Chapter 399: In Trouble

Lewis’s eyes had already moved to Luther. "Do you know him?""He’s the doctor who drove me to the hospital earlier today," I said, keeping my voice low. "But what is he doing at a finance academy?"

"He’s the largest shareholder."

I understood that people with money often had their hands in more things than made sense at first glance. But something about the coincidence wouldn’t sit still inside me. I leaned closer to Lewis. "Carl he’s an orthopedic surgeon who also knows holistic medicine. He checked my pulse when he caught me and figured out I was pregnant before I even knew. He’s the only person outside of us who knows."

I was aware of how that sounded. Paranoid, maybe. Wound too tight. But the timing of this pregnancy, the vulnerability it created, the people already circling the Hales I couldn’t afford to be casual about anyone new who appeared twice in one day.

"I’ll have Theo look into him," Lewis said. "Just to be safe."

"Good."

I held Lewis back from stepping in and decided to watch instead. Luther was already moving.

The man in the black-framed glasses had blocked Whitney’s path again as she tried to leave, his hand reaching for her shoulder. A slender, defined hand closed around his wrist before it made contact.

Crack.

One smooth motion. The wrist dislocated cleanly, like it was nothing. The classroom erupted gasps, hushed voices, chairs scraping back as people instinctively created distance. Finance professionals were sharp and practical by nature. None of them wanted any part of this. They scattered quickly and quietly.

The man with the glasses swore and swung his free fist at Luther’s face. Luther sidestepped without hurrying, brought his knee up hard into the man’s stomach, and watched him fold to the floor. "I’ll sue you," the man wheezed from the ground. "You’re going to jail for this."

Luther crouched down, reset the dislocated wrist with a calm, practiced motion and then, without changing his expression, dislocated it again.

I stared. Is this just what he does?

Technically, Luther had thrown the first move. If the man filed a report, a medical license could be at risk. But watching Luther, I could see he knew exactly what he was doing. The injuries he was inflicting were precise and controlled serious enough to be convincing, not serious enough to hold up as anything significant in a medical examination. The man on the floor was beginning to understand this too.

Luther looked down at him with something cold and unhurried in his eyes. "Want to find out how many other joints in your body I can work through?"

The fear that crossed the man’s face was immediate and genuine. He had stumbled into something he hadn’t seen coming, and now he was doing the math. Luther could keep going indefinitely as long as no one called anyone. The man’s entire attitude collapsed in on itself.

"Alright alright, I hear you. I may have stepped out of line. Let’s drop it, okay? Please."

"That’s not going to be enough." Luther flicked his wrist, and the man’s jaw dislocated.

Watching him drool uncontrollably onto the classroom floor, I had one clear thought: the worst possible person to make an enemy of is a doctor who knows exactly where every weak point in your body is.

Luther pointed toward Whitney. "Apologize to her."

The man nodded frantically, eyes wide, completely undone. Luther reset the jaw without ceremony. The man didn’t even wipe his face he stumbled upright, choked out an apology in Whitney’s direction, and got out of the room as fast as his legs would carry him.

He wasn’t getting off that easily, though.

I gave Theo a quiet signal. He read it instantly and slipped out after him without a word.

If we hadn’t come today if Luther hadn’t been here I didn’t want to think about what that man might have done. Someone bold enough to harass a woman in a room full of people didn’t suddenly develop restraint the moment a hallway emptied. People like that needed consequences, not a head start.

Whitney gave Luther a brief, cool "thank you." Her face was exactly as composed as it had been from the beginning unmoved, unimpressed, like someone had held a door open for her rather than dislocated three of a man’s joints on her behalf.

Luther looked at her with something that might have been amusement. "If anyone bothers you again, contact security. This is a school, not somewhere men get to behave like that." He reached into his jacket and produced a business card. "I’m the chairman here. The academy was built to help people understand finance not to give entitled men a place to hunt. If you ever need anything, reach out directly."

Whitney accepted the card without enthusiasm and turned toward the door. From the moment Luther had intervened to the moment she walked away, her expression had not shifted once. He had come to her defense, and she had received it like a weather update noted, filed, irrelevant to her mood.

Then she stepped outside and saw me.

Her whole face changed.

She kept it restrained we were still in public, my identity wasn’t something to announce but her eyes were bright and warm in a way they hadn’t been a second ago. "Mr. Hale. Mrs. Hale."

Luther had turned around. When he saw me, his gaze held for a moment longer than necessary. "What a coincidence, Riley. Three times in one day."

"I didn’t expect to find you here instead of the hospital," I said.

"I have an investment in the school." His eyes moved to Lewis’s leg specifically, to the way Lewis was standing on it. "Your leg has healed."

"It has," Lewis said simply.

"You two know each other?"

"I met Mr. Hale years ago when I was shadowing my mentor," Luther said. "I was there when my mentor worked on his leg. The damage was severe at the time. The fact that he’s walking now without any trace of it that’s not something most surgeons could have achieved. I’ve wanted to meet the doctor responsible ever since."

"Matthew," Lewis said. "Dr. Quigley."

I glanced at Lewis. The same Dr. Quigley who had worked on my throat? That man’s hands appeared in more lives than I’d realized.

A faint, knowing smile moved across Luther’s face. "Dr. Quigley. That explains it. A surgeon of his caliber " He paused, then turned to Whitney. "Is this young lady a connection of yours, Mr. Hale?"

Lewis’s tone stayed easy but left no room. "She’s family. We were asked to look out for her while she settles in. I came to check on her first day." He glanced at Luther. "I heard you helped my wife earlier. I’d like to take you to dinner sometime as a thank you."

"That’s not necessary," Luther said, without hesitation. "It was nothing."

He said his goodbyes, and we walked to the car. I kept turning it over in my head as we went. Luther knew exactly who Lewis was. He understood what an invitation from the Hales meant, what kind of doors that kind of relationship could open. And he had declined it without a second thought. No performance of reluctance, no polite deflection that left the offer open just a clean, easy no.

That bothered me more than I expected it to.

Once we were in the car, I caught a glimpse of Theo through the window, steering the man in glasses into a side alley well away from any cameras. Quietly, efficiently, the way Theo did everything.

Whitney settled against me in the back seat, all that careful composure from the classroom gone. "Sis," she said softly, like she’d been holding it.

I stroked her hair. "How was it?"

"Not bad." She thought for a moment. "I actually liked some of the material."

"If you ever feel like the pace is off, Lewis can arrange private tutors. You have a mind for this, Whitney more than you probably know. The Morrigans’ business interests are going to need someone with real understanding behind them someday."

She laughed quietly, a little shy. "There’s no rush for that. I want to learn properly first, at my own pace. And don’t worry about men like him I’ve had self-defense training, and there are cameras everywhere. He wouldn’t have risked anything serious even if you hadn’t come." She paused. "I want to do this the normal way. Mixed in with everyone else. I’ve been outside the world for twenty years. I want to be in it now."

Vito had, for all his faults, made sure she was prepared for it. She could defend herself, think clearly under pressure, and carry herself in a room full of people trying to size her up. She wasn’t fragile. She never had been.

I was about to say something when Lewis’s phone rang. The car was quiet enough that we all caught fragments a name, a few sharp words. Without meaning to, all three of us turned toward him at the same moment.

He ended the call. The warmth that had been sitting in his expression all evening was gone, replaced by something flat and serious.

"The Blackwells are in trouble," he said.