Chapter 8: The Care Package
The morning light was a grey smudge around the blackout curtains when the knock came. It wasn’t loud, but it was authoritative. Three precise, evenly spaced raps on reinforced steel.
Levi was instantly awake, one hand going to the side of the mattress where a non-lethal tactical baton was discreetly sheathed. His body was already moving, a fluid uncoiling from the warmth of Aria’s back. She stirred, mumbled something into the pillow.
“Stay,” he breathed, the word a command. He snatched a pair of pants from the floor and was at the bedroom door in seconds, silent on bare feet.
Aria pushed herself up on her elbows, heart thudding against her ribs. The apartment was tomb-quiet except for the low, persistent hum of the air purifier. She heard the soft click of the peephole cover being slid aside. A long pause. Then the heavy clunk of multiple deadbolts being drawn back.
Levi opened the door a fraction, the security chain going taut. His voice, when he spoke, was flat and cold. “Yes?”
“Levi Ackerman?” The voice from the hallway was male, professional, tinged with a midwestern cadence.
“Who’s asking?”
“Officer Dan Rourke, Columbus PD. I’m looking for an Aria Reyes. We have reason to believe she might be here.”
Aria’s blood went cold. She scrambled out of bed, wrapping the sheet around herself. She hovered at the bedroom doorway, listening.
Levi didn’t move an inch. “Reason being?”
“Sir, I’d prefer to speak with Ms. Reyes directly. It’s a sensitive matter, but I can assure you, it’s not an emergency and she’s not in any trouble.”
The assurance of ‘no trouble’ did nothing to ease the tension in Levi’s shoulders. Aria saw the coiled readiness in his spine. He was calculating exits, weapons, contingencies.
She took a breath and stepped into the main room. “It’s okay, Levi.”
His head turned slightly, a sharp, minute shake telling her to go back. She ignored him, tightening the sheet and walking forward. Levi’s jaw flexed, but he stepped back, opening the door wider.
Officer Rourke stood in the hall. He was younger than she’d expected, maybe late twenties, with a kind, open face and a tidy uniform. He held his hat in his hands. His eyes took in the scene: the hyper-sterile apartment, the half-dressed, intensely guarded man in the doorway, the young woman wrapped in a bedsheet. His expression remained carefully neutral.
“Aria Reyes?”
“That’s me.”
“Mind if I come in? Just for a moment. It’s a bit of a delicate subject.”
Levi looked ready to refuse, but Aria nodded. “It’s fine.” She retreated to the couch, pulling the sheet around her like a toga. Levi remained standing, a sentinel beside the open door, his arms crossed.
Officer Rourke stepped inside, his eyes doing a quick, professional scan of the room. He didn’t comment on the tactical gear, the single flickering light, the overall vibe of a safe house. He stayed near the entrance, respectful of the space.
“Sorry to bother you so early,” he began, offering a small, apologetic smile. “We’ve been trying your listed address in Binghamton, but your neighbor said you were out of town, probably here. Your socials… well, they led us to Mr. Ackerman.”
Levi’s gaze could have cut glass. “Get to the point.”
Rourke cleared his throat, focusing on Aria. “Right. This is about your former physician, Dr. Silas Vance.”
The name landed in the quiet room like a dropped piece of metal. Aria felt Levi’s attention sharpen from wary to razor-focused.
“What about him?” she asked, her voice steadier than she felt.
“It seems there’s been some… significant developments with his practice,” Rourke said, choosing his words with care. “The state medical board pulled his license last week. Permanently. It’s not public yet, but it will be.”
Aria blinked. “Why?”
Rourke shifted his weight. “Multiple lawsuits. More than a dozen, filed over the last eighteen months. Allegations range from inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment to…” He paused, his eyes flicking briefly to Levi’s stony face. “…to serious stalking behaviors towards former patients. Civil suits, mostly, but the board found the pattern of misconduct egregious enough to revoke his license to practice.”
The air seemed to thin. The hum of the purifier grew louder. Aria’s mind raced, tumbling back to the too-long handshakes, the questions that strayed from medical into personal, the way his eyes would linger just a beat too long. She’d written it off as awkwardness. She’d been wrong.
“Okay,” she said slowly, swallowing. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“There’s a bit more,” Rourke continued. He looked genuinely uncomfortable now. “One of the law firms handling the civil litigation… they’ve been going through his patient records. Yours came up. The notes, they said, were… concerning. Flagged. They believe you might have grounds for a case as well. They’d like to speak with you, if you’re willing.”
Silence. Deep, ringing silence.
Levi was the one who broke it. His voice was dangerously quiet. “How did they get her records? That’s privileged.”
“Subpoena,” Rourke answered, meeting his gaze evenly. “Part of the discovery process for the existing suits. It’s legal. The firm, Keller and Associates, they’re solid. Nasty in court, which is what you want for this. They’ll be in touch in the next few days, likely by phone.” He pulled a business card from his pocket and held it out. “This is me. My direct line. If anyone contacts you claiming to be from a firm that isn’t Keller, or if you feel pressured in any way, you call me. Understood?”
Aria took the card. It was warm from his pocket. “Yeah. Understood.”
Rourke nodded, putting his hat back on. “I’m sorry to bring this to your door, Ms. Reyes. Truly. But given the stalking allegations in the other cases… we thought it prudent to give you a heads-up personally, rather than let a lawyer’s call blindside you.” His eyes flicked again to Levi, taking in the implicit threat of his posture, the hardened environment. “It also seemed like you might have… a good support system here.”
Levi’s expression didn’t change.
“Thank you, Officer,” Aria said, finding her voice. “I appreciate it.”
“You have a good day.” With a final nod, Rourke stepped back into the hallway. Levi closed the door softly behind him, engaging each deadbolt with a deliberate, final click. The sounds were unnaturally loud in the stillness.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Aria stared at the business card in her hand, the stark black lettering on white cardstock. Levi stood with his back to her, facing the door, his head bowed slightly.
The relief was there, a dizzying, giddy wave. The shadow had a name now, and it was being publicly dismantled. He was discredited, powerless. The immediate threat was evaporating.
But in its place rose a new, icy kind of dread. Lawsuits. Testimony. Her name, her private medical history, dragged into open court. Revisiting every uncomfortable moment, having to detail it for strangers, for a jury. The vulnerability of it was staggering.
“A dozen,” Levi said, his voice hollow. He turned around. His face was pale, his eyes haunted. “A dozen others.”
He walked to the cracked tablet on the desk, waking it with a tap. His fingers flew over the screen, pulling up local newsfeeds, legal databases. “Silas Vance… medical license revoked… pending litigation…” he muttered, reading snippets aloud as they loaded.
Aria watched him, the sheet pooled around her waist. The tactical retreat they’d planned, the simple act of changing doctors, felt ludicrously small now. Naive. Levi had been right about the scale of the threat, but even his paranoid calculus hadn’t accounted for this. He’d been prepared for a lone predator. This was a systemic infection.
“He’s done,” she said, mostly to convince herself. “He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“He can hurt you every time you have to recount what he did,” Levi countered, not looking up from the screen. His tone was clinical, dissecting the new threat vectors. “He can hurt you in depositions, in newspaper articles if this gets big. He can hurt you by existing as a problem you have to spend the next year of your life dealing with.” He finally looked at her, his grey eyes stark. “A ‘nasty’ law firm doesn’t protect you from that. It just weaponizes it.”
He was right. The victory was ash in her mouth.
Levi abandoned the tablet and came to kneel in front of her on the couch. He didn’t touch her. He just searched her face. The cold operator was gone, stripped away by the morning’s revelation, replaced by something raw and furious and terribly afraid.
“When he called you… when he sent that letter,” Levi said, his voice rough. “It wasn’t professional concern. It was the pattern.”
Aria nodded, a slow, sick realization dawning. Her call had been a taste. The letter, a probe. He was circling, seeing if she was compliant, if she was isolated, if she was ripe. She thought of the sealed envelope in his drawer, a trophy of his near-miss. A shudder ran through her.
Levi saw it. His hands came up then, cupping her face. His palms were calloused, warm. “You are not one of a dozen,” he stated, the words iron-clad. “You are Aria Reyes. You are mine. And they will not get one more piece of you.” His thumb stroked her cheekbone. “Do you want to press charges?”
The question hung between them. It was hers to answer. Her fight. Her choice. He was offering to stand in the trench with her, but he would not pick up the weapon for her.
She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes. The image of a courtroom, of lawyers and pointed questions, made her stomach turn. But so did the idea of doing nothing, of letting it slide, of being just another silent line in a report.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, the confession aching. “I need to talk to the lawyer. I need to know what it entails.”
He nodded, accepting her uncertainty. “Okay.”
“You’d hate it,” she said, opening her eyes. “The publicity. The scrutiny. It would be a nightmare for your… operational security.”
A faint, grim shadow of a smile touched his lips. It held no humor. “My operational security exists for one purpose. To let you live your life. If this is part of your life, then it becomes part of the operation.” He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. “I’ll be the guy in the back of the courtroom. The one nobody notices. The one who makes sure nothing else goes wrong.”
Aria snorted, the sound brittle and sharp in the quiet room. "Yeah. The guy that most girls in the country have literally swooned over in magazines, trying to blend in in the back of a courtroom."
He didn’t smile. His thumbs still traced her cheekbones. "I’m very good at not being seen when I don’t want to be."
"That’s the problem," she whispered, the laugh dying in her throat. "I always want to see you."
That admission, raw and unplanned, seemed to fracture something between them. He pulled her into him, his arms wrapping around her with a ferocity that stole her breath. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin, soap and something uniquely Levi. The sheet slipped, forgotten. They knelt on the floor, tangled together, as the grey morning solidified into day around them.
He finally moved, his voice a rumble against her ear. "We need to eat."
It was a tactical suggestion.A foundational step. The mission, now clearly defined, demanded fuel. He stood, pulling her up with him. He didn’t let go of her hand as he led her to the kitchenette, a stark space of brushed steel.
He opened the fridge. Its interior light illuminated a sparse collection: bottled water, a dozen identical meal-prep containers, a bag of green apples. He selected two containers and heated them in a microwave that beeped with a sound like a faulty alarm. The scent of plain chicken and steamed broccoli filled the room.
He placed a container in front of her at the small table, along with a fork. Then he sat across from her, opened his own, and began to eat with methodical efficiency. Every movement was precise, a return to routine. Aria picked up her fork, the metal cold in her hand. She ate because he expected it, because her body needed it, but the food tasted like nothing.
Her phone, charging on the counter, buzzed with a sound like an angry hornet.
They both froze. Levi’s eyes snapped to it. Aria’s heartbeat, which had just begun to slow, hammered against her ribs. The device was a pink, glossy slab of modern life, absurdly cheerful against the grey laminate.
"It’s probably work," she said, her voice unconvincing.
"Don’t answer it."
"It could be the lawyer."
"Especially then." He put his fork down. "Let it go to voicemail. We need to think first. We need a protocol."
The phone stopped buzzing. A moment of thick silence descended, broken only by the hum of the fridge. Then the screen lit up again. A voicemail notification appeared, followed by a text banner sliding across the top.
Unknown Caller: Ms. Reyes, this is Miranda Keller of Keller and Associates. Please call me back at your earliest convenience at 614-555-0187. It is urgent we speak regarding Dr. Silas Vance.
Aria read the words aloud, her tone flat. Levi didn’t reach for the phone. He stared at the wall behind her, his mind visibly churning, sorting this new piece of hostile data.
"Urgent," he repeated, tasting the word. "They want to move fast. Capitalize on the momentum from the board’s decision. They want your testimony while the iron is hot, before you have too much time to think, or get scared, or hire your own counsel." His gaze swung back to her. "They’re good. That line, 'regarding Dr. Silas Vance'? It’s meant to sound neutral.Official. It’s a hook."
"You think I shouldn’t talk to them?"
"I think," he said, pushing his container away, "that you don’t talk to anyone until we understand the entire battlefield. We find out everything about Miranda Keller. We pull every public court filing, every interview, her win-loss record. We look for patterns in how she treats her clients. Is she a champion or does she grind them up for a settlement?" He stood up, pacing the short length of the kitchen. "You are not just a plaintiff to them. You are a piece of evidence. We need to know if they’ll handle that piece with care."
Aria watched him, this man who saw the world as a series of interlocking threats and counter-maneuvers. Yesterday, it had felt oppressive. Today, it felt like armor. "Okay," she said."So we research. But I can’t ignore them forever."
"You don’t ignore them.You control the timeline." He stopped pacing and looked at her, a new, grim certainty in his eyes. "You call back this afternoon. You are polite, you are vague. You say you’ve been made aware of the situation and you are considering your options. You say you will be in touch after you have sought independent legal advice."
"That’s...smart."
"It’s basic. It’s what anyone should do." He ran a hand through his hair, a rare gesture of agitation. "Most people don’t. They get the call, they feel that mix of validation and panic, and they just say yes. They get swept into the machine."The machine. That’s what it was. Aria could feel its gears beginning to turn, wanting to pull her in. "I don’t want to be swept."
"I won’t let you be." He came back to the table, but didn’t sit. He placed his hands on the cold surface, leaning toward her. "This is your choice, Aria.Always. But whatever you choose—to join, to walk away, to burn it all down—we do it from a position of strength. Not reaction." His voice softened, just a fraction. "You are not one of a dozen. You are the one who got away before he could even start. Your power here is different. We need to figure out what that’s worth."
Her power. She hadn’t considered that. While others had horror stories, she had only a creeping dread and a single, unopened letter. It was a ghost of a case, but maybe a ghost was harder to fight.
Her phone buzzed again.A different number. A Binghamton area code.
She let out a shaky breath. "That’ll be Sasha. Freaking out that I’m not at work." She reached for the phone, her hand hovering over it. "I have to answer this one. Or the machine finds me a different way."
Levi gave a single, sharp nod. Permission. She swiped to answer, putting it on speaker."Aria? Thank god." Sasha’s voice, usually so buoyant, was tight with worry. "Where are you? Marlene is on the warpath. You were on the schedule for seven."
"I know, I’m sorry," Aria said, slipping into her easy barista cadence, the lie coming fluidly. "Family thing came up in Ohio. It was last minute. I tried to call out but my phone’s been glitching." She watched Levi’s face, his eyes noting every inflection of her performance."In Ohio? Is everything okay?"
"It’s...complicated." Aria let a thread of genuine exhaustion seep into the words. "Look, can you just tell Marlene I have a personal emergency? I might need a few more days."
Silence on the line. Then Sasha’s voice, lower now. "Aria. Be straight with me. Is this about that doctor guy you were weirded out by? The one who called?"
Aria’s blood went cold. She’d mentioned it to Sasha once, offhand, months ago. Just a venting session over bad chardonnay. My new doctor’s a creep.
Levi’s eyes locked onto hers. His expression was stone.
"How did you—" Aria started.
"A story came across my feed this morning," Sasha interrupted, her words tumbling out fast. "Local affiliate. 'Prominent Binghamton Physician Has License Revoked After String of Allegations.' I saw the name, and I remembered. Holy shit, Ari. Are you okay? Do you need me to come out there?"
The machine was faster than they’d imagined. It was already spitting out parts, and the parts were landing in the lives of everyone she knew.
"No," Aria said, too quickly. Levi shook his head minutely. She took a breath. "No, I’m okay. I’m with Levi. But it’s... it’s a lot. I might have to talk to some lawyers."
"Jesus." A rustling sound, like Sasha was moving, shutting a door."Okay.Okay, listen. Marlene can go suck a lemon. You take whatever time you need. Do you want me to water your plants?"
The mundane offer was so absurd, so desperately normal, that Aria felt a crack open in her chest. "Yeah," she whispered, her throat tight. "That’d be good.Thanks, Sash."
"Call me later. And give that grumpy silent boyfriend of yours a hug from me. He sounds like he gives good hug."
Aria managed a wet laugh. "I will.Thanks." She ended the call and let the phone clatter onto the table. She looked at Levi. "It’s public.The news."
"I heard." He was already moving, grabbing the cracked tablet.His fingers flew. "Let’s see the damage."
The article was small, a blurb in the regional section, but the details were there.Dr. Silas Vance. License revoked. Multiple civil suits alleging a "pattern of predatory behavior." The board’s spokesman was quoted calling it "one of the most egregious cases of misconduct we’ve seen."
Levi scanned it, his lips a thin line. "No names of the plaintiffs.Good. The lawyer hasn’t leaked yours yet. They’re saving it." He put the tablet down. "Sasha knows. Others will remember things you said. This will get out in your world, Aria. It will become a thing you have to manage."I know." She wrapped her arms around herself. The chill from the sterile apartment seemed to have seeped into her bones. "So we control that, too. We get ahead of it. I talk to Xavier next. I give him the bare minimum before he sees it somewhere else."
Levi considered this, then nodded, a spark of something like respect in his eyes."Good. Control the narrative. Simplify it. 'My ex-doctor was a creep, I’m fine, I’m dealing with it.' Nothing more."
He stood up and walked to the window, peering through a tiny gap in the blackout curtain. The outside world, with all its chaotic, invasive noise, was waiting. He turned back to her, his silhouette dark against the sliver of grey light.
"The timeline just moved up," he said. "We research Keller now. You make your call this afternoon. We find out what they want, what they’re offering.Then you decide." He walked over to her, stopping just within reach. "But first, you finish your breakfast.You shower. You put on clothes that make you feel like you, not like a victim in a news story." He reached out, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. "We face this from a position of strength.Remember?"
She caught his hand, holding it against her cheek. His palm was warm, his knuckles scarred. It was the hand of a mechanic, a soldier, a lover. It was the only solid thing in the shifting ground beneath her.
"Okay," she said, squaring her shoulders. She picked up the fork, speared a piece of chicken, and put it in her mouth. She chewed.She swallowed. It still tasted like nothing, but the act felt like defiance. "Let’s go to war."