42. Levi
Levi had been avoiding Alexis. He’d made such an arse of himself that he was too embarrassed to face her. He knew he needed to. He needed to apologise and beg her forgiveness but… but how could he do that when he was still tangled up in his own family drama? Better to get things sorted first and then go to her with a clean slate.
It didn’t make sleeping any easier.
It also didn’t stop him dreaming about her and waking up wanting her with an ache so deep, he felt hollow inside.
Tessa came into the office and closed the door. She slid some files across his desk and tapped one with her fingernail before exiting. Tessa had taken the whole espionage thing a little too seriously. He was surprised she hadn’t turned up to work in a trench coat and a fedora. She had discovered a lot of information, though. Years and years of fraudulent billings. Levi didn’t know how she had managed to find them. Honestly, he didn’t really want to know. He was quite happy to go with plausible deniability on that count.
The amount of misrepresented funds was staggering and would probably send his parents into bankruptcy if the government demanded repayment. Which they would. With interest. Levi was thankful he’d disentangled his finances from his family’s when he’d taken control of his trust fund. He knew Elias had too, but he’d done it so their parents couldn’t cut him off. The trust fund money was clean—for want of a better word. It had been left to the three grandchildren by their paternal grandfather who’d made his money in stocks. The trust had been administered by his parents until he turned twenty-one. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out they’d stolen money from him before he had control of it, but he wasn’t going to go down that path. The Pandora’s box of misappropriated billings and government rebates was enough to deal with.
Levi flipped open the file Tessa had indicated and sighed. It wasn’t incorrect billing this time. It was a malpractice claim. Fucking Jonah. The patient had settled, but Levi couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. Sure, she’d been paid well, and the breast augmentation had been corrected, but she could have gotten more. Surprisingly, she was still coming to the clinic. To see Jonah. Regularly. What the actual fuck?
‘Tessa,’ he said into the intercom.
She appeared in his doorway with a smirk. ‘I thought you’d like that one.’ She settled on the chair across from him.
‘I really don’t understand why she keeps coming back.’
Tessa leaned forward to whisper. ‘I don’t think she’s seeing him for cosmetic reasons.’
Levi frowned. ‘Wha—’ He paused as it hit him. ‘No.’ Levi shook his head in disbelief. ‘No.’
Tessa shrugged. ‘That’s the word around the water cooler.’
They didn’t have a water cooler, but Levi knew what she meant.
‘Okay, let me get this straight. Are you saying Jonah is having an affair with her… in the office?’ He whispered the last bit.
‘Here’s what I know,’ she said, numbering them with her fingers. ‘She is always his last client for the day on the days she comes in. He doesn’t have anyone assist him. They are never finished before the nurses and assistants leave. She doesn’t pay for her appointment, and there are suspicious noises from his room. Everybody knows what’s going on. Even your mother.’
Levi ran a hand through his hair. It was definitely unethical to have a sexual relationship with a patient… and unhygienic to do it in the office. Levi hoped his brother cleaned the damned bed down when he was finished.
There was also the not-so-small issue of Jonah being a married man with children.
He shivered with disgust.
‘Is she… the only one?’ Levi asked, not really wanting to know the answer but asking anyway. Because… even though he might not want to know, he needed to know.
‘The only one that happens in the office,’ Tessa said. ‘But there are rumours… and not just patients.’
‘Staff?’ Levi asked, horrified.
‘Do you remember Leisha? She resigned about a year ago?’
Levi nodded. He didn’t remember her—he just wanted Tessa to get to the point.
‘Rumour is she was paid off after Jonah made some unwanted advances toward her. She had to sign an NDA and everything.’
‘Do you know that for a fact?’ Levi asked.
‘No… but I could ask her.’
‘If she signed an NDA, then she probably won’t speak to you.’
‘She might not tell me,’ Tessa said. ‘But I know a friend of hers?—’
‘Do you know everyone?’ Levi asked. Tessa’s network was far wider than he had ever suspected.
Tessa grinned. ‘I make a point of knowing the right people.’
Levi hesitated, not because he had any loyalty to his brother, but because he knew this could potentially be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Once he knew the truth, he couldn’t un-know it, and that meant he would have to pull the trigger with Valentina.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘See what you can find out, but… but don’t do anything that will redo the damage my brother already did. Her wellbeing is paramount.’
Tessa nodded and left. Levi looked down at the file and grimaced. He’d known his family was bad. He just hadn’t realised how bad. If he didn’t need to find more evidence, he would walk into his mother’s office right now and resign.
Levi pushed back from his desk. Wait. Did he really need more evidence? Yes. Well, at least he needed to wait to see if Tessa found out anything about Leisha. Once he knew, he would take everything he had to Valentina and let her do her worst. He was done with this clinic and his family, and if he had to be labelled a whistle-blower, then he would. The health and safety of the clients was more important.
There wasa little paper bag hanging on his door when he got home. He let himself into the apartment before looking inside. It was a USB drive with his name on it, or at least his family name. There was nothing else. No note. No instructions. Nothing to tell him who’d left it.
He changed into sweats and grabbed a beer from the fridge (yes, his fridge now had beer in it. Craft beer, of course. Less preservatives.) and sat down with his laptop. He considered the USB before inserting it. It could have a virus on it. Just to be safe, he backed up all his files and then logged out of his main profile, logging back in under a guest profile that had restricted access to his hard drive. He didn’t know if that would make it safe from a virus, but it was better than nothing.
The USB contained scanned files from… twenty-five years ago. These were Jack Hall’s files. Alexis must have left the thumb drive for him.
He sipped his beer and tried not to think of her. He needed to read these documents, and he wouldn’t be able to do that if he let himself go down the rabbit hole of thinking about her. Levi cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, focusing on the screen. He looked over the documents. It was a malpractice suit involving Rupert. It was a septal perforation from a botched rhinoplasty. The patient also complained of numbness and disfigurement. The pictures confirmed her accusations. Jack had argued that the resulting complications were because of the patient’s negligence in after-surgery care. Specifically, that she got drunk and fell over, striking her face on the sidewalk. The patient denied it, but Jack was able to make a deal with her, and Levi suspected he’d threatened her. He had photos of her at a nightclub with someone other than her husband. Whether they were staged or not, Levi couldn’t tell. It had been enough to buy her silence. She settled the case and signed an NDA.
He leaned back from the table. It wasn’t just Jonah. It was Rupert too. His father barely practiced anymore. He spent his days on the golf course or at the club with his cronies. That was probably for the best. Having two defective doctors in the clinic would be too much, although Tessa had hinted that there was another underperforming doctor on staff now.
Levi couldn’t actually believe just how messed up it all was. How had he worked there for so long and not known any of this? He prided himself on being observant, but this proved he had a blind spot a mile wide when it came to his family.
His phone beeped with an incoming message. He picked it up and looked at the screen.
Tessa:
Got it.
Levi:
Got what?
Tessa:
The deets. I’ll email them to you.
Levi:
Not the work email!
Tessa:
*eyeroll emoji* duh. This ain’t my first rodeo.
Levi sighed. There was really no turning back now. He wished there was someone he could talk to. He looked at his phone… he could call Alexis…
No. He had to get this mess sorted first.
He could call Theo.
No. Levi could not deal with his smirking face right now.
Elias?
That might not be a bad idea… Elias knew more than he was letting on, and maybe he could help Levi get this done properly.
Levi:
Feel like a beer?
Elias:
Who is this and what have you done with my brother?
Levi:
Ha-ha very funny. Seriously. I think we need to talk.
…
The dots appeared and disappeared several times before Elias’ text finally came through.
Elias:
I’m on my way.