Chapter 10
SULLIVAN
The phone in the conference room started ringing again. I stared at it from the far end of the table, my hands braced on the polished wood as I contemplated shoving the whole damn over if it rang again.
At this point, the shrill, insistent beeping cut straight through my skull. The soft trill no longer seemed gentle and there was no civilized pause between calls. Just relentless noise that hadn’t stopped since yesterday.
Although I glared at the phone, I didn’t answer it. I hadn’t answered it all day. By one, I’d stopped listening to the voicemails. By two, I’d started fantasizing about throwing the phone out the window and watching it shatter on the sidewalk five floors below.
It rang again and my teeth ground together. Fucking paper gowns.
That was what this was about.
Apparently, the entire patient population of Saint Raphael’s had decided, collectively, to start airing their grievances directly to me.
One woman had accused me of running a torture experiment while another had asked if I’d ever actually worn one.
A man demanded to know if this was some kind of hazing ritual.
Someone had given these people a number they shouldn’t have, and while I told myself it didn’t bother me, the fucking phone kept ringing.
When it cut out only to start again, I stood so fast, the chair legs scraped sharply against the floor.
I crossed the room in long strides, snatched the whole phone up, stared at it for half a second, and yanked the cord straight out of the wall.
The ringing died instantly and blissful, blessed silence flooded the room. I exhaled slowly, flexing my fingers and appreciating the utter lack of sound for just one moment, but then sanity prevailed.
My reaction had been impulsive and inelegant, and that annoyed me almost as much as the calls had. I didn’t lose my temper or get caught up in theatrics. I solved problems. Plain and simple.
Todd came racing in, his eyes as wide as if he was about to tell me that the building was on fire. “Sir, your phone—”
In his wild rush to look around the room like he was making sure I hadn’t been injured, his gaze finally landed on the unplugged phone and lingered for a beat. He went very still before finally looking back at me.
I didn’t wait for him to ask or draw conclusions. “Call IT. Have them disable that line and issue a new number. Immediately.”
He nodded, his eyes flicking briefly to the limp cord hanging off the side of the table before he looked away. Smart man.
“Also, cancel my next meeting,” I snapped. “I need to take a walk.”
Todd hesitated, his eyes widening again. “Sir—”
That was the end of it. I didn’t wait for him to tell me what life-threateningly urgent meetings I was supposed to have had, just brushing past him out of the conference room.
My footsteps echoed down the hallway as I gulped in deep breaths that tasted like antiseptic and something faintly sweet—flowers, maybe.
Someone had told me once that people found the smell of hospitals either comforting or unbearable. I’d never noticed before, but now, I noticed everything.
When I passed a pair of nurses near the elevators, their conversation stopped abruptly. One of them glanced up, her eyes widening a fraction before she looked away. The other didn’t even bother to look up, her mouth just flattening into a thin line, presumably as a result of my mere proximity.
I kept walking without acknowledging either reaction. Whatever. They don’t understand and that’s fine.
All they saw was policies without context and decisions without the numbers attached. They never had to pore over balance sheets or projections, and they didn’t realize how costs ballooned if they weren’t cut early.
As I turned down another corridor, I caught my reflection in a glass case that housed an ancient piece of medical equipment. Usually, that was what would irk me—the mere existence of these outdated machines in a facility located in the greatest goddamn city in the world.
This wasn’t a third-world country or some rural corner of Hicksville.
Saint Raphael’s was near the center of Manhattan.
The use of such backward technology should be fucking illegal here, but as strongly as I felt about all that, it wasn’t what I thought of today as I watched myself walk past in that reflection.
Today, all I saw was the dark suit and the controlled expression. It was one of those days when even I could admit that I looked exactly like the man they’d already decided I was—a heartless, soulless tyrant who didn’t give a shit about anything other than his bank account.
A bed rolled past me, pushed by an orderly who nodded stiffly without meeting my eyes. A doctor emerged from a patient’s room, paused, then deliberately stepped aside to let me pass as if I was something unpleasant he didn’t want to brush against.
I ignored it, but the walk still wasn’t helping as much as I’d hoped. Tension followed me like the most obsessed kind of stalker, coiled tight in my chest and humming under my skin. Every few steps, I half expected another phone to start ringing.
When I turned a corner and nearly collided with a volunteer pushing a cart of blankets, my irritation flared hot and sharp.
She jumped, murmuring an apology even as she raced away.
She didn’t even wait for a response, and I actually would’ve told her that it was okay.
Because honestly, I hadn’t been looking where I was going, and again, I wasn’t actually an arrogant prick.
Everywhere I went, however, I became more and more convinced that this place was chaos. Sentimentality masquerading as efficiency. Everyone was so busy feeling things that they forgot how a business was actually run—and that this was a motherfucking business at its core.
If they thought I didn’t notice the looks, the whispers, and the quiet defiance, they were dead wrong. But I just straightened my shoulders and kept walking, letting the sounds of the hospital wash over me.
I’d weathered worse than this. Louder critics. Higher stakes.
Someone had done this on purpose. That much was obvious. Whoever it was, they thought they could wear me down, but they were going to be sorely disappointed.
As soon as I made it to a wing containing several of the general wards, I didn’t even make it ten more steps before I saw it—another bulletin board with another piece of paper neatly taped to it.
This one only had words on it, and read: Problems with paper gowns? Call Sully.
Underneath it was my office number. Motherfucker.
My vision went red and I tore the damn flyer down so hard, the tape shrieked, the paper itself ripping unevenly in my hands. I crumpled it, then flattened it again like I might be able to erase the last twenty-four hours through sheer force of will.
“Is this a hospital or a middle school?” I snapped to no one in particular.
A few people nearby froze, a nurse standing at the medication cart suddenly becoming deeply invested in the labels on her vials while an orderly took a step back like proximity to me might be contagious.
Yeah, you’d better fucking run. All of you. This has gone far enough.
By the time I’d stuffed the flyer into my pocket and started walking again, my phone was already in my hand. My strides were long, my feet smacking against the horrendous fucking floors in sharp snaps.
“Get me security,” I said the second he answered. “I want the extra cameras installed. All the blind spots need to be covered, the bulletin boards, hall intersections, and anywhere else where someone can pull this kind of nonsense.”
There was a pause. “That’s a significant addition to the current system.”
“I’m aware. Do it anyway.”
I didn’t explain that I’d cover the costs myself if I had to or that this wasn’t about the money anymore. God and the law had intended for personal and company finances to stay separate. That had always been my rule. I worked in clean lines with no mess, but I didn’t give a shit right now.
“Right away, sir,” Todd said carefully. “I’ll authorize it.”
Nodding and then hanging up without saying goodbye, I shoved the phone back into my pocket and kept moving. Heat buzzed under my skin. With every step I took, I could feel eyes on me, the air heavy with judgment and resentment.
I saw every last one of the glances that lingered just a beat too long before they looked away, and I didn’t miss any of the eye rolls or the hardening of their expressions either. This time, I didn’t even bother lying to myself.
This did affect me, but not in the way they’d probably intended. All I could see now when I looked around was a long list of suspects. Rationally, I knew that it could’ve been any one of the nurses, orderlies, doctors, or even the admin staff.
Anyone with too much time, a grudge, and access to a printer, but my mind didn’t cycle through any of those other possibilities. Over and over again, it landed on just one name.
Bree Bennett.
The birthday defending, pastry-yielding demon who’d made me the enemy on day one. From the word go, that woman had looked at me like I was an inconvenience instead of the authority. Those blazing blue eyes flashed with challenge every time she opened her mouth.
Is the Cannoli Thrower also the Flyer Phantom?
I reached the stairwell and paused with my hand on the rail to take in a deep breath. In through my nose. Out through my mouth.
Years ago, I’d learned to do this when tempers flared and rooms full of men waited to see who would blink first. But today, it didn’t work, so I pushed through the doors and climbed down one flight, then another, letting the physical exertion burn off some of the anger.
When I emerged back onto a different corridor, I scanned the walls instinctively, but there was nothing there. No ridiculous flyers tacked to any of the bulletin boards.
A trickle of relief passed through me, but it slithered down my spine like something slimy because I knew that although this corridor was clean, it wasn’t over. I felt with bone-deep certainty that whoever was doing this wasn’t going to stop because I ripped down a flyer or installed cameras.
This was a challenge. A test. And I never backed down from either one of those.
I was absolutely going to get to the bottom of this, and if it turned out that the gorgeous little nurse with the blazing blue eyes, the sharp tongue, and sharper aim was my secret nemesis, I wouldn’t hesitate.
No matter what Liana thought, I would fire Bree’s ass right on the spot. This was far from over and I was done waiting for these juvenile acts of resistance to subside. I was taking matters into my own hands and the security upgrade was only step one.