Chapter 8 - The Price of Standing Beside HimRosa refused to be moved like furniture.
“I will cooperate,” she told Torres the following morning. “But nobody is going to tell me where to sleep without telling me why.”
Sadie, standing near the library door, almost smiled.
Dominic looked as though the last three days had aged him five years.
The threat made a relocation necessary. Leila proposed a different secure residence known only to a smaller team, and Torres coordinated safety measures that did not rely on Castile employees. Rosa asked questions until she understood the plan.
Then she agreed.
Sadie did too.
They moved separately, avoiding a public convoy. The new place was a modest house outside the city, borrowed through arrangements documented by Sadie's attorney. It had ordinary curtains and an uneven front step.
Sadie liked it immediately.
Safety felt less strange without marble.
A nurse accompanied Rosa, while Leila managed the outside team. Dominic remained in Chicago to meet counsel and produce business records investigators had requested.
Before leaving, he asked Sadie to walk with him to the porch.
“I need to tell you something before somebody else does.”
She waited.
“Reddick is speaking at a charity reception tomorrow. The hospital foundation. He has asked my organization to withdraw its pledge unless your accusations are resolved privately.”
Sadie's expression hardened.
“My accusations?”
“He used that phrase.”
“What did you say?”
“That my contribution doesn't purchase control over a witness.”
“Did you tell him you were cooperating?”
“No. My attorney told him any further contact should go through counsel.”
Sadie folded her arms.
“Will the foundation lose money?”
“The pledge will be held under independent oversight while its source is reviewed. Patients shouldn't pay for what I did either.”
It was complicated. Sadie appreciated that he didn't pretend otherwise.
That afternoon, June arranged a meeting with the foundation's director, who had asked whether Sadie wanted to attend a separate public recognition event honoring the responding firefighters and emergency staff.
There would be reporters.
There would also be trained security, advance coordination with Torres, and no private encounter with Reddick. Sadie could decline without affecting any support she received.
Her first instinct was no.
Her second was anger.
She was tired of photographs taken without her permission and words assigned to her by people who had never asked what happened. If she stood in public, she wanted to stand as herself.
“What am I expected to say?” she asked.
“Nothing you don't choose,” June replied.
Sadie thought about her mother's green notebook.
Before accepting, she asked to speak with Ben, the paramedic who had reached the sidewalk that night. June arranged a brief call.
“I don't want them to use me to make people think this was easy,” Sadie told him.
“Then say it wasn't.”
“Will that disappoint the organizers?”
“I'm not worried about their disappointment.”
His answer steadied her.
He described the risks she had taken without shaming her and said he was glad both women survived. There was room in his voice for gratitude and concern at the same time.
Sadie realized she had been looking for that room since leaving the hospital.
She would not let a microphone turn her into someone certain about a choice she had made in terror.
Then she agreed to a short statement focused on the rescue, the people who responded, and the importance of allowing the investigation to proceed.
No naming uncharged suspects.
No pretending she had nothing to fear.
That night, Rosa sat on the sofa while Sadie considered two dresses Tessa had brought.
One was black and plain. The other was dark green with a repaired seam beneath the arm.
“The green,” Rosa said.
“It's old.”
“So am I. We remain useful.”
Sadie laughed.
Rosa watched her with a sadness that did not ask to be soothed.
“Your mother would have loved seeing you argue with rich people.”
Sadie's smile faded.
“Don't tell me what she would have wanted.”
Rosa bowed her head.
“You're right.”
For a moment, Sadie considered leaving the room.
Instead, she sat beside her.
“You can tell me what she said to you. Things she actually said.”
Rosa looked up.
“She said nobody should have to prove they mattered after they're gone.”
Sadie held that sentence quietly.
The next evening, she arrived at the reception with June and Leila. Dominic entered separately. That had been her choice, and he respected it.
The ballroom glittered with polished brass and enormous arrangements of white flowers. Sadie recognized several public officials from television. She also recognized the exhausted paramedic who had evaluated her outside the burning house.
His name was Ben.
He smiled when he saw her.
“You look better.”
“Less flammable.”
He laughed, then grew serious.
“I wish you'd stayed for treatment.”
“So do I.”
The simple admission felt like another step out of the woman who had disappeared down an alley.
She thanked him properly.
Then she thanked the firefighters.
When it was her turn at the microphone, the room quieted. Sadie placed both hands on the lectern, bandages visible. She had stopped trying to hide them.
“I heard someone asking for help,” she began. “I made a dangerous choice. I was lucky enough to get out, and the people standing behind me made sure that luck wasn't the end of the story.”
She looked toward the emergency staff.
“I want to be clear that nobody should feel pressured to enter a burning building. The professionals deserve the equipment, staffing, and respect their work requires.”
A small movement passed through the crowd.
This was not the speech they had expected from an instant hero.
Sadie continued.
“I also know what it feels like to worry that treatment will cost more than you can pay. That's one reason I left before I should have. I'm grateful to the people helping me now. I hope we build a city where gratitude isn't the only way somebody gets care.”
The applause began slowly, then spread.
Sadie stepped away from the microphone, trembling.
Leila guided her toward a quieter corridor while June handled reporters. Dominic stood near the exit. He did not reach for her until she offered her hand.
“You did well,” he said.
“I almost threw up.”
“You hid it.”
“Years of customer service.”
He smiled, and for one brief moment she saw the man he might have been in a different life.
Then Victor Reddick approached.
Leila moved immediately. June came to Sadie's side. Reddick stayed several feet away, surrounded by the polite attention that powerful people carried like perfume.
“Miss Brooks,” he said. “Your courage is an inspiration.”
“Thank you.”
“I knew your mother. A dedicated woman. I'm sorry recent events have brought back painful memories.”
Sadie felt Dominic's fingers tighten around hers.
She released his hand so she could answer alone.
“The investigation will determine what happened.”
“Of course.”
Reddick's smile remained warm.
“I hope you remember that rumors hurt innocent families too.”
June stepped forward.
“Any further questions can go through my client's attorney.”
Reddick inclined his head and left.
Nothing he had said was openly threatening.
That was what made it so practiced.
Outside, the cold air steadied Sadie. She leaned against the car while Leila checked the departure arrangements.
Dominic stood beside her.
“I should have kept him away.”
“I spoke for myself.”
“I know.”
“Then don't turn every unpleasant thing into proof you failed to control the room.”
He looked at her carefully.
“You make that sound simple.”
“It isn't. Do it anyway.”
He laughed quietly.
For the first time, the sound reached his eyes.
Sadie wanted to touch his face. The wanting frightened her because she could feel the shape of every unanswered question behind it.
“Dominic.”
“Yes?”
“I'm attracted to you.”
He went still.
She almost laughed at his expression.
“I thought honesty was becoming popular around here.”
“It is.”
“That doesn't mean I'm ready to trust you with my heart.”
He nodded slowly.
“I won't ask you to move faster.”
“You might have to wait a very long time.”
“Then you should know I'm attracted to you too.”
She smiled despite herself.
“Terrible timing.”
“The worst.”
At the safe house, Rosa was asleep. Sadie changed into a sweater and sat at the kitchen table while Leila checked in with the security team. The night seemed, briefly, manageable.
Then Torres called.
The witness Ellis Ward had given a detailed recorded statement. Investigators had corroborated the payment and located archived communications linking Nolan Price to instructions from Julian's office.
“Is it enough?” Sadie asked.
“It's enough to move forward.”
Relief hit her so suddenly she had to grip the table.
But Torres had more.
Eva's sketch had identified an old medical supply building beside the shuttered St. Agnes annex. Officers were assembling a search operation.
Sadie knew that building.
Her mother had taken her there once to collect donated equipment for a community clinic.
In her memory, sunlight struck a painted sign above the loading entrance.
BLUEBIRD MEDICAL STORAGE.
She described it to Torres.
Then her phone lit with a message from Dominic's legal team, accidentally sent to the full protected contact group before being recalled.
One document had been recovered from Julian's archived accounts.
It recorded a payment made twelve years earlier.
May you like
The authorization field contained a familiar name.
Dominic Castile.
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