And so I’d begged Livie to track down the original, Hungarian medical report. And since Christmas, in any spare moment, I had been translating it into English to compare.
The person who had translated it didn’t know the case as I did.
There were some lines that made me screw my nose, but I wanted to be sure. I translated line by line. Checked name by name as I went through them.
They were completely different from the report I’d been given. Jordan had tracked down those in the original secret report. One of which had transferred to our placement hospital. When asked, the doctor had refused to talk about it.
But I was getting close to those lines that had confused me, and I needed something concrete, something to believe in before I let my feelings win.
With Jordan preoccupied, I went back to my phone, paused my music, and listened to the audio of Zolt’s livestream last week.
I’d seen the video, but I couldn’t look at his face without crumbling.
Whenever I hit the brick wall of another push back, like the doctor not wanting to speak to us, I listened to his voice. The accent that had once undone me sexually broke my heart now.
“Fia Bacque did not know. She is innocent. She know Hungarian and English. She did not make mistake. She no responsible for my health, my career, my disgrace. She love — loved me. She not risk my health.”
His accent was just as thick, but his fluency, his confidence shocked me. He’d rehearsed.
I closed my eyes, letting my whole body hone in on his confession. “I was hurt. I did not know. I would not race if knew.”
There was a pause as he gathered himself, swallowed, and said, “I am sorry. I not mean to hurt anyone.”
I tore off the headphones, blinking away tears, when there was movement in my peripheral vision. Jordan was standing, talking to a petite woman who leaned back against his desk. She smiled at me and took his hand.
A pinprick jabbed under my ribs. I missed that.
He said over his shoulder, “We’re going to get a coffee. Do you want anything?”
I shook my head, put my phone down, wrapped myself up tighter in the blanket, and decided that while he was gone, I would get some serious investigation done. Because I knew I was coming up to one of the phrases in the neurology consultation that made me second-guess the entire report.
‘Patient not acting appropriately. Brother assisted with arrangements.’
What did that even mean?
I checked the Hungarian report, going over it once, twice, three times, and to be quadruply sure, flipped through my Hungarian translation book carefully, so nothing fell out.
Not “not acting appropriately.”Incapable of acting.
Not “assisted.”Authorised.
Impaired capacity; brother designated to handle affairs.
Zolt wasn’t capable of consenting to anything. He’d been comatose. He’d suffered a lethal brain injury. I doubted he’d understood anything in that hospital. But his brother did and seemingly dismissed it.
The brother he trusted as his manager and believed everyword of.
I closed down the tab of the report without noting my findings, breathing through pursed lips as I tried to rationalise what this meant. I’d known it, but seeing it in front of me… I felt it.
The betrayal.
The anger.
Hatred.
But not for me, for him.
And I was suddenly so hot, the blanket was discarded around the feet of my chair, and I was at the front of my Hungarian translations book, staring at my name on the envelope Everly had given me. I flipped it over, and his sprawl made me halt.
