Page 102 of Chandelier Sin
“How’s your friends?”
I narrowed my gaze. “I’ve seen how you treat yours.”
“And how do you know Ben was a friend?” He squeezed his eyes shut, having fallen right into the confession.
“Atticus!” Eve chastised.
“He deserves it,” I said.
“You’re in my home,” said Roper. “Under my roof. You’ve come here uninvited. Show me respect.”
I tucked my hands into my pockets. “I’ve seen how that turns out.”
“You believe you’re different?”
“I like to think so.”
“You’re a talented surgeon,” he said. “Surprising then to learn your sister died at Cedars. Same place you work.”
He might as well have shot me through the heart. “Your point?”
“I hear you treated her initially but were unable to save her.”
I refused to have this conversation.
“Protocols are a bitch,” he said wily. “Her care was transferred to a surgeon with less experience. The one with all the talent was not permitted to enter the operating room.”
“You’ve been digging around,” I said bitterly. “But you’ve got it wrong.”
He studied my face for the longest time. “No, I don’t think I have.”
“It’s got nothing to do with any of this.”
“It’s what made you the man you are, Atticus. A man obsessed with his profession. No family, no girlfriend to speak of, and no interests other than Chrysalis, when you can be bothered to show up there.”
Eve’s expression reflected empathy as her attention focused on my inked hands, as though trying to piece together what had made me and then destroyed me.
That day, that dreaded morning, I’d stepped back and let the protocols win out, the ones that dictated a doctor wasn’t allowed to treat a relative—pacing outside the operating room with the knowledge I was letting my sister down.
Letting her die.
I’d been too young, too junior a doctor to know any different. I wanted to go back in time, barge into the OR and save her.
My hands marked the fallout of that day.
Roper wouldn’t know that, though.
He appeared satisfied with my reaction. “A doctor willing to let a loved one die in the name of obedience is the man I want on payroll.”
Bile rose in my throat, the bitter taste of defeat.
A warrior taking the strike.
My heart rate slowed like it did when presented with a surgical case that seemed impossible. Death’s claws were scratching at the operating room door, with us in a dance of life and death and me swearing this time I’d win.
“How much are you offering?” I asked calmly, hearing my voice like it came from someone else.
His eyes gleamed. “More money than you’d make in a lifetime at Cedars.”
