1. Emma #4
She barrels straight over me. “Papá agrees with me, even if he won’t say it, and Ana naively believes the hospital will protect him, which is adorable considering they’re already sent him home?—”
“Sofia.”
This time, I put enough steel into her name to stop her.
The line goes quiet.
“What?” she asks.
“Stop spiraling for one second.”
“I am restrained. You should hear me when I’m not.”
More paper snaps through the speaker.
She takes a calming breath. “The complaint came through this afternoon while he was driving back to Pinehaven. The hospital has already put him on unpaid leave. Suspended him, basically. Guilty until proven innocent.”
My stomach tightens.
“They’re reviewing his privileges now, and the medical board could suspend his license while they investigate.”
The complaint arriving after Luis came here looking for me.
I stop hearing anything else.
A doctor doesn’t have to be found guilty for his life to unravel. A complaint can drag him through hearings, strip away his patients, drain his savings, and leave his name tied to the word malpractice every time someone searches for him.
The black card Alex gave me lies on the nightstand beside a crumpled grocery receipt.
“Where is Luis?”
“Back home now. Mama has him under casserole surveillance.” The rustling stops. When Sofia speaks again, the words come slower. “He hasn’t eaten.”
I close my fingers around the edge of the comforter. This is a disaster.
“Luis never skips food unless he thinks the world is ending,” she adds.
“Does Carlos know?”
“Everyone knows. All of Pinehaven knows.”
Of course, they do. Nothing stays a secret in our small town; it is a miracle I got to keep mine.
“What does the patient’s family want?”
“More money than we could find if we sold everything my parents own twice.” Her breath trembles, though she tries to hide it. “The insurance company went from ‘we’ll handle it’ to ‘settlement posture’ after a single phone call from those lawyers.”
“This could ruin him.”
“It could end his career before it properly begins.”
The silence stretches between us.
Luis, who drove all the way to Dallas because he thought I might need help. My friend, who waited downstairs while Alex came home early to send him away. The pieces begin fitting together, and I hate the picture they make.
Sofia clears her throat. “We’re all writing character references. Apparently, they might help with the medical board.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“You were going to ask me to write one.”
“Well, yes.” A little of her usual brightness returns, but it sounds stretched thin. “You and Liam have both been his patients. A letter from someone outside the family might carry more weight than his mother and sisters standing in front of a panel of ancient men and insisting he’s a good boy.”
“You don’t have to convince me.”
“I’m going around town collecting whatever I can. Patients, families, anyone willing to say what kind of doctor he is.”
“I’ll send mine tonight.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll do more than that.”
Silence.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“Let me see what I can find out.”
“Em, I don’t need you to fix it.”
“I might be able to help.”
“No.” The word is gentle but firm. “All I needed was for you to listen. I know I sound chipper, but that’s how I’m processing this. I’m going to make jokes until my brain stops trying to crawl out through my ears.”
My throat tightens.
“I’m scared for him,” she admits. “Really scared.”
“What can I do?”
She probably thinks I cannot do anything, but I know I’m the only one who can. Because I caused this.
“Nothing. God, I’m venting. I wanted you to know what’s happening, not manage it.”
“Sofia.”
“Emma.” Her voice softens. “Come home when you can.”
Home.
The word presses into a place that already hurts.
“We really do miss you. Everything’s been a mess since you left.” Sophia sighs. “I have to go back to New York soon. I need to make some decisions. Figure out whether I’m renewing my lease.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. With everything happening, I think they need me here.”
I sit straighter. “What else is going on?”
“Maria and Roman borrowed more than they can afford to pay back. They thought expanding the restaurant was the right move, but Mom and Dad think they rushed into it. That they should’ve waited.
” Her voice dips. “Then the interest rate went up, business slowed down, and now the bank is starting to close in.”
Guilt strikes hard and fast.
I came to Dallas so Alex would leave the Moralez family alone. Somehow, everything back home is still falling apart.
“Me leaving didn’t help.”
“No. Don’t do that.” Sophia exhales. “It isn’t because of you.
It all just happened at once, you know? You left, then Fiona had to go.
Maria lost two people she relied on right when the restaurant needed every dollar it could bring in.
Luis has his own disaster now, and everyone’s stretched too thin to help anyone else. ”
“So you’re giving up New York.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re thinking about it.”
A pause answers for her.
“I can always go back later,” she says.
The words sound too familiar. The same promise I’ve made every time life asked me to put my own plans aside.
“It’ll get sorted,” I tell her, promising nothing while taking all of it onto my shoulders.
“Since when does anything in Pinehaven get sorted?”
She says it warmly, like a joke.
She is wrong.
A shout sounds in the background.
“That’s Maria. I have to go rescue her before she attacks someone with a ladle.”
The call ends.
I remain on the bed, staring at my reflection in the dark window. The locket chain catches the light, a thin gold line across my throat.
Luis had come here to see me.
Alex had intercepted him.
Now a Dallas firm was turning a tragedy into a threat against his license.
It has to be Alex.
He told me I wasn’t allowed friends. Told me he would remove anyone who became a distraction.
Had this been what he meant?
Did he decide Luis deserved to lose his career because he drove across Texas to check on me?
My gaze drops to the black card on the nightstand. Perhaps Alex believes the punishment fits the crime. But Luis’s only crime was caring whether I was safe. And if Alex did this because of me, then I have already destroyed another innocent person simply by letting him stand too close.
Alex is in his home office.
The one with the glass desk and the wall of windows that makes the rest of Dallas look small enough to hold in his palm.
He sits behind his laptop with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and his tie loosened at the throat. His fingers move steadily over the keys.
He doesn’t look up when I stop in the doorway.
“Luis Moralez.”
His hands keep moving.
“The malpractice investigation.” I grip the doorframe. “That is your doing.”
His fingers go still.
For three long seconds, he gives me nothing. Then he closes the laptop with exaggerated care and settles back in his chair.
He still doesn’t look at me.
“Stop it.”
His gaze lifts at last. Gray eyes catch the lamplight, flat and cold. “Stop what, exactly?”
“You know what.”
Alex rises.
The movement is unhurried, every inch of him controlled, but something coils beneath the surface. Something dangerous enough to shorten my next breath.
He rounds the desk and leans against its glass edge, folding his arms across his chest. His shirt tightens over his shoulders. The open collar exposes the hollow at the base of his throat.
My eyes catch there before I drag them back to his face.
I hate that I notice.
I hate even more that after everything he has done, my body still remembers him before it remembers to be afraid.
“Luis is being sued,” I say again, forcing each word through my tightening throat.
“Doctors get sued.” One shoulder lifts in a careless shrug, as if a man’s career isn’t collapsing beneath the weight of his attention.
“Whatever you think you’re punishing him for. He didn’t do anything.”
“He came to see you today.”
My pulse kicks.
“He was worried about me. That’s what friends do.”
“Friends.” Alex tilts his head, studying me. “Is that what you call a man who puts aside his own problems and drives three hours to make sure you’re settling in?”
“Yes.”
“I told you not to entertain guests.” His expression hardens. “He’s been coming here for three days, trying to get past the front doors. Today, he finally managed it.”
The words knock the breath from me.
Three days.
Luis has been driving here every day because I stopped answering his texts and ignored his calls. Because he believed something was wrong and no one else knew enough to stop him.
Sofia certainly hadn’t known. She would have mentioned it.
Oh, Luis. What have you done?
He walked straight into Alex’s line of sight and painted a target across his own back.
For me.
I’m not worth it.
“Did you call him?” Alex asks. “Ask him to come rescue you from the monster keeping you captive?”
“I didn’t call him.” My voice comes out thin. I clear my throat and try again. “I didn’t even know he was here.”
His eyes narrow. “Did you think that because I’m rarely home, I wouldn’t find out?”
“I didn’t invite him. I haven’t spoken to him about coming here.”
“But he came anyway.”
“Because he was worried.”
“About you.”
The possession beneath the words raises the hairs along my arms.
“Yes,” I say. “That family cares about me.”
“Mine cared about you too.” The bitterness in his voice cuts through the room. “Look where that got us.”
He might as well have struck me.
The guilt is already there, festering beneath everything I do. Danny’s scars. Thomas’s grave. Maggie losing her husband. Alex losing his father.
Now the Moralez family is crumbling too. All because they made the mistake of caring about me.
Alex unfolds his arms. “I think you’ve forgotten your position here.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything.”
“Then start acting like it.” He pushes away from the desk. “You’re here because I’m financing your brother’s future. Because the alternative is watching the Moralez family lose everything they’ve spent their lives building.”