Page 16 of Nica (Texas Boudreau Brotherhood #17)

He switched screens to his email, checking that his latest anonymous message to the World Health Organization had been delivered.

A carefully crafted letter expressing “concerns from a medical colleague” about Dr. Summers’ history of patient care.

Just enough truth mixed with implications to warrant an investigation.

Geneva was already having second thoughts; his contact had confirmed as much.

A separate window on his screen displayed Nica’s work schedule at the town’s middle school.

She was substitute teaching science to eight graders.

His hired man was familiar enough with the school building he could move around unnoticed, and he’d make sure Mrs. Boudreau-Summers would feel like she was being watched.

It would be so simple, since her class usually met in the school’s library for study time.

He wouldn’t threaten the children—he wasn’t a monster—but he’d make his presence known to her alone.

A tall man in a black jacket, always at the periphery of her vision, gone when she looked directly.

“The wife is the key,” he muttered, opening a folder labeled “NICA.” Inside were detailed notes on her background, her habits, her fears.

The file revealed what he’d learned from weeks of research: Nica Boudreau had suffered a home invasion while living off campus.

The lingering trauma manifested in hypervigilance about locked doors and windows. A weakness he could exploit.

He flipped through photos of Gabriel’s apartment, mentally noting which windows would be easiest to tamper with.

Not to enter—not yet—but to unlock. To make her doubt her memory, her safety.

To make her question her sanity. And he’d make sure to do it at the apartment where she spent most nights, Gabe’s apartment.

It amused him that the newlyweds didn’t share a home.

From what he’d garnered, they hadn’t even told her family they had eloped.

What delicious irony. Gabriel Summers had ruined his chance at a happy marriage, now he’d return the favor.

His phone buzzed. A text from his hired man in Shiloh Springs: Subject home now. Lights on in kitchen. Both targets inside.

He smiled, reaching for the voice distorter he kept beside his laptop. The device was cold and metallic against his fingers as he dialed Gabe’s cell number from the burner phone.

One ring. Two rings.

“Hello?” Gabe’s voice, tense and wary.

He switched on the distorter. “Thinking about Geneva, Doctor? I wouldn’t bother packing your bags.”

He disconnected before Gabe could respond. The rush of power was immediate, intoxicating.

Turning back to his main computer, he opened a folder labeled “ PHASE2 .” Inside were files he’d been compiling ever since he’d decided to make Gabe’s life a living nightmare.

The file contained information about Gabe’s parents in Boston, his residency supervisors at Stanford, former patients—some of whom could be convinced to speak out with fabricated accounts about their care with the right persuasion.

Then there were the photos of Gabe and Nica, going about their daily lives, unaware they were being watched.

He clicked on a new document titled “Operation Achilles.” The plan was elegant in its simplicity: use Nica to destroy Gabe’s focus, his confidence, his ability to function.

His latest tactic—having small personal items of Nica’s moved around their apartment—was already yielding results.

His man reported that last night, Gabe and Nica had argued about a missing earring that later appeared on Gabe’s nightstand. Seeds of doubt carefully planted.

And tomorrow, his man would deliver a bouquet to Nica at the school library—pale pink roses, her favorite, with a card containing only a line from her private journal, something only someone who had been in their home would know.

The violation would be psychological, intimate.

The kind that would keep Gabe awake at night, watching over her, distracted from his work, making more mistakes.

He’d also arranged for calls to Nica’s phone from spoofed numbers appearing to be Gabe’s, but when she answered, there would be only silence, or sometimes, the sound of a woman weeping. Let her wonder if Gabe was hiding something, if there was another woman who knew his secrets.

Melissa’s children would grow up without their mother because of Summers.

He didn’t believe the lies the hospital and the press spread about Dr. Summers being drugged by another colleague.

If there had been drugs involved, which wouldn’t surprise him, the good doctor had taken them himself.

Now he could live with the consequences of his actions.

The least he could do for Melissa and her children was ensure Gabe never knew peace again.

Never felt safe. Never walked into an examination room without second-guessing himself.

Never hold his wife without wondering if she would leave him.

He opened Melissa’s autopsy report for the hundredth time, her face in the morgue photos still beautiful despite everything. Her children’s school pictures were lined up beside it on his screen, two faces with her eyes, her smile.

“I promised you,” he whispered to Melissa’s image. “I promised I’d make him pay.”

His fingers moved to a small, framed photo on the desk, the only personal item in the sterile room.

Melissa at the lake, laughing at something off-camera, her hand stretched toward the photographer.

Toward him. The diamond ring on her finger catching the sunlight.

Six years together, planning a future, raising her children as if they were his own.

All obliterated by one man with a scalpel who’d cost him everything with one moment of medical negligence.

“He took everything from me,” he said to the empty room. “Everything that mattered. Now it’s time for me to do the same to him.”

He still remembered standing in that antiseptic hospital corridor, the anesthesiologist and the Director of Nurses carefully explaining what happened, that Melissa had suffered a series of unexpected complications, speaking of Melissa’s death as anything but what it truly was—murder by incompetence.

And afterward, the hospital’s lawyers circling the wagons, the confidential settlement with its gag order that was supposed to silence him.

As if money could replace Melissa. As if legal documents could contain his rage.

Now her children called another man “Dad.” A man who hadn’t been a part of Melissa’s life for years, hadn’t loved her like she was the air he breathed, hadn’t been there holding her, loving her until that final, fatal mistake. The injustice burned in him like acid.

He touched the glass gently. Summers had no idea who was coming for him, who was methodically dismantling his life. But he would. Eventually. When there was nothing left to take.

The GPS tracker showed the red dot stationary now.

Home for the night, probably discussing with Nica what to do, how to handle the situation.

Let them talk. Let them worry. Tomorrow would bring new torments: The medical board of the clinic would receive their anonymous packet, and his man in Shiloh Springs had instructions for another close encounter.

And after that? He smiled as he shut down his laptop. After that, Dr. Gabriel Summers would learn what it truly meant to lose everything he loved.