Chapter 6 - The Unraveling Empire
The chaos in the boardroom was instantaneous. As the C-section was underway, the SEC and the state medical board swarmed the lobby. The "emergency audit" I had triggered in Chapter 3 finally reached its climax.
I sat in the waiting room, not praying, but watching the news feed on my phone. The headlines were savage: Vance Health Collapses: Fraud, Malpractice, and Forced Trials.
In the hospital corridors, the staff was in revolt. The nurses, who had been silenced for years, were finally speaking to the investigators. Julian tried to flee through the service elevator, but he found his security badge denied. I had revoked his administrative privileges an hour ago.
He stumbled back into the lobby, his face twitching, his expensive suit rumpled. He saw me sitting there, composed, reading a magazine. He lunged toward me, his hand raised in a desperate, final act of violence, but he was tackled by two plainclothes officers before he could touch me.
"You!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "You did this!"
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I stood up, smoothed my skirt, and looked at him with the cold indifference of a judge delivering a sentence. "I didn't do anything, Julian. I just held up a mirror to your own depravity."
As they dragged him away, his legs kicking, his "empire" dissolved into the static of police sirens and flashbulbs. Mia was in surgery, the baby was coming, and for the first time in nine months, the air in the hospital didn't smell like fear. It smelled like the beginning of the end.
