Page 5 of The Bad Brother

I ’VE BEEN ON MY FEET FOR NEARLY thirty-six hours with nothing but protein bars, burnt coffee, and twenty-minute power naps to keep me going.

The last day and a half—a seemingly endless blur of bloody faces and broken bones—has been our first real test as a trauma center and, all things considered, we came through with flying colors. As soon as I feel pride start to flare in my chest, I stamp it out.

I performed surgery on ten victims from the bus crash. Nine of them came through it successfully. One of them didn’t. Like most surgeons, I forget about the nine and focus on the one.

Her name was Elaine Thompson. She was a seventy-nine- year-old widow who lived in Sun City, Arizona. She was on her way to North Carolina to meet her first great-grandbaby, and I failed her.

Lowering myself onto the hard, wooden bench bolted into the floor in the staff locker room, I let my shoulders slump and my eyes close against the sudden sting of tears. Sheriff Montgomery and I made the death notification to her daughter and son-in-law via Zoom a few hours ago.

During triage, it was determined that Mrs. Williams was suffering from internal bleeding that was causing life-threatening blood loss.

She was immediately prepped for emergency surgery to repair the internal lacerations sustained in the accident.

It was during surgery that she went into cardiac arrest and though exhaustive life saving measures were taken, we were unable to revive her.

I regret to inform you that your mother died at 3:53AM this morning.

I held her heart in my hand and manually pumped it for nearly forty-five minutes before the chief surgeon finally pulled me away and said enough is enough, Sloane. She’s gone .

After I informed her family, I put it away and scrubbed up for my next surgery, telling myself I could cry when it was all over—and it’s finally over.

Remembering my promise to call Ethan as soon as I could, I check the large analog clock hanging on the wall—it’s nine o’clock in the morning.

Scrubbing my hands over my tear- stained face, I clear my throat and straighten my shoulders before reaching out to open my locker.

Ethan hates it when I bring my work home with me.

All that death and tragedy is a bummer, Sloane. I don’t like to think about it.

Locker open, I dig my phone out of my hastily stashed purse and turn it back on.

Staring at the screen while notification after notification roll across it, I note that all but one of them are from my mother.

Because I’m in a self-loathing mood, I open up my voicemail and click on the latest message.

“How could you, Sloane? How could you just get up and walk out of your own engagement party—a party your father paid a great deal of money for, I might add—leaving poor Ethan just sitting there by himself and looking like a complete and utter fool. You—” I delete the message without listening to the rest of it.

Knowing that the other twenty-two messages she left me are just more of the same, I delete those too.

Backing out of my voicemail, I start to call Ethan when I notice a text message from Amy.

Opening it, I see that it’s a video message and I smile.

She’s always sending me funny TikToks while I’m on shift, and I open it without hesitation because I really need the laugh right now.

Maybe it’ll lighten my mood a little before I call Ethan.

When the video starts, my cheeks instantly turn red and I take a look around to make sure I’m alone because this isn’t a funny TikTok—this is an X-rated video of a woman on her knees in front of a man.

His pants are down around his hips and his cock is in her mouth.

From the camera angle, it looks like the man is holding the camera so all I can see is the top of the woman’s head, bobbing up and down in his lap, her dark hair loose and covering her face.

Confused as to why Amy would send this to me, I move to stop the video but then the man behind the camera speaks.

Fuck, baby, you suck my cock so good…

Ethan.

That’s Ethan’s voice.

In the background, I can hear my mother with her microphone, prattling on about how lucky I am that someone like Ethan would stoop so low as to marry someone like me.

While I sat there and listened to my mother sing his praises and make sure everyone knew I wasn’t worthy of him, Ethan was cheating on me.

You suck me so much better than she does…

Like the woman on her knees in front of him took it as some sort of personal challenge, she starts moving faster, each downward thrust accompanied by a gagging sound.

You hear that, Sloane… she’s choking on my cock the way you never would…

Amy caught him with his pants down—literally—and she sent me the video as evidence so I’d know. So I wouldn’t make the mistake of marrying him… but even as I think it, I know that’s not right.

Because Amy’s not the one taking the video.

Ethan is.

Realization clenches my gut so hard I feel a surge of stomach acid splash against the back of my throat, a second before Ethan starts to come on screen, reaching down with his free hand to grab her by her hair and push her head down even further.

Every drop, Amy. Swallow every fucking drop.

Numb, I sit here, in the middle of the deserted locker room and watch while my best friend finishes blowing my fiancé at our engagement party.

Lifting her head a final time, Amy pushes her hair out of her face and smiles into the camera while she wipes at the corners of her mouth like she just enjoyed a five-star meal.

“I think what Ethan is trying to tell you, Sloane, is that the engagement is off.” Message delivered, she stands and makes her way off camera, presumably to fix her hair and make-up before heading back to the party where I’m waiting for both of them like the world’s biggest idiot.

Turning the camera onto himself, I watch with disgust while Ethan puts himself away before angling the camera so I can see the smug look on his face.

“Amy is already moved in. Your stuff is packed up and waiting for you in your car.” Zipping his pants up, Ethan aims a sheepish grimace at the camera.

“Like she said—the engagement is off. Your mother’s right—I do deserve better.

Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. ”

Like hell.

Jabbing my thumb against the screen, I exit out of the video and call Ethan. The second he answers, I explode.

“You planned this?” That much is obvious.

He and Amy have been planning to get rid of me for a while.

I work twelve hours shifts and when I’m on the floor, I can’t leave.

They both know that. “Filmed your little goodbye video at our engagement party and just waited for me to go to work so you could pack my stuff, dump it in my car, and change the locks.”

“Pretty much,” Ethan confirms my suspicions on an amused chuckle. “And we didn’t even have to wait—that stupid pager of yours went off and you ran out the door, same as always.”

No way.

No way am I going to let him gaslight me into believing this is my fault.

“If you think I’m going to be the one to move out, you’re fucking crazy,” I hiss into the phone, doing my best to keep my voice down. “ I’m the one who drained her savings for the down payment. I’m the one who pays the mortgage. I’m?—”

“Not on the deed.”

My stomach rolls again. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not on the deed, Sloane,” he tells me in a calm, almost apologetic tone.

Why would he say that? For a second, I don’t understand.

But then I do.

“Of course I’m on the deed, Ethan—” Panic and denial push the words out in a hurried rush. “it’s my condo. I bought it.”

“Are you sure?” I hear Amy in the background, her tone sullen— forget about her, baby . Just hang up the phone and come back to bed.

Ethan’s not going to hang up the phone. I can hear it in his tone—he’s having too much fun.

“What did you do?” I hate the sound of my voice when I ask it. Small and broken and I realize that’s how Ethan likes me. Off balance and unsure. Half believing the bullshit my mother spews about how fortunate I am to have a man like him.

Instead of answering me, Ethan sends me a text. “You might want to look at that.”

Sure it’s another disgusting video of him and Amy fucking in my house, I reluctantly open the text. It’s not another video. It’s a photograph of the deed to my condo.

“Zoom in and you’ll see that my name is the only name on it,” he informs me, his tone clipped and formal like now that the death blow has been delivered, I’m not any fun to play with anymore.

“If you come here, I’ll call the sheriff and have you arrested for trespassing and domestic disturbance—I don’t think that would play too well with your precious hospital, do you? ”

Ethan hangs up before I can answer him.

Hand suddenly shaking, I use my thumb and forefinger to widen the screen on my cell phone, zooming in on the picture he sent me.

He’s right.

Under name of purchaser it says Ethan Pryce.

My name is nowhere on it. How did this happen?

How did I let this happen? And then I remember.

When Ethan came to pick me up at the hospital so we could meet the lender and sign the closing paperwork, we’d been swamped and I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave the hospital understaffed.

Ethan, still playing the part of loving fiancé, kissed me on the cheek and said, don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of it.

And I’d been grateful.

My ears instantly start to ring and my scalp begins to tingle. A surefire sign that I’m headed for a panic attack.

Shit.

Dropping my phone, I dive back into my bag.

Fingers fumbling with the side pocket, I pull out a cellophane wrapped candy and jam it into my mouth, the sudden sting of citric acid on my tongue so intense it burns my nostrils.

Knowing it won’t be enough, I crack the small, sour disc between my teeth, releasing another flood of citric acid, this one enough to overpower my senses and pull be back from the edge.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, I roll the halves of sour candy across my tongue, sucking on them while I close my eyes and repeat my self-grounding mantra.

I am calm.

I am strong.

I am capable.

Over and over, until the ringing in my ears tapers off into a quiet buzz and it no longer feels like I have an army of fire ants trapped between my scalp and skull.

Good, Sloane. You handled that very well , my imaginary therapist tells me in his calm, soothing voice. Imaginary because I’ve never actually been to therapy. I had my first panic attack when I was nineteen. When I tried to talk to my mother about it, she laughed at me.

You’re a pretty girl from a good family. Why on earth would you need a therapist?

I learned the grounding technique with the sour candy from TikTok. Who needs therapy when you have Atomic Warheads and words of affirmation?

When I hear myself laugh, I’m mildly concerned that my panic attack hasn’t abated—just merely shifted itself into full-blown psychosis.

Since I don’t think citric acid can stop a psychotic break, I open my eyes to fish a travel pack of tissue out of my purse. Plucking one free, I spit the last bit of my candy into it before wadding it in my fist while my new reality settles in.

I am homeless.

I am broke.

I am alone.

And I have my loving fiancé to thank for it.