Her Final Diagnosis

The text message arrived twelve hours into a marathon artificial heart transplant with Dr. Evan Maxwell. It was from his fiancée, Isabelle Croft, and it was the start of a storm.

“Dr. Reed, Evan hasn’t answered me in ten minutes. I miss him so much.”

“You two are together, aren’t you? Can you send me a picture of him?”

I glanced at the sterile instrument tray, everything laid out and ready. I spared one-ten-thousandth of my focus to reply.

“Ms. Croft, Dr. Maxwell is in his final pre-op consultation. All phones have been secured.”

A few minutes later, a voice message.

“I knew it. You’re together. The only reason you won’t send a picture is because you have something to hide.”

I hadn’t even finished pulling on my last pair of sterile gloves. I ignored it and prepared to enter the OR.

The next second, my phone rang. I declined the call. A text immediately followed.

“You little bitch. I knew you were seducing him. How many times have you two slept together?”

“No wonder Evan won’t touch me anymore. He’s already had his fill with you.”

The surgical suite doors hissed open. My patience, already worn thin, finally snapped.

“Ms. Croft,” I said, my voice low and clipped, “Dr. Maxwell and I are colleagues. Nothing more. I have zero interest in him.”

I sealed my phone in my locker, figuring that would be the end of it.

I was wrong.

Just as the surgery reached its most critical phase, Isabelle Croft, flanked by two imposing bodyguards, smashed the glass of the operating room’s observation window.

She was screaming, a wild, frantic sound from the other side of the broken pane.

1

“Anna Reed, you shameless bitch! Get the hell out here!”

Evan’s hand jerked. The micro-suture needle, stitching the artificial heart to the aorta, came perilously close to piercing the arterial wall. A single millimeter further and the patient would have died instantly on the table.

“Security! Get her out of here. Now.”

I didn't have time to look at him, and I certainly didn’t have time to look at the lunatic shattering hospital property. My world narrowed to the heart on the table, waiting for its final, life-giving sutures.

“Evan, I’ll do it.”

Before he could answer, I reached out and took the needle holder from his trembling fingers.

My hands moved with a speed that was a full thirty percent faster than Evan’s on his best day. We had practiced this procedure hundreds of times; every motion was etched into my muscle memory.

Beyond the sterile field, the chaos was a boiling pot of noise—Isabelle’s curses, security guards shouting.

And here I was, in the eye of the storm, stitching a new beginning onto a dying heart.

When the final suture was clipped, the data on the monitor was as steady as a mountain range.

The surgery was a success.

I set down my instruments, and my legs gave out. I nearly collapsed.

Evan caught me.

The OR doors slid open.

Outside, Isabelle was pinned between two massive security guards, but her fury hadn't dimmed. Seeing Evan holding me up, the venom in her eyes intensified.

“Spit.”

A glob of saliva flew through the air. I twisted my head aside, and it hit the wall behind me.

“Anna Reed. You slept your way to the top, you piece of trash. You’re seducing him right in front of me.”

Evan stepped between us, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “Isabelle, that’s enough. Anna is my colleague. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Nothing wrong?” she shrieked. “Evan, you’re yelling at me for her? If you’ve done nothing wrong, then why did you spend the entire night with her two days ago?”

Her gaze, filled with pure hatred, locked onto me. “Tell me, Anna. How many condoms did you two use that night? Did you wear him out so much he couldn't even bother to come home?”

I was too tired to even lift my eyelids.

“Ms. Croft, I have no interest in your fiancé,” I said, my voice flat. “The only reason we were together was to run the final simulations for this procedure.”

“As for how many condoms we used,” I paused, finally meeting her gaze. “I suggest you book a consultation with a plastic surgeon. After all, a woman who can’t even keep her own fiancé interested should probably be more concerned with her own face and body than having a meltdown in a hospital hallway. Don’t you think?”

Isabelle’s face turned a shade of mottled purple. She screamed and tried to lunge, but the guards held her fast.

It was at that precise moment my boyfriend, Mark, arrived to pick me up.

And it was at that precise moment Isabelle dropped to the floor, grabbing Mark’s pant leg with the desperation of a drowning woman.

“Sir! Help me! Please, save my love!” she sobbed. “This woman… she’s trying to steal my husband! She’s put a spell on him with her scalpel! Please, make her stop! Make her leave us alone!”

Mark was completely stunned. He took a half-step back, trying to shake her off. The look he gave me was suddenly complex and utterly foreign.

Evan, his face a grim mask, rushed forward to pull Isabelle away.

She slapped him across the face. “You’re still protecting her!”

Watching the absurd, theatrical scene unfold, I grabbed Mark’s hand and walked away.

On the drive home, I told him everything. The harassing calls, the vile accusations.

He listened in silence.

When we parked in front of our building, he killed the engine and pulled me into a tight embrace.

“I’m sorry, Anna,” he whispered into my hair. “I’m so sorry I was late. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”

Tucked safely in his arms, the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours finally broke through, and I cried.

Back home, I had just finished my shower when my phone buzzed.

It was a picture from Isabelle.

It was a photo of her in a wedding gown, photoshopped over an image of Evan and me at the operating table. My face was obscured by a giant, crudely drawn red X.

Beneath it, a single line of text.

“I’m the bride.”

“You’re just a sacrifice at my wedding.”

I looked at the pathetic, vicious image and typed back two words.

“Get help.”

Then I blocked her number and deleted the conversation.

The next day, I arrived at the hospital on time, ready for work. But my name was gone from the surgical schedule.

Not only that, I’d been removed from the cardiothoracic department’s core surgical team entirely.

A new assignment notification popped up on my computer: administrative duty. I was to organize and archive old medical files.

For a surgeon, it was the ultimate insult.

The department head called me into his office. His expression was grim as he pushed a letter across his desk.

“Anna, the hospital received a formal, signed complaint against you.”

I picked it up.

The complainant, identifying as a patient’s family member, accused me of having a terrible attitude during pre-op consultations and demanding cash bribes. Even more absurd, the letter claimed I had leaked Dr. Maxwell’s private schedule to the paparazzi, leading to his being harassed.

At the end of the letter were several screenshots of faked chat logs. Every word was meticulously crafted to paint me as a manipulative, unethical gold digger.

I knew instantly it was Isabelle’s handiwork. The so-called “patient’s family member” didn’t exist.

Evan found out soon enough. He stormed into the dean’s office, arguing passionately on my behalf.

But he had no proof. His defense was meaningless against their manufactured evidence.

The hospital’s final decision: I was suspended, pending a full investigation.

My ID and access card were confiscated on the spot.

As I walked out of the office, I instinctively reached for my phone to call Mark.

The screen lit up with a new message before I could dial.

It was a video from him.

Someone had edited together clips of the surgery. Every glance Evan and I shared, every time our hands brushed while passing an instrument, was now in slow motion. It was set to the most saccharine, suggestive music imaginable, with lines of lewd text scrolling across the screen.

A life-or-death race against the clock had been twisted into a cheap, dirty movie.

Before I could even process it, a second message came through.

“Anna, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“We’ve been together for ten years. I gave up a fellowship abroad for you. Is this how you repay me?”

The cold accusation felt like a knife in my chest.

My hands trembled as I tried to type a reply.

“I’m being framed, Mark. You have to believe me…”

But before I could hit send, a bright red exclamation point appeared next to his name.

One final message flashed on the screen.

“We’re done.”

Then, he blocked me.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. Ten years of my life, and I wasn’t even worth a single conversation.

As I stood on the sidewalk, lost and hollowed out, a red Porsche pulled up to the curb.

Isabelle rolled down the window, a triumphant smirk on her face. “Did you like my little film, Anna? Your boyfriend was even easier to convince than I expected.”

“You know, all it took was one video from a burner account and a few suggestive messages, and he completely folded,” she purred. “He said you’ve been so cold to him lately. He knew you must have found someone else.”

“The star of your own dirty movie, Anna Reed. See how beautiful I made you look? Every pore just screaming with desire.”

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