Chapter 8
I hadn’t heard Karina’s name in a long time.
However, that didn’t mean I’d forgotten her. She was the one who caused the death of my child.
So if she finally got what she deserved, I was glad to hear it.
On the other end of the line, Molly eagerly began to recount the story.
“Do you remember that around the time you went abroad, the police were trying to arrest Karina?”
I nodded. “Yes, I remember.”
Back then, I’d just gathered the evidence and hadn’t even had time to report her before I was seriously injured and hospitalized. In the end, it was Maxwell who reported her first.
“That homewrecker, Karina, truly had some tricks up her sleeve. She couldn’t handle the pressure of being hunted, but she wasn’t willing to rot in prison either. So she hired a smuggler to sneak her out of the country.”
Molly started to tell the tale of Karina’s recent life.
Before leaving, she sold off the three luxury cars Maxwell had gifted her. During the years he spoiled her, she had reaped quite a fortune.
Karina planned to settle down in some comfortable country and live out the rest of her life in peace.
It just so happened that the smuggler picked up on how lavish she was. When he saw the luxury items packed in her luggage, he decided to rob her clean. If she hadn’t claimed she had HIV, he might not have spared her either.
After she managed to make it to another country, she thought about reporting the robbery. But with her undocumented status, going to the police would’ve only brought trouble on herself. In the end, she had no choice but to accept her misfortune.
To survive, she used her last bit of money to bribe someone into forging a fake identity. Then she started drifting from one major hospital to another.
She was confident that with her experience at Conner Hospital, she’d be able to carve out a place for herself anywhere.
Molly scoffed as she spoke. “Karina was really full of herself. Did she really think people didn’t know how she got that chief surgeon title back at Conner Hospital? Everyone in the circle knew that those difficult surgeries she supposedly led were actually all performed by you.”
I held my phone, my thoughts drifting back to the past.
Back then, Karina was only an intern when she was fast-tracked into the hospital by Maxwell. He probably worried that she’d mess up and ruin the hospital’s reputation. That was why he made me attend every single one of her surgeries.
I was supposed to just assist, but she always found some excuse to make me do the actual operation. When it came time to close, she’d step in to finish up.
By the end of each major surgery, I was left exhausted in the operating room. She was the one walking out to receive the patients ‘ gratitude. With just a few well-crafted words, she’d have everyone believing that she was the lead surgeon who’d just snatched a patient back from the brink.
I had mentioned this situation to Maxwell. If Karina had real skill, I wouldn’t care who received the patients’ gratitude.
She was nothing but an empty shell, yet still arrogant beyond belief. Sooner or later, someone innocent would pay the price for her incompetence.
12
At first, Maxwell brushed me off with vague promises.
+15 Bonus
Later, when I brought it up again, he got impatient and snapped, “Natalie, what’s your problem? So what if Karina’s younger and better than you? Are you really that jealous? Stop slandering her behind her back.”
After that, I stopped saying anything.
Karina truly believed every successful surgery was proof of her own brilliance.
So when the wife of that attacker was scheduled for surgery, Karina specifically asked Maxwell to keep me out of the operating
room. She was afraid I’d steal the credit.
As a result, an innocent life was lost under her scalpel, dragging my child’s life down with it.
Molly laughed heartily. “She submitted her resume to several major hospitals, but after just one surgery, she was immediately fired. No legitimate hospital would hire her again.
“Eventually, she ended up bouncing between underground clinics, doing shady transplant procedures. But with her level of skill, those were way beyond her capacity. Of course, they had ended in failure. A furious patient’s family shot her dead on the spot.”
