RIVEN
The hospital atmosphereshifted the moment we returned from Boston.
Conversations would stop abruptly whenever Mireya and I entered the break room together. Even the junior resident offered a knowing smile when Mireya handed me a patient chart. The scrub nurses exchanged glances during pre-op briefings.
Small, subtle details, barely detectable to an outsider. But more than enough to make my spine straighten with defensive instinct.
We'd been meticulous about maintaining professional distance in public. No physical contact. No lingering looks across hallways. We operated with surgical precision in our separation.
None of it mattered.
People either knew or strongly suspected something had changed. As though everyone had decided to pay close attention to us where they had ignored us before.
The surgery scheduled for that morning was a standard aortic valve replacement. Routine. I had performed it hundreds of times.
Despite the familiarity of the task, I felt the weight of every pair of eyes in the operating room.
“Scalpel,” I requested, keeping my voice flat.
Mireya handed the instrument to me. Our fingers didn’t touch during the exchange, as we were always so careful to avoid even the slightest contact.
“Retraction,” I said.
She adjusted the surgical angle perfectly, just as she always did during our cases. Even with the masks on, I caught the scrub technician whispering something to the resident, their eyes flicking toward us before dropping back to the patient.
My hands remained perfectly steady. That was the one thing I could always control.
“Suture,” I called out.
The surgery took exactly two hours to complete from the first incision to the final stitch. I stripped off my surgical gloves as soon as we finished closing and left the room without saying another word to anyone.
Once inside the scrub room, I spent a much longer time washing my hands than was necessary.
“Dr. Cross?” a voice called out from the hallway.
I looked up from the sink to see the young resident standing in the doorway. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, smile already fixed in place before he'd said a word.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Excellent work in there today, sir.” He offered a smile that felt far too familiar for our professional standing. “You and Nurse Rosen have such great chemistry together. In the operating room, I mean.”
His words were innocent on the surface and framed as a professional compliment. But the specific tone he used suggested a hidden meaning that made my blood run cold.
I finished drying my hands with deliberate care. "Was there something specific you needed?"
"No, sir. Just wanted to say good job." He retreated quickly.
I stood in silence, his careful choice of words still hanging in the air.
Cassian found me sitting in my private office about an hour later. He closed the door and took a seat in the guest chair without waiting for an invitation to sit.
"We need to talk," he stated.
"I'm busy with post-op documentation."
"I don't care." He leaned back, studying my face with that unsettling perception of his. "I've been hearing rumors."
"What kind of rumors?"
