Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
MICHAEL
I glanced at my watch to find that it was nearly the end of his shift.
I had about a minute before Adnan Ziani stepped into his office to find me sitting in the dark at his desk, legs crossed and casually propped up on the hard surface, completely unaware of what awaited him.
Just as I’d anticipated, the wooden door creaked open. Without missing a beat, I reached over and flicked on the small lamp standing next to his computer. The small bulb flared to life, basking the room with a sickly yellow glow.
Ziani recoiled at the sudden light, a hand instinctively flying to his chest. He looked up, his gaze finding mine. When he realized who I was, he exhaled a small sigh of relief before confusion took its place on his features.
“What are you doing in my office?” he asked, with a strained smile. The kind that didn’t reach his eyes like it usually did.
I swung my legs off the desk and slowly stood, my knuckles pressing onto the cool wooden surface as I leaned forward, fixing him with an unwavering gaze. “I’m so glad you asked, Adnan.”
He was clearly caught off guard by my use of his first name, his eyes widening just a fraction. Although we had a good professional rapport, I’d never referred to him as anything other than Mr. Ziani. But I didn’t really have time for pleasantries, it was easier to set the tone straight away.
It had been a while since I’d had to blackmail anyone, since I’d stopped doing it the day I’d finished medical school. But I hadn’t forgotten how satisfying it was to watch someone act completely clueless when they were anything but innocent. To watch them scramble their way out of a trap they’d set for themselves.
After being unsuccessful in finding information on his private computer at home, I’d turned my attention to the next place he spent the majority of his time.
Here.
Only to find that the evidence I’d been searching for had been right in front of me all along.
I’d spent the past month after the call between Nyx and Ziani combing through every file at the hospital that involved the use of NyxMedica’s devices. I read countless operative reports, clinical notes, and progress notes from the nurses, comparing the events and trying to find discrepancies.
Anything that might stand out.
At first, it seemed like there wasn’t anything that could be useful to me, until I came across one operative note that unraveled everything I’d found after.
Adnan shifted his weight, pushing his glasses up and rubbing his eyes together, before looking at me again. “It’s late,” he said, forcing another smile. “I really think it’d be best if you went home,” he added, hoping that would effectively dismiss me.
“Sure, I’ll go home, right after we have our little chat. Why don’t you take a seat?”
He readjusted his glasses back in place, clearly rattled by my sudden lack of diplomacy. “As I recall, this happens to be my office,” he said, attempting to reclaim some semblance of authority, but it didn’t erase the flicker of doubt in his voice.
“Not for long,” I said, gesturing at the seat in front of his desk. “Now, take a seat. I think you’ll really want to hear what I have to say.”
I settled in his seat again, leaning back and propping my arm against the armrest. There was a long, tense moment where he stood, his fingers fidgeting with his glasses as he weighed his options. I kept my gaze fixated on him, waiting, until eventually he sat down across from me, sinking into one of the leather chairs with a resigned sigh.
“What’s so important that you’re practically holding me hostage?” he asked, his collected demeanor cracking, his irritation creeping in despite his best attempt to stay composed.
Instead of answering, I reached over and rotated his computer screen toward him.
“What’s this?” he asked as he leaned forward and pushed his glasses up his nose, squinting to get a better look. As his eyes skimmed over the screen, I watched his pupils contract ever so slightly when he realized what it was, but he quickly schooled his features back.
Just not quickly enough for it to go unnoticed by me.
“Patients records,” I said, coolly.
His face twitched slightly, the blood increasingly draining from his features.“I don’t understand why you’re showing me confidential information,” he stammered, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice, betraying him.
I held his gaze, unwavering. “I think we can both do each other a favor and stop pretending by dragging this charade of yours out.”
An unnerving silence cloaked the room as he wrung his fingers together. I could hear the cogs turning in his mind, desperately trying to formulate some viable excuse to get himself out of this.
But before he could speak, I cut him off. It was rather late, as he’d pointed out a few minutes ago, and I had no intention of wasting any more time.
“Since you’re still struggling to come up with a lie, let me save you the trouble,” I said, my voice cold and deliberate. “I know you’ve been falsifying reports for NyxMedica so they wouldn’t lose their UKCA mark. They’ve been paying you handsomely in exchange for this hospital to push and endorse their devices.”
I paused and watched him squirm as I braced myself against the desk. “You’ve been altering patients' records by adding the use of NyxMedica’s devices into procedures when it wasn’t the case to improve their success rate, overriding access logs and making sure your name never appeared in any of the notes once you’d made your ‘adjustments’.”
He looked at me, eyes wide in shock, clearly not having expected for me to have unearthed all of this.
From what I’d gathered on him, Adnan Ziani was a typical sixty-three year old man who’d come from a regular background and had worked as a doctor for most of his life. And surprisingly, for a while, he’d done an impressive job of covering his tracks.
Initially, despite the discrepancies between the reports, I couldn’t find anything that directly linked him to the changes. Until I’d slipped into his office during an on call shift and logged onto his computer.
Although he’d managed to stay under the radar, he was still an ordinary man because when his desktop lit up, I’d found a draft of a patient’s note he was in the middle of editing.
From there, I’d installed a surveillance chip I’d acquired from the dark web. It recorded every time he accessed files under another doctor’s name and made changes to already approved notes. It also turned on his webcam to capture him doing it.
I’d collected enough over the last week to use for blackmail. And I knew he’d confess to every other time as well once I came head to head with him.
“This,” I said, holding up a small USB key, “contains every altered patient file you’ve meddled with.”
Ziani’s mouth opened as if to speak, but no words came out so I continued.
“While this,” I paused, grabbing a manila folder I’d stored to the side and placed it in front of him, “has all of the statements for the bank account you opened in your son’s name.”
His brows furrowed, and I could see him trying to process how I could have uncovered that.
I’d run a thorough check on Ziani’s finances, but couldn’t find large sum deposits or glaring red flags that would indicate the money he’d received in exchange for this scheme they were running.
That’s when I dug further and began investigating his family—his sixteen year old son, Zayd, and his thirty-one year old daughter, and the woman I still hadn’t managed to get out of my head, Azara.
Nothing on her end came out of the ordinary, which didn’t surprise me. I’d been wrong about him, but I knew she had nothing to do with her father’s deceit.
At least I’d hoped so.
Although nothing came up for his daughter, I’d come across a second bank account for his son where weekly deposits from NyxMedica were made and they’d dated as far back as when he was a toddler. Which was quite odd since Ziani’s teenage son clearly wasn’t an employee of the company, and certainly not when he was child.
Despite the curiosity, I hadn’t cared to dig into why he’d been receiving money from Arthur for so long. My only focus was on if it tied to this hospital and how it could benefit me getting what I wanted. The rest wasn’t important.
Adnan’s face grew ashen as the weight of what I’d just confronted him with sank in. I could practically see the shift in him, the realization that his entire web of lies was about to come crashing down, washing over him.
“Since there’s no point in you denying any of this, here are your options. You’ll either resign as medical director and from your position on AGH’s board, or this all becomes public.”
I leaned forward, locking eyes with him.
“The choice is yours.”