Mark looked down at his thickly bandaged foot.
The bandage was soaked with yellow fluid and blood.
“I need treatment, Eleanor,” he said pitifully.
“If you really are a shareholder here, please consider it charity. I was your husband. We used to love each other.”
“Love?” I laughed without humor.
“You loved my young body. When I became a frumpy mother, you threw me away.”
“Now you’re begging for mercy in the name of a past love.”
“There was no love between us, Mark. Only a karmic debt.”
I pointed to the charity care form.
“You want that signature? You want your life saved?”
Mark nodded quickly.
“Yes. Yes, please. I’ll do anything. Anything at all. I’ll apologize. I’ll get on my knees and beg if I have to.”
I smiled faintly.
“It’s not me you need to beg. It’s the person with the medical authority in this room.”
I turned to Leo and gave him a slight nod.
It was time.
The stage was set.
Mark’s spirit was broken.
He was desperate.
He was ready for the final blow.
Leo slowly raised his hands.
He touched the straps of his mask.
Slow.
Deliberate.
He removed his reading glasses and set them on the desk.
Mark stared, confused.
He still believed this doctor was a neutral stranger.
“You said you want to live, Mr. Peterson?” Leo asked.
His voice had changed.
No longer flat and contrived.
Now it was his real voice.
A voice Mark might vaguely remember—older, deeper, sharpened by time.
“Yes, Doc. I want to live,” Mark answered.
“That’s a shame,” Leo said, and pulled his mask down, revealing his entire face.
“Because I’m not sure I want to save the man who once prayed for me to die.”
The face was there in plain sight.
A strong nose.
The same piercing eyes.
The jawline.
A genetic inheritance.
It was Mark’s face—but younger, healthier, better.
Mark froze.
His eyes traced every inch of Leo’s face.
His mind struggled to connect the dots.
Then his gaze fell to the nameplate on the desk.
Dr. Leo Vance.
Mark’s mouth fell open.
No sound came out.
His breath caught.
His heart might have stopped for a second.
He was staring at the ghost of his past—now seated in power, holding his life at the tip of a pen.
The silence was so heavy the ticking wall clock sounded like a gavel.
Mark stared at Leo with a vacant expression, like his soul had been sucked out.
Bella was gaping too.
She looked back and forth between Leo and Mark, recognizing the undeniable resemblance.
“L-Leo…” Mark’s voice came out like the squeak of a trapped mouse.
“You’re… you’re Leo.”
Leo didn’t answer.
He just stared straight into Mark’s eyes, cold and piercing, letting him swallow the bitter reality on his own.
Mark tried to stand, but his knees shook so violently he collapsed back down.
His thin, trembling hand reached out, trying to grasp the strong figure before him.
“It’s me, son. It’s your father,” Mark whispered.
Not tears of remorse.
Tears of fear.
Tears of manipulation.
“My God, you’re all grown up. You… you became a doctor.”
“My son became a doctor.”
The words slid from his mouth like he had any right to Leo’s success.
As if he had paid for tuition.
As if he had driven him to school every morning.
In reality, he was the one who had thrown that son onto the street.
Leo brushed Mark’s hand away as it tried to touch the hem of his white coat.
Sharp.
Final.
“Don’t touch me,” Leo said firmly. “Your hands are filthy.”
Mark jerked his hand back as if electrocuted.
“Leo, it’s your father—your biological father. Your own flesh and blood. Don’t you recognize me?”
“We used to play horsey. Remember?”
I snorted with disgust.
Play horsey.
That probably happened when Leo was two—before Mark got busy with his affairs and started hating his son’s disability.
“I remember,” Leo said.
“I remember everything. I remember you saying my leg was disgusting.”
“I remember you throwing divorce papers in my mother’s face.”
“I remember you kicking us out in a thunderstorm.”
“My memory is crystal clear, Mr. Peterson.”
Mark’s face turned pale.
He realized the long-lost father tactic wasn’t working.
He switched to the suffering father tactic.
“Forgive me, son. I wasn’t myself back then. I was stressed. I had a lot on my mind.”
“But look at me now.”
Mark pointed to his bandaged foot and gaunt body.
“I’m sick, son. I need your help. You’re a doctor, right? The Hippocratic Oath says you have to help everyone, right?”
“Especially your own parent.”
Leo smirked.
A terrifying smile.
He picked up Mark’s charity care form.
“A parent?” he repeated.
“Since when were you my parent?”
“For eighteen years, you vanished. No child support. No phone calls. No birthday wishes.”
“And now that your kidneys have failed and your money is gone, you suddenly claim to be a parent.”
Leo stood.
His tall frame loomed over Mark.
“So you’re my father?” Leo asked, voice mocking—perfectly mirroring Mark’s tone in the lobby earlier.
“Ugh. I’d be ashamed to have a sick-looking father.”
The sentence hit Mark like lightning.
His eyes bulged.
A perfect reversal of every insult he had ever thrown.
Karma had come full circle.
“You… you’re a disgrace, Leo!” Bella suddenly shrieked.
Either she couldn’t stand her husband being insulted, or she feared her source of medical funding was about to disappear.
“He’s your father. Without his sperm, you wouldn’t exist. You have to be respectful. Sign that paper.”
“We don’t have any money.”
Leo shifted his gaze to Bella.
It grew colder.
He picked up another sheet from a stack on his desk.
“‘No money,’” Leo read.
“Mrs. Bella Peterson, let’s look at the bank transaction records our hospital’s legal team managed to track down.”
“Last month, you sold a house in an upscale neighborhood for $200,000.”
“Two weeks ago, you sold an SUV for $40,000.”
“Last week, you cashed out a certificate of deposit worth $50,000.”