His skin was the color of old parchment, pulled tight over the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw. Tubes snaked from his arms and his chest, tethering him to a bank of monitors that hummed and beeped, a digital choir singing the song of his fading vitals. “You’re late. ” A voice rasped from the bed. It sounded like dry leaves scraping across pavement. Dougal checked his watch.
“Shift change was 3 minutes ago, Mr. Gibson. I was getting your chart from the desk. ” “3 minutes is a lifetime when you’re paying $10,000 a night for a room, Marshall. ” Gibson didn’t open his eyes. His hands, bruised purple from endless needle sticks, twitched on the high-thread-count sheets. “But then, people in your tax bracket don’t understand the value of time.
You just punch a clock. ” Dougal didn’t sigh. He didn’t react. He walked over to the IV pole and checked the drip rate of the morphine. He had spent 12 years in naval special warfare. He’d been screamed at by drill instructors, shot at by insurgents, and had held men as they bled out in the dust.
The insults of a dying billionaire felt like the buzzing of a particularly tired gnat. “Pain levels? ” Dougal asked, his voice low, steady, and entirely devoid of the patronizing baby talk many nurses adopted with the elderly. “Manageable,” Gibson spat. “My throat is dry. Get me ice. ” Dougal moved to the small kitchenette in the corner of the suite.
He scooped crushed ice into a plastic cup, added a tiny plastic spoon, and brought it back. He adjusted the bed, raising Gibson’s head just enough so he wouldn’t aspirate, and offered the spoon. Gibson knocked the spoon away. It clattered against the bedside table. “I can feed myself, damn it.
I’m not an infant. ” “Never said you were,” Dougal replied mildly. He set the cup down where Gibson could reach it. Gibson glared at him. The man’s eyes were roomy and yellowed, but there was still a spark of vicious intelligence behind them. He was a man who had spent 40 years breaking competitors, hostile takeovers, liquidating assets, firing thousands without a second thought.
He was used to people shrinking from his gaze. Dougal just looked back, his expression neutral, his posture relaxed but anchored. “You’re an odd one, Marshall,” Gibson wheezed, his hand trembling as he finally reached for the cup, failing to grasp it. Dougal calmly moved it a half inch closer, letting Gibson’s fingers find the plastic on their own. “The others flutter.
They whisper. They look at me like I’m already a corpse. You just look at me like I’m a piece of furniture. ” “I look at you like you’re a patient,” Dougal said. He checked the catheter bag at the foot of the bed, noting the output and the dark, concentrated color. Kidneys were shutting down.
