Chapter 23
IZZY
Ihaven’t slept this soundly in a long time.
I sink into Dom’s embrace, warm dreams carrying me far away.
In the dream, Grandma is healthy again, miraculously, impossibly, strong and steady and full of life as she cradles a baby to her chest. She smiles at me over the baby’s head, winking. I always knew you’d make pretty babies.
I join her, looking down at the child. They’ve got Dom’s intense eyes… and my nose.
I wake to the sound of my cell phone ringing. It’s a heavy metal track, the ringtone I’ve assigned to the hospital so that I always hear it even if I’m asleep. Groggy, I dart my hand out from under the covers and find the phone.
“Yes, hello?”
“Miss Marlowe.” The voice belongs to a kind-sounding woman.
“Yes?”
“Are you available for a meeting with the medical staff today? The sooner the better. As I understand it, a specialist visited the hospital yesterday and has something he’d like to discuss with you concerning your grandmother’s care.”
“Is she okay?” I say, sitting up quickly, the warm dream with Dom utterly shattered.
“Nothing has changed as to her status. But I’m just the receptionist. It would be much more useful if you could come in. The specialist has said she can do it any time.”
“I’m coming right now,” I tell her. “I’m just getting dressed!”
I hang up, heart thudding. After everything, I can’t let anything happen to Grandma. She was the reason behind all of this, my motivation for selling out my principles. For betraying Dom.
“Izzy?” Dom says, gently rubbing my shoulder.
“I need to go to the hospital,” I tell him. “Apparently, the specialist from your insurance wants to talk to me.”
Dom frowns, nodding. There’s something about the look on his face that piques my suspicion.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nothing… probably.”
I press my hand against his chest, digging my fingernails into his firm chest. “Don’t lie to me.”
For a split second, he gives me a look, head askew, eyebrows raised, as if he’s saying… Are you serious? Do you think you have that right? But then it vanishes, as if he’s pushing away old instincts.
“Let’s go,” he says. “I’ll drive you.”
“I’m sure you’ve got things to do,” I murmur.
“No, I’m taking you.”
Ten minutes later, we’re both dressed, rushing down to his car. I sit in the passenger seat, running my hands up and down my legs anxiously. I notice that look on Dom’s face again. His jaw is tight, eyes flitting here and there.
“What, Dom?” I huff.
He sighs. “It’s nothing.”
“I still don’t believe you.”
He grinds his teeth from side to side. “Aaron said something about the hospital. It was spoken in anger. It was something like, he runs that place. The implication was that he had control over the medical staff. But I might be looking too deeply into it. Maybe he was just bluffing, just raging, you know what he’s like. ”
“Why would he say that though?” I murmur. “And what could it mean for Grandma?”
“I don’t know, but this specialist is from my insurance. She has nothing to do with the hospital. And if Aaron’s been playing games, there’s only so much he can do inside the medical system. He can bend rules, but not break them.”
“You don’t know my uncle very well,” I whisper, tears pricking my eyes.
I angrily wipe them away, promising myself I won’t cry anymore.
When we get to the hospital, the first thing I do is rush to Grandma’s room, ignoring the receptionist when she yells at me to wait.
Grandma is sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling, a soft smile on her face.
I clasp my hand to my chest as Dom walks up next to me, wrapping his arm around me.
“This way, please,” the receptionist says, giving Dom a look.
“I want him in there with me,” I say firmly. “For support.”
She nods understandingly.
A minute later, we’re in a small office with Doctor Shah. She’s an elegant woman with jet-black hair tied up and thin-framed glasses perched on her nose. She greets me with a small smile, then takes the seat opposite.
“Thank you for coming so fast,” she says.
“Is it bad news?” I ask, my belly twisting painfully.
“No,” Doctor Shah says.
I breathe a sigh of relief, clinging to Dom’s hand. I’m probably squeezing him too hard, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s got one hand on mine and the other wrapped around me. His comfort is invaluable at this moment.
“What, then?”
“I’ve reported Doctor Pinckney to the Medical Board for review.”
“What?” I gasp. “Why?”
“There were several questionable inconsistencies in his approach to diagnosing your grandmother with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. While reviewing his work, I had cause for concern, so I have conducted my own tests.”
“And?” I ask desperately, my head spinning.
Dom’s instincts were right. Aaron wasn’t just making a comment, the sick freak. He was bragging.
“I can tell you with confidence that the results don’t fit with ALS,” Doctor Shah says.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, clinging onto Dom even more tightly.
“What she has instead is a condition called Multifocal Motor Neuropathy. It can resemble ALS in the early stages—particularly the weakness in the hands—but the underlying cause is very different.”
I nod, trying to take it all in.
“In ALS,” she goes on. “The nerve cells themselves gradually fail. In your grandmother’s case, the issue is with the signals traveling along the nerves, and it appears to be driven by her immune system interfering with that process.
“The turning point for us was the electrical testing. The nerve conduction study. We identified areas where the signal was being blocked as it moved along the nerve. That pattern simply isn’t seen in ALS.
Alongside that, her blood tests showed antibodies that are often associated with this kind of immune-related neuropathy. ”
“This other condition, is it bad? Is it worse than ALS? Better?” I’m practically screaming, my throat raw, my entire world collapsing in on itself.
Aaron didn’t just seize an opportunity to blackmail me. He puppeteered it. He used my grandmother as a twisted tool.
“I don’t want to pretend this is nothing,” she says. “She does have a neurological condition. It will need treatment and monitoring. But this is not the diagnosis you were preparing yourselves for. This condition is treatable.”
“Treatable,” I repeat, looking at Dom through blurry eyes. He smiles supportively, leaning over and resting his forehead against mine for a half second of intimacy.
Doctor Shah nods. “We use a therapy called intravenous immunoglobulin, or IVIG. It works by calming down the part of the immune system that’s causing the problem.
Many patients respond well. Some regain strength.
In terms of the bigger picture, this condition doesn’t usually affect lifespan.
With the right treatment, people often continue living their lives with a good degree of independence. ”
I slump back in the chair, struggling to catch my breath. Ever since Grandma’s diagnosis, I’ve been wrestling with the inevitable end, knowing there’s no way out. The best-case scenario has always been that she’ll be comfortable; that’s the most I could hope for. But now…
I let out a laugh that sounds unhinged even to me.
“She’s going to live,” I whisper. “Longer than a year? Or two?”
“This is still something we need to manage carefully,” the doctor cautions. “But it’s a very different situation from what you were first told. There is a way forward here. And there is time.”
A long pause follows as I process the news. Doctor Shah adjusts her elegant gold earring, perhaps sensing the emotional weight in the room.
“What now?” I whisper.
The doctor glances at the door, then lowers her voice. “If I were you—and I may be overstepping here—I would move your grandmother to a different facility.”
“With this condition,” Dom cuts in, “is home care possible?”
“Yes, definitely,” the doctor replies. “But she would require monitoring for a few weeks before that transition is made.”
“What if she had medical staff on hand, twenty-four hours a day, for those initial weeks?”
Doctor Shah’s face brightens. “That would be ideal.”
Dom waves a hand. “It’s done.”
“Dom!” I exclaim, then glance at the doctor. “Uh, could we have a minute?”
“Yes, of course.”
Once we’re alone, I take one of his hands in both of mine, looking deeply into his eyes. “Are you serious about this?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re so spread thin, Dom, all the jobs and all your employees and—”
“Hush, Izzy,” he says warmly. “I don’t want to hear another word. This is a goddamn travesty. If you’re worried about the financial side, we can sue the hell out of this hospital and every bastard who was involved in this lie. But she is not staying here.”
“Thank you.” I swallow a sob. “So much. You’re a good man, Dom. You’re…”
“What?” he asks, a fierce note in his voice.
“You’re a better man than your father.”
He clears his throat, clearly touched. “We should get the doctor in here to discuss your grandmother’s transition to home care.”
“You’re my lucky charm, Dominic,” Grandma says, as we sit around her bed. “Before you, it was the end for me. But now, I’ve got a chance.”
“I think Doctor Shah should get the credit, ma’am,” Dom says with a warm smile. “But I’m over the moon you’re doing better.”
“How could they make such a mistake?” Grandma asks. “They signed my whole life away!”
“It was Aaron,” I tell her.
She frowns. “Aaron wanted me to think I was sicker than I am? Is that what you’re saying?”
I’m done sugarcoating, done protecting my deranged uncle.
“Absolutely,” I tell her. “He wanted leverage on me, to blackmail me into getting secrets about Dom’s business.
When you got ill, I guess he saw his chance and seized it.
I should’ve known it was suspicious when he wanted to be so involved. But even for him… this is sick.”
Grandma slumps back on her pillows, sighing. “That sick, sick boy,” she whispers. “Where did it go wrong for him?”
“It hasn’t gone wrong for him, Grandma. He’s been selling drugs and using people and hurting them, all without a care in the world. He’s been having a grand old time. But not anymore.”
“No?” Grandma says.
I look at Dom for a long moment, then at the woman I love most in this world.
“I’ve got information about people dealing drugs and worse on properties he owns, and now there’s this stuff with the doctors.
I’m going to pass what I have onto the police.
And…” I take a breath, knowing this might annoy both of them.
“I’m going public. About all of this. He doesn’t deserve to get away with it.
If there’s one thing Uncle Aaron cares about, it’s his image. I’m going to take that from him.”
For a beat, Grandma looks terrified. But then I see the old Maggie come into her face, fierce and unafraid and ready to do what it takes.
“He was going to let me die,” Grandma murmurs. “Without the proper care, I could have, right?”
“Yes, Grandma,” I whisper.
She sits up straighter. “Then show him no mercy, Isabella. Don’t give him an inch.”
“I just need to figure out who to call, how to get the word out there.”
“No, you don’t,” Dom says.
“Huh?”
“I’m the founder and CEO of a company that spans the entire nation. I’ve been on more magazine covers than I care to think about. For better or worse, I’m a celebrity. We’ll do this together.”
I’m so touched, I don’t know what to say at first.
“Thank him, Izzy,” Grandma says, smiling.
“Thank you,” I say. “I mean it.”
“We’ll go public with everything,” Dom says. “Even how that twisted fu-freak Sebastian tried to use my father’s sins against me, as if it were my fault.”
“It’s a new start,” I murmur, gently rubbing Grandma’s hand. “We can put it all behind us. The ALS. The blackmail. The… betrayal. The stuff with your dad, Dom. We can get it out, let the sunlight burn off the poison, and start afresh.”
He smiles at me, nodding. “He tried to turn us against each other. To ruin us. Now, we’ll show him how fucked he is when we work together.” Dom winces. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
Grandma shakes her head, a feisty grin spreading across her face. “Sorry? I agree. He is fucked.”
We laugh together, a release all of us desperately need.