Chapter 3 - The Paper Crown
Inside Room 4, the only sound was the rhythmic hiss and click of the mechanical ventilator. Alexander sat on the low plastic stool beside Rosalie’s bed. He gently took her right hand into his calloused palms. Her knuckles were bruised purple, her fingers swollen. The small gold band he had placed on her finger three years ago in a quiet chapel near Fort Bragg was still there, scratched but unbroken.
"I’m here, Rose," he murmured, his voice cracking for the first time since he had landed. "I should have been here sooner."
Her face was unrecognizable beneath bandages and swelling. A drainage tube ran from beneath her scalp bandage to relieve intracranial pressure. The medical monitors pulsed in steady, agonizing beats: heart rate 88, blood oxygen 94%, intracranial pressure borderline critical.
The door hissed open behind him. It was Dr. Higgins, accompanied by a female military doctor in tactical fatigues—Major Elena Rios, Alexander’s trusted combat surgeon, who had arrived with Hayes’s advance element.
"Captain Sinclair," Higgins said, nervous eyes darting to Rios. "Your... colleague here has demanded full transfer of medical custody."
"Major Rios will oversee my wife's treatment," Alexander said, not looking up from Rosalie's bruised face. "What did they try to inject into her IV bag twenty minutes before I arrived, Doctor?"
Higgins froze. His face drained of color. "I... I don't know what you mean. We were administering standard sedatives and mannitol to reduce swelling."
Elena Rios stepped forward, holding a clear sealed evidence bag containing a half-empty vial. "Pancuronium bromide, Captain. A high-dose paralytic. Combined with her current respiratory depression, she would have suffered cardiac arrest within six minutes. The hospital records would have chalked it up to blunt-force trauma complications."
Alexander stood up slowly. The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. He looked directly into Higgins’s eyes. "Who gave you the order, Higgins? Was it Catherine? Or was it Julian?"
"I have a family, Sinclair!" Higgins whispered desperately, his hands shaking violently. "You don't understand how deep this goes! Julian... Julian came to my house three nights ago. He told me that if Rosalie woke up and started talking, my daughter wouldn't make it to her high school graduation! They own the board of trustees, they own the mortgage on this hospital, they own everything!"
"They don't own me," Alexander said.
Elena Rios stepped between Alexander and the terrified doctor. "Alexander, let me stabilize her first. We’ve neutralized the IV line. I’m hooking her up to our field monitors. Her vitals are holding, but she’s fragile. Any sudden drop in blood pressure could trigger another cerebral hemorrhage."
Alexander took a deep breath, his hands balling into fists until his knuckles turned bone white. He turned to Higgins. "You will continue your shift. You will report to Catherine Miller that the paralytic is taking effect and that Rosalie is deteriorating rapidly. If you vary from that script by a single syllable, Major Rios will hand your medical license—and your arrest warrant for attempted murder—over to the Judge Advocate General."
Higgins nodded frantically, sweat dripping down his temples. "Yes, sir. Yes, Commander. Anything you want."
"Get out."
Higgins scrambled out the door as if chased by hounds.
Elena placed a gentle hand on Alexander’s shoulder. "Alex, what was Rosalie working on before you deployed? A woman doesn't get beaten half to death by her own blood over petty family squabbles. This was an execution attempt."
Alexander remembered the last letter Rosalie had sent him while he was stationed in the mountains of Syria. It had arrived through an unmonitored civilian postal box three weeks ago. She had written in coded references—a childhood game they played—mentioning that she had found "the grandfather's hidden ledger" buried inside the Miller Foundation’s real estate holdings.
"She found something in the Miller Foundation," Alexander said, his eyes hardening like obsidian. "Something they would kill their own daughter to hide."
"Then we need to secure her apartment and her private office before they burn it to the ground," Elena said.
May you like
"They won't get the chance," Alexander replied. "Hayes is already en route with Team Bravo. And as for Catherine Miller... it's time she realizes that her paper crown doesn't protect her throat."
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