Page 168 of Lady and the Hitman

Out in the hall, voices rose and fell, carts squeaked, somewhere a code announcement murmured in a tonedesigned not to alarm. My mother kept stroking my father’s hair, lips moving as if she was praying or bargaining or simply narrating a love story into his ear—all those years of mornings and coffee and soil beneath the nails, a life too ordinary to put on television and too extraordinary to lose.

The door cracked open. Ronan didn’t come through yet. He stepped just in, eyes on the monitor, then on me. “Five minutes,” he said softly. “Then I’ll have updates.”

I nodded. He disappeared.

Trevor leaned closer, whispering like we were children under a blanket. “Z, who is this guy?”

I had forty-seven answers and none that would keep him from circling back to the wrong one. “He’s … someone who does what he says he will.”

Trevor huffed. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I’m giving you.”

He recoiled an inch, stung. “You don’t have to be cruel.”

“I’m not,” I said, and maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I was past the polite wrappers we all used to pass grief back and forth without getting our hands dirty. Maybe I was finally ready to pick it up bare.

Minutes stretched. My body learned every pitch of the oxygen’s hiss, every blink-rate of the telemetry, every seam in the tile. I tried to catalogue something practical—numbers, names, insurance appeal timelines—anything to keep the terror from eating through me. But terror was efficient. It didn’t need my help.

The door opened again.

Ronan entered with the certainty of a verdict.

He’d rolled his sleeves once, forearms a map of muscle and intent. The phone was still in his hand, screen gone dark. He didn’t waste time on preambles.

“Here’s what’s happening,” he said, not unkindly, and the room obeyed.

My mother straightened. Trevor stood and then thought better of it, settling on the edge of the chair like a student trying to look attentive.

Ronan’s gaze scanned my father’s face, then lifted to mine. “I spoke with Cardiac Transfer at Cleveland and with the surgical coordinator for Dr. Kitsap’s team.” He said the name like he’d said it before, not out loud, but in the part of the world most people pretended didn’t exist. “They’ve reviewed the scans MUSC uploaded to the exchange. He meets criteria. They’ll take him.”

My knees almost went out again. I gripped the rail.

Ronan continued, calm as a countdown. “MUSC will initiate the formal physician-to-physician handoff within the hour. I’ve already secured a critical care air ambulance to move your father. It’s equipped for in-flight monitoring and medication titration. Wheels up at 2300 from Charleston Executive on Johns Island so we avoid main terminal delays. He’ll transfer directly from this unit by ground ambulance with a CC nurse and respiratory therapist on board.”

My mother’s hand flew to her mouth. “Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“How—” Trevor started, then stopped, jaw chewing on the question like it might bite him back.

Ronan didn’t answer him. He looked at my mother. “Hope, you and Zara will follow on my aircraft. You’ll depart thirty minutes after your husband. You’ll land at Burke Lakefront—closer to the Clinic than Hopkins. A car will be waiting on the tarmac to take you straight to your hotel. Greg will go to pre-op assessment as soon as he’s admitted. If all remains stable, Dr. Kitsap plans to operate at 0700.”

“Tomorrow,” I whispered, like it was a word I had to relearn.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

My mother’s eyes filled. “We can’t pay for—” She choked. “We don’t have?—”

“It’s covered,” Ronan said, as if he were naming the weather. “All of it. The air ambulance. The surgical deposit. The inpatient costs beyond what charity care will reconcile. The hotel for you both. I put a card on file for incidentals.” He paused, then added, “You won’t see a bill.”

Silence fell so cleanly I could hear the memory of the oxygen before it returned.

Trevor was the first to break it, a reflex more than a choice. “You can’t … you can’t just— That’s not how— There are … there are processes. There are waitlists. There’s?—”

“There are,” Ronan agreed, not looking at him. “And there are exceptions when the right people decide there are exceptions.”

Trevor flushed. “That’s corruption.”