Chapter 4 - The Panic in the Executive Suite
The phone rang six times before Daphne finally picked up. She hadn't answered his calls all evening, but now, sitting at her kitchen table while Halie slept peacefully upstairs, she slid her thumb across the screen and brought the phone to her ear.
She didn't say hello. She simply waited.
"Daphne!" Ross’s voice cracked, high-pitched and frantic, completely stripped of its usual smooth, arrogant bedside manner. "Daphne, please—you need to listen to me. You’ve lost your mind. What are you doing?!"
"I'm sitting in the kitchen, Ross," Daphne said, her voice eerily calm, smooth as glass. "The house is very quiet. The soup carrier is still in my car. You forgot to take it."
"Daphne, stop it! Stop playing games!" Ross pleaded, his breathing ragged over the connection. "You’ve posted that video online. Do you realize what this means? My career is finished! The hospital board is threatening to revoke my credentials! Director Vance is screaming his head off in his office right now!"
"Is he?" Daphne asked mildly. "Tell Harrison I said hello. It sounds like he’s having a stressful night. Maybe he should have stayed home with his family instead of worrying about surgical standards."
"Daphne, please!" Ross’s voice dropped into a desperate, pathetic whine. "I made a mistake. It meant nothing! Talia meant nothing to me! It was just a stupid lapse in judgment—stress from the operating room—"
"Don't lie to me, Ross," Daphne interrupted, her tone hardening just enough to cut through his excuses. "Not tonight. You’ve been lying to me for six weeks. You lied about the extra shifts, you lied about the money from our savings account, and you lied to my face while I was packing hot soup for a man who claimed his patients were his top priority."
"I’ll give you whatever you want!" Ross blurted out, panic driving him to total surrender. "The house! The bank accounts! I’ll sign over my entire share of the portfolio tomorrow morning! Just delete the video! Call the news outlets and tell them it was a deepfake, a prank, anything! Please, Daphne!"
"I don't want your money, Ross," Daphne said quietly. "And I'm not lying for you."
Before Ross could beg further, the line suddenly shifted. A deep, gruff, authoritative voice boomed through the speaker phone.
"Mrs. Mercer? This is Dr. Harrison Vance, Director of St. Jude Memorial."
Daphne didn't blink. "I know who you are, Harrison. I’ve seen your name on the plaque in the lobby next to the donor wall where my father’s foundation contributed fifty thousand dollars ten years ago."
There was a brief, awkward pause on the other end as the powerful hospital director realized he was speaking to someone who held institutional memory.
"Mrs. Mercer—Daphne," Harrison said, smoothing his tone into something oily and diplomatic. "Let’s be entirely rational about this. A public scandal benefits no one. It will disrupt patient care, damage the hospital's reputation in the community, and create a very messy, public divorce proceeding that will undoubtedly stress your young daughter."
"Are you threatening me, Dr. Vance?" Daphne asked, her voice dropping an octave.
"Not a threat, my dear. A pragmatic observation," Harrison replied smoothly. "If you agree to take down the post immediately and issue a public retraction stating it was a private domestic misunderstanding, I personally guarantee that Ross will resign quietly at the end of the month under the guise of pursuing 'private research.' You will receive a very generous severance package, full custody terms in writing, and absolute discretion from our legal team."
Daphne sat back in her wooden kitchen chair, looking out through the window into the dark, rain-slicked backyard.
"You want me to protect your hospital’s reputation," Daphne said slowly. "You want to sweep a senior physician's gross professional misconduct and gross moral failure under the rug because it looks bad on your fundraising brochures."
"It is about institutional stability, Mrs. Mercer—"
"No, Harrison," Daphne interrupted, her voice ringing out with absolute, razor-sharp finality. "It’s about accountability. My husband spent months making me feel small, invisible, and disposable while he treated hospital grounds like his personal dating playground. If St. Jude Memorial values its reputation so much, perhaps its board of directors should have vetted the ethics of the man running their cardiovascular department a little more carefully."
May you like
"Daphne, wait! Don't hang up—!" Ross screamed in the background.
Daphne did not hesitate. She tapped the red end-call button, turned off her phone completely, and tossed it onto the kitchen counter.
