Page 88 of Infamous
“More than that,” I say. “They’ve perfected the art of turning murder into medical misfortune. Post-op complications, sudden sepsis - clean, believable causes. The paperwork matches. The charts look right. Everything is tidy enough that no one asks more than a polite question.”
I lean forward, voice dropping. “But a few months back, there were cases that didn’t sit right. They sparked concern, real suspicion… and then vanished into the system. Buried. Smothered. Left to die the kind of slow, silent death only bureaucracy can pull off.”
Scar rubs the bridge of his nose, slow. “Examples.”
I force myself to the memory. “Eight months ago, a seven-year-old boy goes in for a routine appendectomy. Kid’s healthy, jokes with his mum. Doctor ticks boxes, nurse signs off. Post-op, the boy crashes - cardiac arrest. They code him for forty minutes, then pronounce him dead. Family’s told it was an infection.”
Mason speaks, low. “Parents complained?”
“Of course they complained.” I jab a finger at the table. “They asked for records. They wanted to see the meds chart. All they wanted was a reason why their son was dead, when he was due to be discharged in a matter of hours.”
“What happened?”
“Grief happened. The family was too tired, too distraught. Too poor to fight it.”
Mason leans forward. “And the hospital?”
“They signed off the incident as routine. No inquiry.”
“Are there more?”
“Unfortunately, at St. Elizabeth’s, it’s becoming a little too common for routine surgeries to go sideways,” I say. “There was even a malpractice case last year. You might remember it—the parents went public for a while, gave a few interviews, then disappeared from the spotlight overnight.”
Mason frowns. “Right. I don’t usually follow the news. We’ve already got enough chaos in real life.”
Scar snorts, grabs a pen off the table, and flicks it at Mason’s head. “Yeah, no kidding. Youarethe news half the time.”
Mason dodges it with a lazy grin. “Only when I let you write the headlines.”
Scar turns to me. “What was the malpractice suit about?”
“A twenty-two-year-old man that went in for a corrective knee surgery. Never woke up. Post-mortem said embolism. Family says he was fine the day before. After their very public outcry, the family just sort of dropped everything.”
Scar’s eyes are ice. “You think they settled with the parents?”
“Could be.” I feel the room tilt. “Or it could be something else. The family was tight lipped when I contacted them. I don’t think they’ll be talking to anyone anytime soon.”
“Sounds like a job for Kanyan,” Mason mutters, and honestly, I’m not inclined to argue. The man’s reputation is practically folklore at this point.
They call him the mafia’s truth serum—not because he tortures people, but because he rarely has to. He can sit across from the most volatile, tight-lipped bastard on earth and somehow pull the truth out of them with nothing more than a look and a few quiet questions. No threats. No theatrics. Just that unnerving calm of his, the kind that makes people confess things they didn’t even want to admit to themselves.
“Do we know where the organs go?” Scar asks finally, voice quieter than before. He doesn’t need the answer; he already feels its weight.
I shake my head. “Not yet. But I’m tracing the trail. They’ve buried their tracks deep - clean, and damn near airtight. It’s clear they’ve spent a long time perfecting how to stay invisible.”
Mason stares at me long enough that it feels like he’s mapping my bones. “Someone at that hospitalmustknow something. Organs aren’t cutting themselves out of the dead.”
“People are scared to talk,” I admit. “Hospitals are slippery. There are legal shells and lawyers who can positively bury us in bureaucracy if we don’t tread carefully.” I swallow. “And they move quick when someone gets noisy.”
Scar’s hand hits the table. “Then we move quicker.”
My phone buzzes on the table - one of those small, electric jolts that means something new has happened somewhere else. I don’t look, but the sound reverberates in my skull like a distant alarm.
“You good?” Mason asks.
I’m not. My hands are cold. The meeting was supposed to be thirty minutes to get the Gattis up to speed, make a plan, then leave. Instead we’ve been circling the wound for over an hour, patching and probing, and every minute I spend here is another minute I’m away from Nadia.
Scar looks up. “We may need more eyes in that hospital to speed this up. Every day that passes without closure, we’re risking another human life.” He pauses, eyes finding mine.
