Page 56 of Obeying

"I think you know."

"I really don't." He tilts his head. Studies me the way a man studies something he's deciding how to use. "Unless this is about Kristen?"

He wants a reaction. I don't give him one. I let the silence stretch.

"You had someone outside her house taking photographs," I finally say.

"Did I?" His eyebrows go up. "That's a serious accusation, Doctor. Do you have proof?" He folds his hands on the desk. "Because from where I'm sitting, you're a department head who drove to a private company to confront someone about a personal matter. That doesn't look great for you."

"What's your plan here, Cruz? What do you actually want?"

His polished smile stays, but his eyes change. They harden. Become more honest.

"I want her to wake up," he says. "She belongs with me. She needs me. She just doesn't see it yet." He says it like he's talking about a patient who won't take their medication. "I need her to wake up and come home."

"She doesn't belong to you."

"And what, you think she belongs to you now? With all due respect, Doctor, you've known her for what—a few weeks, a month, two? I was with her for three years. I know her. I know what she needs. I know what she's like when she's scared, and she's been scared her whole life. Scared of failing, scared of being alone, scared of not being good enough. I was the one who told her she was enough. Every day. For three years." He straightens a pen on his desk. A small, deliberate gesture. "What have you done? Asked her a few questions during rounds? Mentored her? And you think you know her?"

He knows how to frame a story: every sentence constructed to make him the hero and everyone else a supporting character. But I've sat across from enough patients who lie about how they got their injuries to recognize the pattern. The careful word choices. The strategic pauses. The way he keeps circling back to what he gave her, never what he took.

I lean forward slightly. "See, that's where you're wrong. I know who she really is." I hold his gaze. "You think you know her? You don't. You know the version of her you created. The quiet one. The grateful one. The one who kept her head down because you made sure she was too afraid to lift it. You turned her into something she isn't."

His eye twitches. Barely.

"Is that what she told you? She's dramatic. She always has been." He waves a hand. "Everything is a crisis with Kristen. A disagreement becomes abuse. A raised voice becomes violence. She twists things."

"She didn't twist the hole you punched next to her head."

Silence. I revel in it.

His hand stops moving on the desk. His eyes lock onto mine. For three seconds, Miguel Cruz doesn't say anything, and in those three seconds, I see something behind the polish. Something cold and flat that has nothing to do with charm.

Then he smiles again. "So she told you about that. Did she also tell you what she said to provoke it? Did she tell you she was threatening to leave me? After everything I'd done?"

"You really think the reason matters here? You're even more idiotic than I thought."

Another silence, this time longer. His fingers tap the desk once, twice. Then stop. So, these are his tells. The tap. The flicker of tension across his face. The way his breathing gets a fraction faster when I push on something he doesn't want to discuss. He's not used to this. He's used to controlling conversations. He's used to people who believe the smile and don't look past it.

"I know what you are," I tell him. "I know what you did to her. The control. The isolation. The way you engineered a debt so she could never leave without losing everything. I know all of it."

Something shifts behind his eyes.

"That's a very one-sided version of events." He leans forward. "Kristen is…complicated. She has a talent for making herself the victim. She did it with me. It looks like she's doing it with you now." He watches my face. "So she told you about the money? The calls I made? The doors I opened for her? Did she tell you what she'd be without me?"

"She got to where she is because of her brilliance. All you did was make a phone call. Everything she's accomplished since then, she did on her own. You don't get credit for the whole career because you dialed a number."

The edges of his smile tighten.

"You don't know her, Doctor. Not really." He stands up slowly. "I was the one who put her back together after her father died and the whole world forgot about her." He straightens his cuffs. "I was the one she used and threw away when she didn't need me anymore."

"Is that the story you tell yourself?"

He smiles. "It's the truth the board is going to hear," he answers. His voice is still calm, but the warmth is gone. "And now they'll hear about this, too. The head of trauma surgery showing up at my office, making threats. That's not very professional for someone claiming to be objective, is it?"

"I haven't made a single threat."

"You're here. That's enough." He walks toward the door. "I have lawyers, Doctor. Good ones. My father has connections at hospitals across the state. One conversation is all it takes. For her residency. For your department." He opens the door. "I think we're done. It was nice meeting you, Dr. Maxwell. Say hello to Kristen for me."