Chapter 13
[ 491 words ]
Chapter 13:
His lazy posture vanished in a microsecond. The air pressure in the room plummeted, becoming thick and unbreathable.
He stood up. His leather shoes made absolutely no sound on the expensive carpet, but every slow, deliberate step he took seemed to crush Cromwell’s spine a little more.
Jarrod stopped right in front of the desk, towering over the sweating Chief of Staff.
“Who,” Jarrod asked. His voice was a soft, icy whisper that sent a violent shiver down Caroline’s spine. “Who gave you the authority to fire the woman who saved my officer’s life?”
Cromwell’s triumphant sneer froze. His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. “C-Colonel? I… I was only trying to give you an explanation for the breach. To hold someone accountable. I assumed you would want—”
𝖳h𝗲 𝖻𝘦𝗌𝘁 𝘳evie𝘄𝘀 𝘰𝗇 𝘨𝖺𝗹𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗌.𝗰о𝗺
“You assumed wrong.” Jarrod let out a dark, humorless laugh. He reached out with his left hand and picked up the printed termination letter.
He didn’t look at it. He kept his dead, gray eyes locked on Cromwell. With a sudden, violent flex of his wrist and fingers, Jarrod crushed and tore the thick paper. The muscles in his forearm bulged. He ripped the document into shreds with one hand, a terrifying display of raw grip strength.
He threw the pieces directly into Cromwell’s face.
The white confetti rained down over the desk. Cromwell’s knees buckled. He collapsed backward into his leather chair, his face the color of wet ash.
“If Caroline Thompson walks out of this hospital today without a job,” Jarrod said, leaning over the desk, “by tomorrow morning, Washington United Medical Center will lose every single dime of its Department of Defense funding. Your military contracts will be voided. And you, Doctor, will be investigated for criminal negligence.”
Cromwell gripped the armrests, trembling violently. “It… it was a misunderstanding! A terrible misunderstanding! Miss Thompson, please, you are reinstated immediately. Full pay. Take a few days off, paid.”
Caroline stood frozen. She should have felt relieved. She should have felt victorious.
Instead, a wave of profound, sickening humiliation washed over her.
She looked at Jarrod. He stood there, a god among mortals, casually destroying and rebuilding her life with a few whispered threats. First, he had forced her into a marriage to control her safety. Now, he was using his immense power to control her career.
She had spent her entire life being controlled. By her mother’s expectations, by Preston’s condescension, by Cromwell’s bureaucratic cowardice. She had bent and bent and bent until she thought she might break. And now this man—this terrifying, powerful, infuriating man—had swooped in to control this too. To fight her battles for her as if she were incapable of fighting them herself.
Something inside her, something she hadn’t felt in years, finally snapped into place. It wasn’t the instinct of a trained operative. It was the instinct of a woman who had simply had enough.
She was done being a pawn. She was done being rescued. She was done letting other people decide her worth.
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