He shook his head frantically.“I only did what?—”
“She’s under real care now,” I interrupted.“The doctor I hired is a top neurologist.He performed another scan.No atrophy.No cognitive decay.In fact, this most recent scan is so different from all the other ones in her medical records, there can be only one explanation.”I pressed the blade further into his skin.“Your scans were falsified.”
“I may have…adjusted them,” he gasped.“But that’s all?—”
I dug the knife deeper, and he screamed out, his face scrunched up in agony as blood ran down his side.
“Don’t worry, doc,” I said calmly.“That won’t kill you.Not right away.But I don’t need to tell you that.You’re a doctor.You already know you can survive for a while with a puncture wound in the intestines.I mean, youwilleventually die if left untreated.And it’s a slow, agonizing death.But, hey.At least you’re not dead yet.Right?”
“I swear to God,” Schaffer began, his voice barely audible as blood fell in streams from his open wound.
“God can’t help you now,” I taunted.“Only I can.So tell me the truth.”
“Idid.I don’t?—”
I flipped the knife and pressed the handle into the wound.His scream tore through the silence, raw and anguished.
“Try again.”
“I gave her medication,” he confessed, “to mimic symptoms.”
“Why?”I dug the handle a little deeper.
“He asked me to.”
“And you just blindly obeyed?”
His silence was all the answer I needed.It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.I saw the donations to Schaffer’s charity.A bribe masked as benevolence.
“I see.”I removed the knife, and Schaffer exhaled a long breath.“As long as someone with enough money asks you to disregard your oath, you’re happy to do so.Tell me, doc.What’s the going rate for your soul these days?”
“I didn’thurther,” he attempted to argue in his defense.
“You drugged her,” I snarled, bringing the knife up to his throat.“You stole her memories.A decade of her life was spent in a perpetual state of fog and paranoia.And you think that’s not harm?”
“She’s alive, isn’t she?”he rasped.“He ordered me to kill her, and I didn’t.Doesn’t that count for something?”
My grip loosened, his statement stealing my breath.I lowered the knife, studying him for any hint of deception.“Who ordered you to kill her?”
He pinched his mouth together, not wanting to utter another word.But I had ways of convincing people to talk.
Stalking over to the workbench, I grabbed the pliers and returned to him, bringing them up to his pinky.He immediately stiffened, trying to yank his hands away, but the chains made it impossible.
“Last chance, doc.Who ordered you to kill her?”
I already knew.I just needed him to say it out loud.
I added pressure to his finger, the sound of breaking bones echoing in the space.
“Victor!”he shouted through his labored breathing.“He told me to kill her, but to make it look natural.Like she’d died from her condition.”
“The condition you fabricated.”
“I knew it was another test of my loyalty, but this one… It went far beyond the drugs or sterilizations.I never thought he’d ask?—”
“Wait.What?”I released his pinky and stepped back.“What are you talking about?What do you mean by sterilizations?”
He inhaled a sharp breath, as if realizing what he’d just said.“I didn’t?—”
