I Confirmed the Deployment That Broke Him Chapter 08

I Confirmed the Deployment That Broke Him Chapter 08

I didn’t know when Leo left the café. He didn’t come after me.

A week later, Hannah called to tell me that Chloe had been flagged for research misconduct by the

International Alliance of Medical Journals.

She’d falsified the data-collection timestamps for three key data points in her published papers. The review

committee caught the discrepancies. Leo was a guest expert on that committee.

I knew Leo had made it happen. I didn’t care to ask.

Three months later, I finished my first war trauma research project at Northwood. The paper was published

in The Lancet.

The research center hosted a small academic gathering, and when it ended, Chloe was waiting for me in the

library hallway. She’d come looking for me.

When our eyes met, something in her face had gone dim. All that was left was the pallor and exhaustion of someone who’d spent too long under fluorescent lights.

“Stella, you won,” she said.

Her voice was flat. “Leo burned me using every connection he had on that committee. Now my name is red-flagged across the peer-review systems of every major journal.”

“I genuinely can’t understand what’s supposed to make you so special. I’ve published in a Nature journal. I

won a Young Scholar Award.”

She stepped closer. “My h-index is higher than yours. You just spent a few extra years in a warzone racking

up field experience.”

I’d heard enough. “Are you done? I have rounds.”

Chloe sneered. “Don’t get too comfortable. I heard Mr. Vance turned down a faculty position at the

Aethelgard School of Public Health last month just to stay here at the local hospital.”

“And what good does that do you? You’re leaving the country. He’s staying here.”

“You two are worlds apart now. What are those old feelings worth now?”

She wanted a reaction. I just felt tired.

I pressed the elevator button. “You can have him. Go patch things up with him I genuinely hope it works

out.”

Chloe’s expression shifted. The emergency exit door swung open.

Leo stepped out, in dark gray scrubs, deep circles under his eyes. The lines in his face were deeper than they’d been three years earlier. I stopped and gave him a slight nod.

Chloe panicked. “Mr. Vance – what are you doing here? I just came to look up a few papers.”

“Get out,” Leo said.

Chloe reached for his arm. “I’m sorry – I shouldn’t have come. But those were just timestamp adjustments

on a few data points. The underlying conclusions were still sound.”

“I said get out,” Leo said.

Chloe left. Her footsteps echoed all the way down the empty corridor.

Leo watched me for a long moment before he spoke, his voice softer this time.

“Stella, I’m planning to resign. I’m going to start an international public health foundation.”

I said nothing. Something flickered at the corner of his mouth, and for a second he looked the way he had in

his late twenties.

“I know what I did can’t be undone. I want to start over – try to be someone different.”

“I hope we can work together again someday.”

He meant it. I could tell.

But I didn’t need any of it. I stayed quiet.

Leo’s composure cracked. “Stella, let me make this right. I miss what we had – working together in the

Corps, all of it.”

“Can we just start over?” he asked.

No. I had no interest in that.

I sighed. The library was warm and smelled faintly of disinfectant, and when I spoke, my voice came out

quiet.

“Leo, do you really think any of this matters anymore?”