Chapter 36
SULLIVAN
Aweek passed and it still felt like I’d swallowed broken glass and was waiting for it to finish cutting its way through me. Work hadn’t helped. If anything, it made it worse.
Every hallway in Saint Raphael’s felt like it held the echo of her voice telling me exactly what she thought of me. Every nurses’ station was a reminder of the way she’d glared at me like I was evil.
Meanwhile, Liana’s question kept circling like a vulture in my head. Do you care more about your money or the girl?
I sat in my temporary office staring at spreadsheets I’d already memorized, the numbers sitting pretty in obedient columns, but my brain refused to cooperate. Everyone had been right about one thing, though.
If I cut my own salary, it would be the single most cost-effective way to free up budget space. The knowledge sat in my chest like a brick, making it impossible to look at those spreadsheets and not doubt the decisions I’d made.
I had so much money, it didn’t even feel real anymore. To me, it had become just numbers in accounts I rarely even checked personally. Investments multiplied in the background like bacteria in a petri dish, but firing a nurse?
That was groceries disappearing. Missed rent payments. Kids pulled out of extracurricular activities.
Even I could see that it would cause real damage, immediate and personal to people who didn’t have investments and money in bank accounts they never even thought about.
Annoyingly, as much as my decisions had been based directly upon the reports I’d received from the various department heads, I also couldn’t stop hearing Bree’s voice asking if I’d even bothered to find out who I was firing.
Eventually, I realized that the only way I was ever going to be productive again was to actually be productive, so I pushed back from my desk, grabbed my tablet, and headed down two floors to accounting.
Liana was hunched in front of dual monitors when I walked into her office, typing with the speed and aggression of someone trying to personally defeat Excel.
She didn’t look up as I shut her door carefully behind me.
“If you’re here to ask for another projection model, you’re buying me dinner first.”
“It’s not that this time,” I said. “I’m here for information.”
She looked up immediately, leaning back and studying me as one of her eyebrows arched. “That sounds ominous.”
“I’m serious.”
“Okay,” she said carefully, gesturing toward the chair across from her desk. “Sit. What kind of information are you after, exactly?”
For once, I didn’t bother pretending I had everything under control.
I didn’t, and it was blatantly fucking obvious at this point.
The entire hospital was buzzing with rumors of the cuts.
People shied away from me now more than ever.
Like they thought looking me directly in the eye would be what cost them their jobs rather than their actual performance.
“You seem more dialed into the hospital staff than I am,” I said. “Like, you actually seem to know what’s really going on around here. What people are saying. That kind of thing.”
“That’s because I talk to humans occasionally,” she replied dryly. “I also didn’t come straight out and tell them I didn’t give a fuck what they think about me, so that seems to have helped.”
I groaned. “Right. That again. Okay, well, I need to know what I don’t know about these people.”
Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “What does that mean?”
“Look, it’s not like I want to leave anyone without a job,” I said, the words scraping the inside of my throat on the way out, unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
“I don’t exactly get off on yanking away people’s livelihoods, but that being said, I’m realizing I might not fully understand who I’m cutting. ”
She studied me for a long moment, something cautious but curious flickering across her expression. “You’ve been listening to Bree.”
I didn’t answer, which apparently was answer enough.
Liana nodded slowly, then turned back toward her monitor, clicking through a few files. “All right. Let’s start with Emily. She’s the one Bree was most upset about, right?”
My stomach tightened, but I didn’t say anything or interrupt.
“She’s technically classified as a senior intake nurse, but that title doesn’t cover half of what she actually does.
She helps with orientation for new hires.
She informally mentors junior staff. She runs procedure refreshers when residents or new nurses feel shaky about something.
She’s the person people go to when they don’t want to admit they’re struggling. ”
“That’s not in her job description,” I said. “As far as I know, she doesn’t have anything to do with training or further education.”
“No,” Liana agreed. “It’s just her personality. She’s a teacher to the newer staff, a counselor to the others, and she’s been here so long, there’s no crisis she doesn’t know how to manage.”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “What does that mean? Practically.”
“It means that when she’s gone, we’re likely going to see a higher turnover in new staff, significantly increased training costs, and a lot more mistakes being made, which also risks more lawsuits and related expenses.
Plus, you’ll end up hiring at least two people to replace all those roles she does for free. ”
I nodded slowly, processing. “Who else have we got?”
She clicked into another file. “Mark Delaney.”
I frowned. “Who’s that?”
“The guy who heads up scheduling. Also known as the human glue holding at least three departments together.”
“Oh, right. According to the metrics, he’s way overstaffed.”
“Okay, but according to reality, he’s overworked, not overstaffed,” she countered.
“Mark knows every employee’s life situation.
Who has a kid with special needs. Who’s going through a divorce.
Who’s in night school. He balances shift swaps before they ever reach management.
If he’s gone, scheduling will technically still function, but expect chaos.
More call-outs. More burnout. More HR complaints. ”
I leaned back, exhaling slowly through my nose. “Are you seriously telling me that my efficiency cuts would make everything less efficient? Because that’s what it’s starting to sound like.”
“What I’m telling you is that hospitals run on a lot more than just systems, Sullivan.
No matter how many incredible machines you bring in, you still need the people who not only operate them, but the people who take care of the patients before and after those machines are used.
The more patients you have, the more people you need to take care of them.
That means a lot of people, and where there are a lot of people, there are a lot of—”
“Problems?”
She sighed. “Logistics. Lives that intertwine. Kids who are loved and students who are learning. It’s an ecosystem and it’s dependent on more than just progress or innovation.
You need people like Mark who know which nurse’s kid has a ballet recital tonight and people like Emily who teach the student so the patient doesn’t sue us after. ”
I stared at the ceiling for a moment, then back at her. “Who else on that list am I underestimating?”
For the next twenty minutes, she walked me through case after case. Not sob stories or emotional manipulation, but context. Skill sets that didn’t fit neatly into their job descriptions, and institutional knowledge that couldn’t be replaced with new software or streamlined workflows.
By the time she finished, she was smiling. “You look like someone just told you Santa isn’t real.”
“I hate Santa,” I muttered.
She snorted. “Come on. No one hates Santa. We hate the fact that he’s not real. There’s a difference.”
“Run some numbers with me,” I suddenly.
Her expression sharpened instantly, the humor melting away. “What kind of numbers?”
“If I…” I hesitated, the words heavier than they should’ve been. “If I kept all current staff positions intact, what happens?”
“If no one is fired and no hours are reduced?” Her eyes narrowed, and I knew that meant she was already calculating. “It would significantly impact operating margins.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’d have to offset that somewhere.”
“I know.”
She turned fully toward her keyboard, fingers hovering but not typing yet. “Where are you thinking of offsetting it?”
I met her gaze directly. “My compensation package.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
She leaned back slowly, folding her arms and holding my gaze. “You do realize your salary isn’t just income, right? It’s structured into multiple financial layers. Bonuses, performance incentives, equity triggers—”
“I’m aware,” I repeated. “I don’t need the details right now. I just need the bottom line.”
She watched me like she was trying to determine whether I’d been replaced by a slightly more sleep-deprived clone. “You’re talking about a substantial reduction.”
“I have substantial income to reduce,” I replied. “Just do it. Please?”
She inhaled a deep breath and turned back toward her monitor, her fingers finally starting to move across the keyboard. “All right, let’s find out how much of a salary reduction you’d have to take to cover all the expenses.”
The numbers were uglier than I expected, but not catastrophic. Just ugly enough that Old Sullivan would’ve dismissed the entire exercise as financially irresponsible and moved on without a second thought.
Liana sat beside me at her desk, both of us staring at the final projection she’d built after nearly an hour of modeling and recalculating.
“If you reduce your base compensation by this amount and restructure your bonus tiers to defer payout over a longer performance period, it offsets the staffing costs you want to preserve.”
I nodded slowly, absorbing it. “That’s fine.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, searching for hesitation. “You do realize this isn’t just a symbolic gesture. It’s a real financial shift. As well as a precedent that’s being set.”
“I know.”