My Husband Buried Our Kids. So I Buried His Legacy. Fair Trade. Chapter 13
The federal medical board came in the next day. Fast. They pulled everything—EMR logs, surgery schedules, badge records, Mira’s phone data.
Then they took her.
One by one, they peeled it all back. Swapping the anesthesia vials. Falsifying EMR entries. Paying people to pose as grieving families and storm my house.
All of it. Evidence on top of evidence.
She kept looking back as they cuffed her.
“Lucian! Don’t let them take me—I did this for you! You can’t just abandon me—”
Lucian stood at the end of the hall. Didn’t move. Face blank. Eyes cold. Almost hateful.
But the board’s conclusion hit me like a slap.
Lucian had no direct involvement. No proof he knew about the switch. He wasn’t in the room when it happened. Afterward, he thought it was an accident. Everything Mira did—he claimed he didn’t know.
The only thing they could pin on him? Negligence. Covering for a subordinate. Obstructing an internal investigation.
That was it.
I sat through the report. Said nothing. Stood up. Grabbed my coffee mug and hurled it at the floor. Shattered everywhere.
Didn’t look back. Walked out.
…
The next few days, Lucian followed me everywhere. Anywhere I went—the parking lot, the hospital hallways, outside the foundation office—he was there.
Lingering. Twenty feet back. Never closer. Yellow skin. Bloodshot eyes. Days of stubble.
I never turned around. Not once.
Then one day, after a routine site visit, I stepped out of the hospital. He lunged from behind a pillar.
My security moved to grab him, beat him down and toss him out.
He dropped to his knees. Hit the concrete. Grabbed my wrists. Squeezed hard.
“Elara, give me a minute.” His voice was wrecked. “Let me say this. Then I’ll go. I won’t come back.”
I nodded at my security. They stepped back.
“Talk.”
Head down. Voice muffled.
“I never crossed the line with Mira. I treated her well—I know that. But when I looked at her, I saw you.”
“You were an intern once. Tougher than her. Smarter. You could’ve gone further than me.”
“But you stepped back. For me. So I could be the surgeon. You ran the foundation. The hospital. You gave it all up.”
“I always felt like I owed you. So I tried to give her what I thought I owed you.”
I laughed. Slapped him across the face.
“Payback? You’re paying me back with my son’s life?”
His head snapped to the side. Blood at the corner of his mouth. He paused, didn’t wipe it, kept going.
“Disney—there really was a consult. The family gave us tickets. I was a mess. The kids had just died. I needed to breathe.”
“I didn’t know what she’d done. I thought it was just bad luck. I didn’t want Mira to take the fall for a medical error. She was too young. It would destroy her.”
“I didn’t know about the post. The kiss—she just went for it. I was holding her and she leaned in. I didn’t—”
“I was scared to tell you the truth. I thought it would hurt you more.”
“Then Mira started saying you were losing it. Delusional. She said I should get you into treatment. Step down from the hospital. Rest. I thought she had a point—”
“But I never saw it… she was lying the whole time. Step by step. And by the end—nothing was left to save.”
I slapped him again. Other cheek. Eyes bloodshot. Burning into his.
“What about the truffle eggs?”