward.
A woman I remember only because her resignation came the week after a minor scandal that never made the papers.
A patient had died.
It had been ruled natural causes. No autopsy. No inquiry. Just a closed file and a transferred nurse.
But I was there that day. I had just finished a consult on a cardiac patient when I passed the crash cart outside room 408.
The family was in the waiting room—silent, angry, confused.
The man who died had no history of mental health complications, only mild depression following the birth of his second child, and he’d been prescribed a new medication that no one had seen on formulary before.
Now, looking at this file, I realize what I saw was a test site. A trial gone wrong. A death that didn’t have to happen.
And Daniel? He was part of it.
Mason had looked me dead in the eye when I said the name out loud. “He’s not the brains, but he’s definitely the knife.”
I remember gripping the edge of that cheap laminate desk, feeling something cold spread in my chest, not fear, not even anger.
Just the knowledge that the man threatening Ivy had the reach and arrogance to play God with human lives.
That he’d been tied to something this dangerous, this criminal, and walked away without a scratch. Because the Holts always walk away.
But not this time.
The trick, Mason said, was proving intent.
The shell company was clean on paper. But there were witnesses.
One in particular—a nurse named Melinda Garrow.
She filed an internal complaint just days before she left her job at the hospital, but the document never made it into the system.
Mason found it buried in a secondary network drive, unsigned but timestamped.
The complaint described irregular dosages, falsified records, and pressure from higher-ups to ignore certain protocols.
It was enough to start building a case.
But it would take time.
What Mason didn’t know, what he didn’t say—because I didn’t tell him—was that Ivy had been dating Daniel at the time all of this was happening.
That she might have seen something. That she might have been silenced not just by manipulation, but by the knowledge of what he was capable of.
If Daniel was involved in running this trial under the table, if Ivy knew or suspected something, then she isn’t just a woman trying to escape an abusive relationship.
She’s a liability.
And that makes her even more of a target.
I scrub my hands over my face, the rough scrape of stubble grounding me in the moment.
Every part of me wants to call her. To warn her.
To tell her what I found. But if I do that now, if I make a move before I understand the full picture, I might send her running again.
Or worse, I might put her in more danger.
And I can’t do that. The kettle whistles sharply from the stove, but I ignore it. My phone buzzes on the counter and I cross the kitchen in two strides, snatching it up with a pulse that thuds harder than it should.
It’s a text from Mason.
Update. New name surfaced. Might be nothing. Might be our missing link. I’ll loop back after the Garrow interview. Sit tight.
I tap the message open, reread it, then tuck the phone into my back pocket as I walk to the window.
The city outside is waking slowly, streetlights still humming faintly as the first rush of early commuters starts to ripple through the avenues below.
But I’m not thinking about the hospital or the rounds I should be prepping for or even the patients I’ll see today.
I’m thinking about Ivy. About the girl who made me feel like the world could soften again. About the woman who walked into my life, cracked it open, and made me want to stay.
And I’m thinking about Daniel Holt, the man who’s about to learn what happens when he threatens the wrong person.
The sunlight creeps higher through the buildings, catching the edge of the window frame as my phone vibrates again. I expect it to be Mason, maybe more files, another breadcrumb to follow. But instead, it’s a photo. No message. Just the image.
I tap it open.
The photo is grainy, probably taken from a good distance through a lens meant for discretion, but I’d know her anywhere.
Ivy. Sitting alone at a café table, bundled in that soft gray coat she always wraps around herself like armor, one hand resting on a paper cup, the other cradling the small curve of her belly.
Her face is turned slightly, looking down, not smiling.
If anything, she looks worried and withdrawn.
Instinct tells me she isn’t there to just have a coffee or meet a friend.
But it’s not her that steals the air from my lungs.
It’s the man in the background.
Across the street, half-shielded by the awning of a bakery, stands Daniel Holt.
Black coat. Phone in hand. Watching her.
I don’t know how long the photo covers. It could have been seconds. Could have been half an hour. But the implication is clear.
He is watching her. In broad daylight. Within reach.
I’m already grabbing my keys before I realize I’m moving. The coffee I poured sits untouched on the counter, growing cold, forgotten. I text Mason one word—where—but he beats me to it with a follow-up.
He sends the café name, a timestamp, a location pin. It’s from this morning. Less than ten minutes ago.
I shove my phone in my jacket and slam the door behind me, the stairwell echoing with the sound of my boots as I take the steps two at a time.
The garage is still quiet when I pull the car out, but the engine roars awake with urgency I don’t try to contain.
I speed through the early morning haze, lights blurring past, the traffic just beginning to thicken as the city stirs to life.
I call her as I turn onto the main avenue. My thumb hovers over her name, and I press it without hesitation. The line rings once, and then it goes to voicemail.
A string of curses leaves my mouth as I hang up and try again, but it’s the same result.
My knuckles tighten around the wheel as I grip it harder, the city stretching out before me like a gauntlet I have to race through.
She is not answering. Which means something is wrong. Or something has already happened.
I pick up speed, driving as fast as I can. There’s only one thing on repeat in my brain. If Holt gets to her, then there are no more rules.
.