Sitting in Maxwell’s ergonomic, three-thousand-dollar chair is a woman who looks like she just walked off a runway in Milan to fire someone.
She is terrifying.
She’s wearing a cream-colored Chanel suit that probably costs more than my entire medical school debt. Her hair is a helmet of perfectly coiffed blonde-grey, not a strand moving in the drafty ventilation. She is staring at my side of the room—specifically at the pyramid of Red Bull cans—with an expression of profound, anthropological disgust.
She looks at me. Her eyes are blue. Not the warm, hidden ocean blue of Maxwell’s eyes, but the cold, dead blue of a glacier.
"I assume," she says, her voice crisp and chilly, "that the janitorial staff is on strike?"
I blink. I slowly lower the bag of chips to my desk.
"Nope," I say, leaning against the doorframe and wiping a smudge of blood off my forehead with my forearm. "Just a busy day at the office, ma'am. If you’re looking for the gift shop, it’s in the lobby. If you’re looking for the complaint department, I’m afraid he’s currently in surgery."
The woman stands up. She doesn't smooth her skirt because her skirt wouldn't dare wrinkle.
"I am looking for Dr. York," she says. "I am Catherine York. His mother."
Oh.
The pieces click into place instantly. The posture. The chill. The absolute, unshakeable belief that she owns the room she is standing in.
This is the Matriarch. This is the woman who built the Ice King.
"Right," I say, straightening up. I try to look less like a blood-spattered savage. It doesn't work. "Jax O’Connell. Trauma. I share the office with Maxwell."
She looks me up and down. Her gaze lingers on the bloodstain on my chest, then the tattoos peeking out of my sleeve, and finally my muddy boots.
"He told me he was sharing space," she says. It sounds like an accusation. "He did not mention he was sharing it with... this."
"This?" I gesture to myself. "By 'this,' do you mean a highly decorated trauma surgeon, or just the general vibe of chaos?"
She ignores the question. She walks over to the blue tape line on the floor. She stops at the edge of it, as if crossing into my side of the room would infect her with tetanus.
"Maxwell requires order," she says. "He requires a sterile environment to function at his peak. How do you expect him to maintain his standards when he is forced to work in a... frat house?"
"He manages," I say, my voice hardening slightly. "He’s tougher than he looks, Mrs. York."
"Is he?" She turns to look at the succulent on Maxwell’s desk. She adjusts a leaf by a millimeter. "Maxwell has always been delicate. He feels things too deeply. It is why we have to curate his environment. To protect the asset."
The asset.Not her son. The asset.
I feel a flash of genuine anger. It’s the same feeling I get when I see a neglected kid come into the ER.
Before I can respond, the door opens again.
Maxwell walks in.
He stops dead.
For a second, the mask slips. The confident, arrogant Chief of Cardio vanishes. In his place is a twelve-year-old boy who just realized he forgot to do his homework. He pales. His posture goes rigid.
"Mother," he says. His voice is tight. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see why you haven't returned my calls about the Gala," Catherine says, turning her laser focus on him. "And to see if you needed help... fumigating."
She waves a hand vaguely in my direction.
Maxwell looks at me. He sees the blood, the mess, the chips. Then he looks at his mother. He swallows.
