Page 166 of Lady and the Hitman

I buried my face in my hands and let the anguish come.

Because this wasn’t just about money.

It was about fear. And helplessness. And watching the man who taught me how to ride a bike and balance a checkbook and plant tomatoes cry out in pain while a billing department decided whether his life was worth a line of credit.

It was about systems that failed us. About a country that preached responsibility while letting families like mine drown.

It was about being a daughter. And not being enough.

I felt my mom’s hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I shook my head.

“I don’t know how to save him.”

She knelt beside me.

Neither of us said anything for a long time.

Just the machines. The quiet. The crushing weight of too late.

And above it all, the awful, unrelenting knowledge:

If we didn’t figure something out soon … my dad was going to die.

Trevor and Ronan must have heard the punch line through the door because the handle turned before I could pull myself together.

Trevor slipped in first, eyes already wet, indignation rising like a rash up his neck. Ronan came after, quiet as weather. He took in the room with a single pass—my dad’s gray mouth, my mother’s white knuckles, the folder of bills like a wound on the chair—then set his palm against the door and eased it shut.

Trevor went straight to me. “Z,” he breathed, crouching, hands hovering like he wanted to touch my shoulders and knew better. “I’m so, so sorry. I heard—Jesus. This is—this is unconscionable.”

The word landed like a stamp on a petition.

“It’s not just unconscionable,” he kept going, voice climbing. “It’s predatory. It’s structural violence. Your father is being punished for being … for being human in a country that treats healthcare like a luxury item.”

I stared at the tile. I didn’t have the energy to agree with him. Worse—I didn’t have the energy to disagree.

Trevor surged to his feet, as if outrage needed elevation. “I’m going to write about this,” he announced, already pacing a three-step loop between the bed and the window. “No names—you’ll be protected—but the story, the mechanisms, the financialized cruelty of it, the way they weaponize open enrollment and grace periods against working families—people need to see this. I’ll get it up on the Substack tonight. If it does numbers, I can pitch an expanded version toThe NationorSlate. We can build pressure. There are patient advocacy groups I can loop in, too. I know someone at Families First—” He snapped his fingers. “No, Health Justice Now. They have a pro bono counsel who loves cases like this.”

My mother blinked at him. “Cases like this,” she repeated faintly, like he’d said a slur in another language.

Trevor didn’t hear it. Or didn’t want to. “And letters,” he added, righteous momentum gathering. “We’re going to flood the hospital board, the insurer’s CEO, your state reps, the governor’s office with letters. Make calls. Public comment. We’ll start a petition, we’ll tag the right accounts, we’ll force a charity-case exception. It’ll be slow—God, I wish it weren’t—but public shaming works. We just have to get loud in the right corridors.”

“The window isn’t slow,” I said, my voice sandpaper. “The doctor said weeks. Maybe months. But probably not.”

He faltered, then rerouted. “Then we go two-track. Pressure and immediate support. I can set up a GoFundMe. Tonight. I have a template. We’ll frame it around systemic failure so it’s not … exploitative. We’ll show receipts. We’ll make it go viral. I’ll reach out to my list—subscribers are generous when there’s a villain. We’ll raise, I don’t know, fifty? A hundred? It’s possible in forty-eight hours if the right accounts boost. And if we center the injustice?—”

“Trevor,” I said.

He stopped. The machines filled the space he left.

“Okay,” he said more softly, palms up, as if he was trying to show me they were empty. “Okay. I’m trying. I’m—I want to help.”

I believed him, which somehow made it harder to bear. He wanted to help in the way that fit him—in paragraphs and calls to action and digital crowbars. I didn’t have room in my body for that kind of help. Not right now.

Ronan had moved to the corner nearest the window, half-shadow, arms loose at his sides. He looked like a man in a museum who’d been told not to touch anything but could dismantle the whole building if he had to. He hadn’t said a word.