Chapter 8 - The Visitor in the Lobby
The Hawthorne lobby was usually a place of quiet clinical recovery, but today it felt like a staging ground for a legal war zone.
When I stepped out of the elevator, I saw a woman standing near the reception desk. She wore a sharp, charcoal wool coat, her silver-streaked hair pulled back into a severe, elegant chignon. She didn't look like a typical corporate attorney; she had the unmistakable posture of someone accustomed to commanding courtrooms without raising her voice.
As I approached, she turned, her dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that felt entirely familiar.
"Dr. Ellison," she said, her voice carrying a dry, patrician crispness. "I am Elena Thorne. Aris’s older sister."
I stopped a few feet away, my posture stiffening instinctively. "I heard about your brother's arrest, Ms. Thorne. If you're here to serve an injunction on behalf of his defense team, you're in the wrong building. The federal receivership office is across town."
Elena Thorne didn't flinch at my coldness. Instead, she offered a tight, tired smile that lacked any trace of arrogance.
"I am not here to defend Aris, Dr. Ellison," Elena said, stepping closer. "In fact, if I had my way twenty years ago, Aris would never have been allowed anywhere near a scalpel, let alone an administrative board. My brother is a brilliant, arrogant man who let his ambition metastasize into a god complex."
"Then why are you here?" I asked, crossing my arms over my blazer.
"Because of what you found in the sub-basement archive," Elena said quietly, her eyes glancing around the lobby before returning to my face. "And because of the trust fund in Vermont."
The air in my lungs went still. "You know about Thomas."
"I’ve been paying for the remainder of his care out of my own pocket since Aris’s accounts were frozen yesterday," Elena said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Aris didn't run that 2022 trial out of greed, Dr. Ellison. Not entirely. When our younger brother Thomas was paralyzed during a botched residency procedure at Johns Hopkins, Aris vowed he would find a way to regenerate his spine, no matter the cost. When the traditional medical establishment locked him out, he built his own empire so he could fund the research in secret."
"That doesn't excuse what he did," I said, my voice sharp. "He covered up permanent motor degradation in trial patients. He ruined careers, including Evan's, and he manipulated everyone around him like chess pieces."
"I am not asking you to forgive him," Elena said firmly, taking a step closer. "I am asking you to listen to what happens next. The federal prosecutors want to tear down every lab, every server, and every peptide formula Aris ever touched. They want to erase Project Janus entirely to save face."
"If the protocol is toxic, it should be erased," I argued.
"It isn't toxic," Elena countered, her dark eyes flashing with sudden passion. "The carrier solvent was flawed—that was the junior researcher’s mistake, the one Aris covered up. But the core regenerative peptide works. I've seen Thomas move his toes, Dr. Ellison. For the first time in ten years, the neural pathways showed signs of bridging."
She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a heavy, encrypted flash drive, extending it toward me.
"Aris is finished. His career is over, and he will likely spend the next decade in federal custody," Elena said. "The board wants to liquidate this wing and turn it into a standard orthopedic recovery center. But if you take this drive—if you take the raw, unadulterated peptide data and combine it with your own published work on neural plasticity—you can fix what Aris broke. You can finish the trial the right way."
I stared at the small metal drive resting in her palm. Taking it meant stepping directly into the crosshairs of a federal investigation. It meant taking ownership of a scandal that could either cement my legacy as a medical pioneer or destroy my career permanently.
Before I could reach out my hand to take it, a sharp, frantic voice cut across the lobby.
"Mara! Don't you dare touch that!"
May you like
We both turned. Evan was striding across the polished tile floor, his tie undone, his face pale and slick with sweat.
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