The supply closet fell into a dead, suffocating silence. The only sound was the low, mechanical hum of the air conditioning vent above them. And Celeste's soft, mocking laughter on the other side of the door.

Hamilton stared down at Aimee. His eyes searched her pale, resolute face, looking for a crack in her armor, a sign that she was bluffing. He found nothing but cold, hard certainty.

His massive ego could not handle the rejection—or the humiliation of being caught by Celeste. He abruptly released his clenched fists and took a step back, putting an inch of space between them.

Hamilton let out a dark, cruel laugh. He reached up and meticulously adjusted his left cufflink, re-establishing his facade of untouchable wealth.

"Fine," Hamilton said, his voice dripping with venom. "If you want to go play poor in the slums, I won't stop you."

He reached behind him and grabbed the metal doorknob. He paused, looking over his shoulder with eyes as cold as ice. "When you can't make rent next month, don't bother calling me."

He yanked the door open and strode out. Celeste was standing there, her hand still on the key, her smile razor-sharp. She looked past Hamilton and locked eyes with Aimee.

"Good luck, sweetheart," Celeste purred. "You're going to need it."

Then she slipped her arm through Hamilton's and led him away.

Aimee slumped against the metal shelving unit behind her. The adrenaline crashed, and her knees suddenly felt like water. But she didn't have time to fall apart.

She closed her eyes and inhaled the sharp, chemical scent of the bleach. She forced her lungs to expand, pushing the weakness out of her muscles.

Aimee pushed herself off the shelves. She walked out of the closet, completely ignoring the two nurses who were peeking around the corner with wide, gossiping eyes.

She walked straight down the corridor to the Human Resources department. She pushed open the glass door to Ms. Evelyn Pierce's office without knocking.

The HR manager was on her desk phone. When she saw Aimee, her eyes darted nervously. She quickly mumbled an excuse and slammed the receiver down.

Aimee walked up to the desk and placed the yellow sticky note directly in front of Ms. Pierce. "I need my exit paperwork processed right now."

Ms. Pierce swallowed hard, looking at the note. "Aimee, I just received a call from upper management. We've been instructed to put a hold on your file."

Aimee pulled her phone from her pocket. She opened her browser and pulled up the New York State Department of Labor website.

"New York is an at-will employment state," Aimee said, her voice ringing with absolute authority. "I have the legal right to terminate my employment at any second. If you attempt to hold my file or delay my final paycheck to appease a donor, I will file a formal complaint with the labor board before I leave this room."

Ms. Pierce flinched. She let out a defeated sigh. She turned to her computer, her acrylic nails clacking rapidly against the keyboard. She pulled up Aimee's digital file.

The printer whirred, spitting out a standard termination agreement. Ms. Pierce slid the paper across the desk and handed Aimee a black pen.

Aimee pulled the cap off the pen. Without hesitating, she signed her name at the bottom of the page in sharp, aggressive strokes.

She reached up and unclipped the plastic ID badge from her collar. She dropped it onto the signed paper. It landed with a satisfying plastic clack.

Ms. Pierce stamped the document with the official HR seal and handed Aimee her carbon copy. "You are officially terminated."

Aimee folded the paper carefully and slid it into her backpack. She gave Ms. Pierce a brief, polite nod.

She turned and walked out of the HR office. She marched through the pristine lobby, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She didn't look back once.

Aimee pushed through the heavy revolving glass doors and stepped out onto the Manhattan sidewalk. The midday sun hit her face, bright and blinding.

She raised her hand to shield her eyes. She took a deep breath of the city air, thick with exhaust and hot asphalt. Her bank account was nearly empty, and she had no safety net—but her chest felt incredibly light. She was free.

She pulled out her phone and opened her email app. She had drafted several applications to public hospitals the night before. Standing on the street corner, she hit 'Send All.'

She shoved the phone into her pocket, merged into the rushing crowd of pedestrians, and headed toward the subway station.

She didn't notice the black sedan parked across the street. Or the man inside, who watched her every move through a telephoto lens. His phone buzzed. He answered with a single word: "She's on the move."

High above the city, in the sprawling penthouse office of Reed Global, Hamilton sat in his massive leather chair. He was violently spinning a Montblanc fountain pen between his fingers, his eyes fixed blindly on the Manhattan skyline.

The heavy double doors of his office clicked open. Brennan Wheeler, his executive assistant, stepped inside holding an iPad tightly against his chest.

Brennan stopped exactly three feet from the desk. "Sir, Miss Simpson just finished her interview with the surgical department at Mt. Sinai."

Hamilton stopped spinning the pen. He raised an eyebrow, feigning total indifference. "And?"

Brennan looked down at his screen. "She was rejected. I... took the liberty of making a private call to their HR director this morning."

Hamilton's face turned instantly thunderous. He slammed the heavy metal pen down onto the glass desk. The sharp crack echoed in the large room.

"Brennan, have I ever failed to make it clear that anything regarding her is to be handled solely on my direct command?" Hamilton said, his voice a low, lethal whisper. "Your job is to execute my orders, not to play games with her life based on your own assumptions."

Brennan went pale. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. He bowed his head quickly. "I apologize, sir. I assumed you wanted her to realize how difficult things would be so she would return quickly."

Hamilton's jaw clenched. Deep down, a sick part of him was relieved she had failed, but his pride hated that Brennan had acted without his command.

He violently loosened his silk tie, trying to ease the sudden tightness in his throat. "Do not touch her applications again," Hamilton ordered sharply. "Go down to the Cartier flagship on Fifth Avenue. Buy the newest diamond necklace collection. Bring it to her."

Brennan blinked, completely thrown by the whiplash of his boss's logic. "Yes, sir." He turned and practically fled the office.

Two hours later, Aimee was sitting at the scratched desk in her dorm room. She was massaging her throbbing temples.

Her laptop screen displayed a generic rejection email from Mt. Sinai. She let out a heavy sigh. She knew Hamilton's invisible hand was choking her opportunities.

Suddenly, two sharp, professional knocks rapped against her wooden door.

Aimee stood up instantly. Her muscles tensed. She walked silently to the door and peered through the peephole.

Brennan was standing in the dingy hallway, wearing his tailored suit, holding a very recognizable red velvet box in his hands.

Aimee frowned. She unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open, but only a few inches. She kept her body blocking the gap, offering him no room to enter.

Brennan plastered on a polite, corporate smile. He held the Cartier box out with both hands.

"Miss Simpson," Brennan said smoothly. "Mr. Reed feels you have had a difficult few days. He offers this as an apology, and hopes you will return to the apartment tonight."

Aimee stared at the expensive red box. Her heart didn't flutter. Her eyes were completely dead.

She didn't raise her hands to take it. She looked up at Brennan's face. "Does Hamilton honestly believe that my self-respect has a price tag?"

Brennan's smile froze. His hands remained awkwardly suspended in the air. "Miss Simpson, he just wants to make things right—"

"Take it back," Aimee cut him off, her voice slicing through the air like a scalpel. "Return it. Or throw it in the Hudson River. I don't care."

She narrowed her eyes, delivering her final blow. "You go back and tell Hamilton that his money is filthy. I am not some item he can purchase to soothe his guilty conscience. Tell him to never bother me again."

Brennan gasped, actually sucking in a breath of air. He was stunned that the usually quiet Aimee would demand something so audacious.

While he was frozen in shock, Aimee slammed the door directly in his face.

The force of the slam rattled the doorframe, sending a shower of dust down onto Brennan's expensive suit. He stared at the chipped wood, sighed heavily, and pulled out his phone to call his boss.

Inside the room, Aimee leaned her back against the door. Her chest was heaving. A fierce, triumphant heat burned in her veins.

She turned around to go back to her resume.

Suddenly, a piercing, terrified scream of a child shattered the quiet afternoon. It came from the street directly below her window.

Aimee's heart violently lurched. Her medical instincts overrode everything else. She sprinted to the window and shoved the dusty glass pane up, looking down at the street.

What she saw made her blood run cold. A little boy was kneeling on the pavement, shaking an unconscious elderly man.

Aimee didn't even grab a jacket. Wearing only her thin navy scrubs, she threw open her door and sprinted down the three flights of stairs, taking them two at a time.

She shoved open the heavy front door of the building and burst out onto the chilly autumn street. Her eyes scanned the pavement wildly.

Near a small patch of grass by the corner, a little boy—maybe seven years old—was on his knees. He was screaming, tears streaming down his face as he shook the shoulder of an elderly man lying flat on his back.

Aimee sprinted toward them, shoving past three bystanders who were just standing there with their phones out. She dropped to her knees on the damp grass.

The old man's hands were clawing desperately at his own throat. His face was rapidly turning a horrifying shade of purple.

"I'm a doctor! Back up! Give him air!" Aimee screamed at the crowd.

She leaned over the man, pressing her ear close to his mouth. She heard a high-pitched, whistling gasp—stridor. His airway was closing.

Aimee placed her hands on the angles of his lower jaw and pushed upward, performing a jaw-thrust maneuver to open the airway. It didn't help.

She forced his mouth open and checked for food or objects. Nothing.

"A big bee bit him!" the little boy, Leo, sobbed hysterically. "Right on his neck!"

Aimee's blood ran cold. She ripped open the collar of the old man's flannel shirt.

Right over his carotid artery was a massive, rapidly swelling red welt. A black stinger was still embedded in the center of the swollen flesh.

Her brain fired rapidly. Anaphylactic shock.

"Who has an EpiPen?!" Aimee roared at the crowd, her voice cracking with desperation.

The bystanders stared at her blankly. No one moved.

The old man's lips were turning blue. Cyanosis was setting in.

Aimee pointed a shaking finger at a teenager holding a phone. "Call 911! Tell them we have a severe anaphylactic reaction with airway compromise! Now!"

She used the edge of her fingernail to carefully scrape the stinger sideways off the skin, making sure not to pinch the venom sac and inject more poison into his bloodstream.

Suddenly, the old man's body seized. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his hands fell limply to the grass. He lost consciousness.

Aimee didn't hesitate. She interlocked her fingers, placed the heel of her hand on the lower half of his sternum, and locked her elbows. She began deep, rapid chest compressions.

One, two, three, four... She counted the rhythm in her head. Sweat broke out on her forehead, stinging her eyes.

Leo wailed louder. Aimee kept pumping the chest, turning her head to lock eyes with the terrified boy. "He is going to be okay," she said, her voice projecting absolute, commanding calm.

Her intense focus worked. Leo stopped screaming and just gripped his grandfather's pant leg.

Two agonizing minutes later, the wail of a siren cut through the air.

Aimee didn't stop her compressions. "Go wave them down!" she yelled at a bystander.

A red and white FDNY ambulance slammed on its brakes next to the curb. Two EMTs jumped out, hauling heavy orange trauma bags.

"Elderly male, bee sting, severe anaphylaxis, airway is completely swollen shut!" Aimee barked the handover without missing a beat of her compressions.

The younger EMT immediately pulled an EpiPen from the bag and jammed it hard into the outer muscle of the old man's thigh.

But it was too late. The monitor they hooked up began to emit a rapid, high-pitched alarm. His oxygen saturation was plummeting.

The senior EMT grabbed an Ambu bag and clamped the mask over the man's face, squeezing the bag hard.

"The air isn't going in!" the EMT yelled, panic bleeding into his voice. "The airway is totally locked!"

Aimee stared at the monitor. The jagged line of his heart rate was widening, preparing to flatline. Her eyes narrowed into deadly slits.