Chapter 9
NINE
THE VILLA
Dinner arrived with a knock at the side door, soft and unassuming.
Ford answered it himself. The cook from the orphanage stood there with a woven basket and a shy smile, murmuring a greeting before retreating down the path.
Inside the basket were covered dishes still warm—spiced rice, roasted vegetables, flatbread brushed with oil, and grilled fish wrapped in banana leaves.
Simple. Careful. Made by hands that fed many.
“Dinner is served.”
“Smells delicious.”
“Well, if we die of food poisoning, you can blame your cook,” he teased.
Something in her chest eased at that.
He set the food out on the table without ceremony. No candles. No forced elegance. When she hesitated near the counter, he reached into the cabinet and pulled down a bottle.
“I have white wine,” he said. “And tea. And whatever you need to call a truce with the day.”
She considered him for a beat. “One glass.”
He uncorked it and poured carefully, less than a full measure, and handed it to her without comment. They sat.
At first, they ate in companionable silence, the kind that didn’t press for explanation. The sea breathed beyond the terrace. The night insects filled the spaces words didn’t need to.
Ford didn’t interrogate. He never led with the hard questions. He asked about the food, the children, about how the clinic ran when the power flickered and when it didn’t. He asked how she decided who got the extra bread when supplies ran thin. He asked what the garden grew best after rain.
And because he didn’t ask like someone collecting data, she answered. The rhythm was easy and unforced—the kind of conversation that didn’t rush to conclusions.
Eira broke first. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. Technically.”
Ford looked up, expression neutral. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” she replied. “And you already saw enough today that pretending otherwise feels dishonest.”
She set her fork down and folded her hands together, knuckles faintly white. “The respiratory precautions. I have a patient who has severe pneumonia caused by Flu A and Flu B.”
Ford’s gaze sharpened attentively.
“And the man you helped earlier,” she continued, voice steady but lower now, “he has the same type of Flu A.” She exhaled slowly. “I don’t like coincidences.”
“Neither do I.” Ford shook his head. “That strain is running in Eastern Europe.” He chuckled.
“Some of my personnel were down with it. It was the crisis I was handling when I collapsed. I went down in epic form—gold medal-worthy. I was with both Chase brothers and my immediate supervisor. No being discreet happened there.”
Eira laughed. “I don’t know. Heatstroke wasn’t a minor fall.”
He laughed. “You’re right.
“So,” he set his glass down, “this patient you mentioned earlier. Where’d he come from?”
Eira traced the rim of her glass with her thumb. “Tevenne by way of Bulgaria a week ago.”
Ford’s expression didn’t change, but his attention sharpened. “That resort island across the way?”
“It calls itself a wellness retreat.”
That got a faint reaction.
“He’s part of their security detail,” she continued. “Collapsed during rounds. High fever, disorientation. It looks like flu, but it’s… off.”
“Off how?”
“Too fast,” she said. “And the way it’s presenting. His lungs are already tightening.”
“That’s how it presented to our personnel. It hit their living quarters within a day and got very serious in two.” Ford leaned back slightly. “Who’s handling medical over there?”
“Dr. William Blake.”
“And you’ve worked with him before,” Ford said. Not a question.
Eira let out a breath. “A few times.”
“And?”
She glanced out toward the water, then back at him. “He’s controlled. Very precise. Everything is about risk, liability, outcomes.”
Ford watched her carefully. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“It isn’t,” she said.
“What’s the problem?”
Eira hesitated. “He doesn’t see patients the way I do. He sees variables. If something fits cleanly, he handles it. If it doesn’t…” She stopped.
“He distances,” Ford finished.
Eira met his eyes. “Yes. These flu patients are already outside the clean lines. No assigned physician. Observation under security protocols. Incomplete charts.”
“That’s sloppy.”
“It’s not sloppy. It’s intentional.”
Ford’s brows crinkled. “Why?”
“Because most of the staff, if not all, aren’t permanent,” she said. “They’re on short-term travel contracts. Eight weeks, maybe less. They rotate in, rotate out.”
“So, no continuity.”
“No accountability,” Eira said.
Ford considered that. “And Blake?”
“He stays,” she said. “He controls the system.”
A breeze moved through the open space between them. Ford leaned forward. “You trust your instincts on this?
Eira didn’t hesitate. “I don’t think Tevenne is what it says it is.”
Ford held her gaze. “How does Chase manifest itself in the clinic?”
“It belongs to Kieran.” She thought a moment.
“Chase operates the clinic, hospital, and orphanage through the Chase Foundation, but it’s not just money.
Volunteers rotate in and out—doctors, nurses, medical technicians, logistics, engineers.
It’s run under the radar. No press. No branding.
No signage. He makes sure we get people who know how to work without an audience. ”
A corner of Ford’s mouth lifted faintly. “That tracks.”
“We don’t get told who’s coming until they’re cleared through him. And I don’t ask why someone volunteers to disappear for at least eight weeks at a time.” She met his eyes. “But we know what kind of people show up. Most need a break.”
Ford took another sip of wine, buying her time. “You run this like a military operation, but you live in it.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “Because if I don’t, it collapses.”
He studied her momentarily, then asked the question he’d been circling all evening. “Why was Ian looking for you?”
She leaned back in her chair, eyes on the dark water beyond the terrace. “Because I vanished. And because I scared my brother badly enough that he asked Ian to find me when I wouldn’t answer him anymore.”
Ford stilled. “Your brother,” he repeated.
She nodded but didn’t offer more. “He and Ian are longtime friends; he’s twenty years older than me,” she continued.
“He raised me more than anyone else did. My mother knew how to make a baby but had no desire to mother. When I deployed, I did it to be like him. I was working for an NGO. I told him I’d be fine.
When I wasn’t… I didn’t tell him anything at all. ”
She swallowed.
“You’re sure you never met Hunter Montgomery at Chase Medical? I think you’d like him. He goes back a lifetime with Ian.”
“No. Maybe, my next check-in with Pete Walter, he can arrange a video call.”
“Why did you run?”
“An IED detonated beneath the second truck in a three-truck convoy. A doctor, Jonah, was in the second vehicle. He was quiet, too brilliant for words, and infuriatingly steady. I loved him.”
Ford reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. She rolled her palm and interlocked her fingers with his.
“I found him beneath twisted steel. Too late. The soldiers said it was quick, but I saw the blood pattern. The angle. I wasn’t fast enough getting to him.”
Ford continued to listen, letting her be.
“I kept working like that was normal. When I finally stopped moving, I didn’t know how to go home without breaking irreparably. How was I supposed to work? I was walking into walls.
“Chase Security got me out. When we landed to change flights in India, I disappeared in Mumbai. No one thought I’d leave all my belongings and run.”
“I’m sure that team was retrained.” His brow rose.
Eira smiled. “For the next year, I worked in clinics where no one knew my name. I became Dr. Eira. Ian found me in the middle of a monsoon and didn’t ask me to explain myself. He just said, ‘You don’t get to bleed out slowly.’”
Her lips curved faintly at the memory. “Kasavoa was his solution. And soon it was mine.”
Ford leaned back, absorbing it all. “So, when you say something’s wrong, Ian listens because he knows what it costs you to say it.”
“Yes.”
“And Chase International keeps this place running,” he added, “because people like Kieran understand what it’s for.” Ford’s eyes held hers. “Thank you for trusting me with that.”
She looked at him, surprised by his sincerity. “You didn’t ask me my story for leverage.”
“I didn’t want leverage,” he replied. “I wanted clarity.”
That was when the last of her restraint gave way, not in tears, but in relief. “I’ve never told that story to anyone.”
“I’m honored.”
She played with the food she hadn’t finished. “What about you? What’s your demon?”
“It wasn’t a lover.” He blinked, and then he was somewhere else. “Chase Security was in its infancy. We did more than body guarding. Our mission was to recover a family of six from a group holding them hostage in Peru.”
He took a deep breath. “We studied the family. We studied the kidnappers. We knew what each one looked like. We breached the house. I found the sixteen-year-old, Sofia. She’d been separated from her family.
She was held in a back bedroom where she was used for the kidnappers’ recreation.
I didn’t get to her fast enough. One of them shot her before they fled. ”
His voice stayed even, betraying the burden underneath. “By minutes. Maybe less. I held her hand as she died. She was the first person I lost knowing their name. I’ve carried Sofia for a long time.” He shook his head.
Eira’s breath caught. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I just needed to say it out loud to someone who wouldn’t try to fix it.”
Ford lightened the conversation, asking about the garden rotation. “How do you decide what to plant after—” He paused mid-sentence and tilted his head a fraction of an inch.
Eira’s brow rose. “What?”
He didn’t answer right away. There it was again, low and distant, a vibration more than a sound. It wasn’t the uneven putter of a fishing boat or the deeper churn of a supply barge. He heard a high and controlled engine.