The interior of the Rolls Royce was a sanctuary of silence, the double-paned glass sealing out the world. Ophelia flipped through the appointment documents, her finger tracing the line that designated her as the Chairwoman of the Board.

Arthur glanced at her in the rearview mirror. His eyes were kind, crinkled at the corners. "Miss, regarding the Barnes family... do you require me to intervene?"

"Lions don't turn around when dogs bark, Arthur," Ophelia said, closing the folder.

"Understood." Arthur's expression shifted to something grimmer. He passed a tablet back to her. "This is the data on the truck that hit us."

Ophelia took the tablet. The screen displayed a grainy photo of a mangled semi-truck. On the side of the cab, barely visible through the wreckage, was a logo: a silver wolf.

"Sterling Industries," Ophelia murmured. Her brow furrowed. "Silas Sterling's people?"

"It was an accident, officially," Arthur said, his voice tight. "But in New York, the only people reckless enough to sideswipe a Pennington convoy are the Sterlings."

"Silas..." Ophelia stared at the logo. "I heard rumors. He's dying."

"The best doctors in the city have given up. They say his heart is failing."

The car slowed. They were at the emergency entrance of Mercy General. A security guard stepped out, hand raised to stop the battered vehicle.

Arthur rolled down his window. He didn't speak. He just pointed a gloved finger at the license plate.

The guard looked down. NY 6. His eyes widened. He stumbled back, saluting frantically, and waved them through.

"Wait here," Ophelia said, pulling a black baseball cap from her bag and jamming it onto her head. She pulled the brim low.

"Miss, the car is... conspicuous," Arthur noted dryly.

"You're the distraction," she said.

She grabbed a nondescript canvas duffel bag from the floorboard. Inside clinked glass vials and steel instruments.

She slipped out of the car and moved toward the employee entrance. Her phone buzzed with a message from Arthur. It was a six-digit number. She punched in the code-827701-without hesitation. The lock clicked open.

The hospital smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee. Ophelia moved like a ghost, weaving through the corridors. She passed the main lobby, where a swarm of reporters was pressing against the glass doors.

"Is Silas Sterling dead?" someone shouted.

Ophelia kept her head down. She turned a corner and collided hard with a chest.

Papers went flying. A young doctor in scrubs stumbled back. "Whoa! Watch it!"

Ophelia instinctively snatched three sheets of paper out of the air before they hit the floor. Her eyes scanned the charts in a split second.

"Potassium 6.5," she muttered, handing them back. "He's bordering on ventricular fibrillation. You need to push calcium gluconate."

The doctor, whose badge read Dr. Thomas Yates, Intern, stared at her. "What? How do you... do you work here?"

Ophelia realized her mistake. "Just passing through."

She ducked past him and sprinted up the stairwell.

She reached the third floor. Room 304. Not a VIP suite. Just a standard room.

She slipped inside.

An old woman lay in the bed, frail and small. Grandmother Barnes. The only person in that house who had ever snuck Ophelia a cookie, who had ever brushed her hair.

Ophelia approached the bed. She placed two fingers on the woman's wrist. The pulse was thready, weak. She glanced at the chart at the foot of the bed-congestive heart failure, chronic. Her eyes flicked to the monitor, noting the dangerously low oxygen saturation. She gently lifted the woman's eyelid, checking for response. There was none.

"I'm here, Nana," she whispered.

She opened her bag and took out a small, unlabeled amber vial. She shook out a single blue pill. It shimmered slightly in the fluorescent light. This was a compound she had been developing in secret for two years, specifically for Nana's condition.

The door banged open.

"Hey!"

It was Dr. Yates. He was breathless, angry. "What are you doing? What is that?"

He lunged for her hand.

Ophelia didn't panic. She sidestepped, grabbed his wrist, and twisted. It was a simple Aikido lock.

"Ah!" Yates bent double, his knees hitting the floor.

"If you want her to live through the night, be quiet," Ophelia hissed.

She popped the pill into the old woman's mouth and massaged her throat until she swallowed.

Yates stared at the cardiac monitor. The erratic, jumping line suddenly smoothed out. The heart rate climbed from 40 to a steady 72.

"My god," Yates whispered, forgetting the pain in his wrist. "What did you do?"

Yates scrambled to his feet, rubbing his wrist. He looked from the monitor to Ophelia, his eyes wide with a mix of fear and scientific curiosity.

"That drug," he stammered. "Is that... is that FDA approved? What is it?"

Ophelia adjusted her cap, shadowing her eyes. "It's a targeted beta-blocker with a custom peptide sequence. It's not on the market."

Yates froze. "Custom peptide... That's theoretical research. That's... impossible outside a billion-dollar lab."

"Ghosts are real," Ophelia said. She set the amber bottle on the bedside table. "One pill a day. Don't let the family see it. Do you understand?"

Yates looked at the bottle. He was a doctor. He should call security. He should have her arrested. But he looked at the monitor. The patient was stable. More than stable-she was improving by the second.

"You want to save lives, or do you want to follow the rules?" Ophelia asked, stepping closer. Her voice was low, challenging.

"Who are you?" Yates asked. He looked at her face, really looked at her. "You're just a kid."

Ophelia put a finger to her lips. "I'm a phantom."

She turned to leave.

Suddenly, the overhead speakers crackled. A siren wailed, sharp and piercing.

"Code Blue. VIP Suite 1. Code Blue. VIP Suite 1."

Yates's face went pale. "That's Sterling. I'm his resident."

He didn't wait. He grabbed his stethoscope and bolted out the door.

Ophelia stood there for a second. Silas Sterling. The man whose truck had nearly killed her. The enemy of her family.

But a Code Blue was a puzzle. And Ophelia couldn't resist a puzzle.

She followed Yates.

She merged into the stream of nurses running toward the elevators. She took the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The VIP floor was chaos. Men in black suits-Sterling security-lined the walls, hands near their holsters. Doctors were shouting.

Ophelia pushed to the back of the crowd gathered around the glass-walled suite.

Inside, a man lay on the bed. Silas Sterling. Even dying, he looked dangerous. His chest was bare, heaving.

Dr. Sloan, the Chief of Cardiology, was holding the defibrillator paddles. "Charging to 200! Clear!"

THUMP.

Silas's body arched off the bed.

The monitor screamed a flatline.

"Again!" Sloan yelled. "Epinephrine 1mg! Charge to 300!"

Ophelia squinted through the glass. She saw the veins in Silas's neck bulging like ropes. She saw the tiny, pinprick hemorrhages on his chest.

Beck's Triad. Distant heart sounds. Distended neck veins. Hypotension.

It wasn't a heart attack.

"Stop!" Ophelia yelled.

She shoved a security guard aside. He was big, but she caught him off balance. She slammed her hand against the glass door.

"Stop! You're killing him!"

Dr. Sloan looked up, sweat dripping down his forehead. "Get that girl out of here!"

"It's cardiac tamponade!" Ophelia screamed, her voice cutting through the panic. "Look at the JVD! If you shock him again, you'll rupture the ventricle!"

Dr. Zayne, the older attending physician, paused. He looked at the monitor. Then he looked at Silas's neck.

"She's crazy!" Sloan shouted. "Clear!"

Ophelia didn't wait. She kicked the door. The magnetic lock disengaged with a heavy thud. She burst into the room.

"Put the paddles down," she commanded.

"Security!" Sloan roared, turning the charged paddles toward Ophelia. "Get her out!"

Dr. Yates, who had been cowering in the corner, suddenly stepped forward. He grabbed Sloan's arm. "Wait! Look at the pressure! It's 40 over 20! She might be right!"

"Let go of me, you incompetent-" Sloan shoved Yates backward.

But the distraction bought three seconds.

Dr. Zayne grabbed the ultrasound probe and slapped it onto Silas's chest. His eyes widened. "Fluid. Massive fluid accumulation. It is tamponade."

Sloan froze. The paddles hummed in his hands, a deadly sound.

Ophelia didn't ask for permission. She shoved past the stunned security guard. She walked right up to the crash cart.

"18 gauge spinal needle," she snapped at the nurse. "Now."

The nurse, terrified by Ophelia's absolute certainty, handed her the needle.

"You have no privileges here!" Sloan yelled, stepping in front of the patient. "This is assault! I'll have you arrested!"

Ophelia looked him in the eye. "You can call the cops. But in ten seconds, he's dead. Do you want to explain to the Sterling family why you let their heir die because of protocol?"

The monitor began to whine. A slow, dying tone.

Ophelia didn't wait for him to move. She placed her hand on Sloan's chest and shoved. It wasn't a polite push. It was a strike. Sloan stumbled back, tripping over a wire.

Ophelia stood over Silas. She didn't look at the ultrasound. She didn't have time.

She placed her fingers on his sternum, finding the xiphoid process. She angled the long needle.

The room went silent. Even the security guards held their breath.

She thrust the needle in.

It was a violent motion, deep into the chest.

She pulled back on the plunger.

Dark, red blood filled the syringe.

Beep.

Beep... beep...

The monitor found a rhythm. The heart rate stabilized.

Dr. Zayne let out a breath that sounded like a sob. "He's back."

Ophelia unscrewed the syringe and emptied the blood into a basin. Clang.

She pulled the needle out. She tossed it onto the tray.

She reached up and pulled off her baseball cap. Her long, golden hair cascaded down her back. She looked at Sloan, who was picking himself up off the floor.

"Next time," she said, her voice dripping with ice, "check the pupils before you try to fry the heart."

Slow clapping started from the doorway.

A tall, imposing man walked in. The Chief of Surgery.

"Impressive blind stick," the Chief said. "Who the hell are you?"

Ophelia ignored him. She pointed at the IV bag hanging above Silas. "Who ordered the Dopamine?"

"Standard protocol for shock," Sloan spat, trying to regain some dignity.

"For cardiogenic shock, maybe," Ophelia said. "But look at his eyes."

She reached down and pulled Silas's eyelid open. A faint yellow ring circled the iris.

"Digitalis toxicity combined with a neurotoxin," Ophelia announced. "Dopamine would have accelerated the heart rate and killed him faster. You were pouring gas on a fire."

The Chief stepped closer, looking at the eye. His face darkened. "Poison?"

"Someone tried to murder him," Ophelia said calmly. "And Dr. Sloan almost finished the job."

The silence in the room was heavy, thick with the realization of what had just happened.