I was on my way home from a night shift when my wife, Vanessa, called.

"Ethan, Michael Hayes is in the Neuro ER. CTA shows a ruptured aneurysm. You're the only attending who can take this tonight. Get back here. Anesthesia is already prepping."

In my past life, I rushed straight back to Chicago St. Mary's Medical Center.

But by the time I reached the neurosurgery suite, Michael was already dead on the table.

Vanessa had slapped me hard across the face right in front of the grieving family. She threw a pre-prepared operative report at my chest, sharply accusing me of a fatal surgical error.

The family's grief ignited into pure rage. Before I could even open my mouth to explain, they swarmed me.

Three days later, I was ambushed outside the trauma center by a mob of grief-stricken family members. I bled out on the pavement.

It was only after my death that I learned the truth. Vanessa, acting as Clinical Supervisor, had broken protocol and let a neurosurgery resident, Tyler Grant, practice on Michael. The patient died on the table. To dodge the fallout, they framed me.

Before my official cause of death was even released, they were already sleeping in the bed I paid for. They spun their relationship into something bulletproof, at least in the eyes of the hospital.

When I opened my eyes, I was back on the night of Vanessa's phone call.

"Pre-op is done. Hurry up," her voice pressed through the speaker.

My throat was bone-dry, but my voice came out dead calm. "I'm on my way."

I hung up and looked at the concrete landscaping barrier up ahead.

I yanked the steering wheel hard to the right.

The front of the car slammed into the wall.

~~~~~

CRASH.

The airbag deployed with explosive force. In that same split second, a sickening, muffled crack echoed from my right lower leg.

Like a dry branch snapped over a knee.

Agony shot from my ankle straight to my skull, white-hot and blinding.

I slumped against the steering wheel, resting my forehead on the deflating airbag, and smiled.

A fracture.

Injured just right.

Severe enough to keep me out of an operating room, but not enough to leave me permanently crippled.

This time, I wasn't going to be their scapegoat. I wanted to see exactly how Vanessa and Tyler planned to explain Michael's death without me there to take the fall.

I stayed slumped over, playing unconscious.

My phone buzzed again. Vanessa.

I didn't answer. An unconscious man can't pick up the phone.

Pain made my head swim, but the memories of my past life were sharper than ever.

Last time, I had blown through two red lights to get back to the hospital. When I arrived, Michael was already gone. The cranial incision hadn't even been closed. Blood was pooling under the surgical lights.

Vanessa had stood in front of the family, her face a mask of perfectly calibrated grief, pointing a finger at me. She told them I had taken reckless risks just to log a high-profile surgery, and it cost Michael his life.

I hadn't even processed her words before the family charged me.

I had trusted her. I thought the hospital's internal investigation would clear my name. I was terrified of losing my income, terrified of leaving my elderly, blue-collar dad, Samuel, with no one to care for him.

So I backed down. I waited. I thought the system would work.

By the time I finally gathered the evidence to appeal their bullshit conclusion, I was hit with a suspension, an investigation, a malpractice lawsuit, and finally—a knife to the gut.

The truth came out when it was too late.

Vanessa had been cheating on me. She let Tyler practice a high-risk surgical step on Michael. When Tyler cut into the dura mater, his hand slipped and severed a cerebral artery. The bleeding was catastrophic.

Michael died on the table.

Terrified of the liability, they lured me back to the hospital to take the hit.

And after I died, Samuel was left completely alone. He passed away in his apartment, undiscovered for days until the neighbors noticed the smell.

Someone rapped on my window.

"Sir! Hey, are you alright?"

I kept my eyes shut.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone had called 911.

As the paramedics loaded me onto the stretcher, I heard one of them mutter, "Looks like a fractured tibia."

When I opened my eyes again, I was being wheeled into the St. Mary's Medical Center ER.

The attending who took my case was Nora Bennett.

She looked down at my face and froze.

"Dr. Reed?" She tapped my shoulder.

I opened my eyes right on cue and grabbed her sleeve.

"Nora. Michael Hayes. Vanessa said he's critical. I need to get up to the neurosurgery suite."

Nora glanced down at the deformed angle of my lower leg, her brow furrowing. "Ethan, your tibia is fractured. You're going to emergency imaging for a stat CT."

"No." I struggled to sit up, hissing through my teeth as the pain spiked. "Vanessa said I'm the only one who can do it. Splint it. I can still supervise."

"You can't even stand."

"Then put me in a wheelchair."

Nora stared at me for two seconds, then stopped arguing.

She ordered the imaging and an ortho consult. Once the X-ray and CT confirmed the tibial fracture, the ER team applied a temporary splint, repeatedly checking my distal pulses.

Vanessa hadn't called again since the crash.

By the time I was cleared, splinted, and wheeled toward the trauma and neurosurgery floor, over an hour had passed.

As we approached the corridor outside the surgical suite, I heard her voice.

"I am so, so sorry. There was a complication... a surgical error. The attending of record, Dr. Reed... he made a terrible mistake. Michael didn't make it."

The family's wails erupted down the hall.

My fingers clamped down on the wheelchair armrests.

Then, Tyler's voice chimed in, pitched to sound sympathetic but laced with poison.

"Dr. Reed wants to cooperate with the compensation. But making a scene won't bring Michael back. You need to take the settlement and try to move on."

It was like throwing a bucket of gasoline on a house fire.

"Bring him out here!"

"We don't want your money! We want him held responsible!"

Nora pushed my wheelchair around the corner.

Vanessa saw me.

Her face paralyzed instantly, as if someone had just wrapped both hands around her throat.

"Ethan?"