Chapter 12
[ 498 words ]
Chapter 12:
“Thompson!” Cromwell barked, pointing a thick finger at her. “Did you forget how to knock? Get in here and shut the door.”
Caroline took a sharp breath. She stepped inside and let the heavy door click shut behind her. She walked toward the desk, her legs feeling like lead. “Dr. Cromwell, I got your text. I was paged urgently yesterday. I was only trying to—”
Jarrod didn’t say a word. From the moment she walked in, his deep, stormy eyes locked onto her. He watched her in total silence, like a spectator observing a tragedy unfold.
Cromwell cleared his throat loudly, turning his body slightly toward Jarrod in a desperate attempt to curry favor. “Colonel Romero, as I was saying, this hospital has a zero-tolerance policy for security breaches. I assure you, I am handling the staff responsible for yesterday’s incident with the utmost severity.”
Caroline’s blood ran cold. The skin on her arms prickled. Cromwell was pinning the blame for the assassin slipping into the ICU entirely on her. Of course he was. In his mind, Romero was furious about the security lapse that had nearly cost his officer’s life and left him injured. Cromwell, desperate to save his military contracts, had decided the fastest way to appease the Colonel was to offer up a scapegoat. And the most disposable person in the chain of command was the intern nurse who had been taken hostage. He probably thought he was being strategic.
Cromwell turned his venomous glare back to Caroline. “You lack basic professional judgment, Thompson! You allowed an unidentified, armed individual to approach a high-value military patient. You put this entire facility at risk!”
𝗣𝗼𝘱𝘶l𝗮𝘳 𝗌𝗍𝘰𝘳𝗂es 𝘰𝗇 𝘨a𝘭𝘯𝗈𝘃𝗲𝗹ѕ.c𝗼m
Caroline clenched her jaw so hard her teeth ached. “He was wearing a doctor’s coat! And I pressed the silent alarm the second I realized his shoes were wrong. I put myself between him and the patient!”
“And you caused Colonel Romero to sustain a severe injury!” Cromwell roared, slamming his fist onto the desk. The pens in their holder rattled. “This is a public relations nightmare! The board is furious!”
Cromwell snatched a piece of paper from his desk and shoved it toward her. “To demonstrate our commitment to patient safety, you are hereby officially terminated from Washington United Medical Center. Pack your locker and get out.”
Caroline felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. Her vision blurred at the edges. She had worked night shifts, scrubbed bedpans, and studied until her eyes bled for this internship. Now, she was being tossed aside like garbage just to appease a VIP’s supposed anger.
She turned her head and looked at Jarrod. Her eyes burned, rimmed with red, swimming with tears of pure, unadulterated injustice. She thought he had brought her here to help. Instead, he was sitting there, letting this happen. She couldn’t understand it. Was this his idea of protection? Letting her taste the absolute destruction of her life before stepping in to save her?
Jarrod saw the tears welling in her eyes.
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