Caspian stood in the empty corridor, the scent of antiseptic clinging to the air. He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over his grandmother’s name. He needed to talk to her, to hear her voice, a lifeline to reality in this house of lies.
He pressed the call button. Just as it began to ring, a nurse appeared at his side, her smile bright and artificial.
“Mr. Hawthorne? Dr. Finch asked me to give you an update on Ms. Finch’s potassium levels.”
It was a meaningless interruption, perfectly timed. An interception. He ended the call, his jaw tight with fury. He was well and truly caged.
***
Zara’s phone was pressed to her ear. She was speaking to her mentor again.
“Hypothetically,” Zara said, keeping her voice neutral. “A patient with a rare, aggressive cancer collapses. Instead of being taken to a top trauma center, she’s taken to a community hospital at her request. Her private oncologist immediately takes over, bypassing ER protocols and placing her under total isolation. What does that sound like to you?”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“It sounds highly irregular,” Dr. Sharma said, her tone clipped and professional. “Frankly, Zara, it sounds more like theater than medicine.”
The confirmation sent a chill down Zara’s spine.
***
Lyra watched her friend pace the room, her face a mask of grim intensity. She saw the news reports cycling on the television, photos of a distraught Caspian rushing into the hospital. The man on the screen looked broken.
“I don’t care what she did to me,” Lyra said quietly, her voice thick with a weary sadness. “He looks lost. I just want this to be over for him.”
Zara stopped pacing. She looked at Lyra, at the genuine empathy for the man who had shattered her life. It wasn’t love anymore, but it was a profound, aching humanity. That was the woman Zara was fighting for.
She looked from her friend’s face to the evidence glowing on her laptop screen.
“It will be,” Zara promised, her voice low and fierce. “I’m going to make sure of it.”
***
Miles apart, two paths converged.
In the sterile, white light of the hospital waiting room, Caspian Hawthorne sat alone. The mask of the devoted partner had fallen away, leaving the grim, tired face of a man who finally understood he was a fool in a cage. His grief was gone, replaced by a cold, hard resolve.
In the warm, dim light of her office, Zara Ali created a new, encrypted file on her laptop. She typed a simple title: FINCH INVESTIGATION. Her expression was not one of anger, but of cold, clinical purpose.
Isolde’s lie was a single, tangled thread. And now, from opposite ends, they were both beginning to pull.
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