Falling for my Brother’s Rival

Following the Trail

Noah’s Pov

Ethan met me at a coffee shop two blocks from the hospital the following morning, sliding into the booth across from me with the same guarded expression he’d worn ever since I called him at six a.m. demanding a favor that had nothing to do with hockey and everything to do with protecting the people I loved most.

“You look like you haven’t slept,” he said, studying my face with obvious concern.

“I haven’t. Not really.”

“Tell me exactly what you need, and I’ll tell you if it’s actually possible.”

I explained everything as clearly as I could manage, the anonymous message referencing Sophia’s exact appointment details, the break-in at her apartment, the unsettling precision of information that should have been protected by strict medical confidentiality, and by the time I finished, Ethan’s expression had shifted from cautious concern into something far more serious.

“You’re talking about a hospital employee leaking private records,” he said slowly. “That’s not just invasive. That’s a serious legal violation, potentially criminal.”

“I know. Which is exactly why I need to find out who’s responsible before this escalates any further.”

Ethan pulled out his laptop, tapping through several contacts before finally settling on a name I didn’t recognize. “I know someone who used to work in hospital IT security before moving into private cybersecurity consulting. If anyone can trace unauthorized access to patient files, it’s her.”

“Can we trust her to keep this quiet?”

“She’s handled far more sensitive situations than this. Discretion is basically her entire business model.”

Two hours later, we sat across from a sharp-eyed woman named Renee in a small office downtown, explaining the situation while she listened without interruption, occasionally jotting notes on a legal pad in front of her.

“The good news,” she said once we finished, “is that hospital systems typically log every single access to patient files, including who viewed them, when, and from which terminal. If someone accessed Ms. Blake’s records improperly, there should be a digital trail.”

“And the bad news?”

“Getting access to those logs legally requires either a warrant or the hospital’s voluntary cooperation, and hospitals tend to be extremely protective of internal records, even when investigating potential breaches themselves.”

“So we’re stuck.”

“Not necessarily.” Renee leaned forward slightly. “Given your profile, Mr. Steele, and the media attention already surrounding this situation, I doubt hospital administration wants a scandal involving unauthorized access to a high-profile patient’s confidential records. If you request an internal audit directly, citing the specific incident, they’ll likely move quickly to avoid liability.”

That afternoon, I sat across from the hospital’s chief administrator, a stern woman named Dr. Whitfield who listened with visibly mounting alarm as I explained the situation, the timing of the message matching exactly with information only accessible through Sophia’s private medical file.

“This is an extremely serious accusation,” she said carefully. “If true, it represents a significant breach of both hospital policy and federal privacy law.”

“I understand that. Which is exactly why I need your cooperation in identifying who’s responsible.”

She promised an immediate internal investigation, and within twenty-four hours, her office contacted me with results that sent a fresh wave of unease crawling up my spine.

The access logs showed that Sophia’s file had been viewed multiple times over the past two weeks by an employee named Daniel Foster, a records technician who had no legitimate medical reason to access her chart, someone whose job function should never have brought him anywhere near her file in the first place.

When hospital security confronted him, Foster initially denied everything, though the digital trail left little room for plausible deniability. Eventually, faced with the threat of criminal charges, he admitted to accessing the records, though what he revealed next left me feeling colder than anything I had anticipated.

“He claims someone paid him,” Dr. Whitfield explained over the phone, her voice tight with obvious discomfort at delivering such news. “A significant sum of money, deposited anonymously, in exchange for monitoring Ms. Blake’s file and reporting any updates immediately.”

“Did he say who paid him?”

“He claims he never met the person directly. All communication happened through encrypted messages and anonymous cryptocurrency transfers. He genuinely doesn’t know who hired him.”

I thanked her for the information, though the moment I ended the call, frustration and fear tangled together inside my chest, because knowing someone had deliberately orchestrated this, someone with resources significant enough to hire and pay off a hospital employee without leaving any traceable connection, only confirmed what I had already begun to suspect.

This wasn’t random. This wasn’t some obsessive fan acting alone. Someone powerful and patient was behind everything happening to Sophia, someone willing to invest real money and effort into monitoring her pregnancy, into terrifying her, into destabilizing whatever fragile peace we had managed to build together.

I called Ethan immediately, relaying everything Dr. Whitfield had told me, and his response only deepened my growing unease.

“Anonymous cryptocurrency transfers, encrypted communication, hired intermediaries who never meet their employer directly,” he said slowly. “Noah, that’s not the profile of some random stalker. That level of operational security belongs to someone experienced, someone who’s done this kind of thing before.”

“Someone with real resources.”

“Exactly. Which raises the question, who in your life, or Sophia’s, has both the motive and the money to orchestrate something this elaborate?”

I sat with that question long after our call ended, turning over every possibility I could think of, every enemy either Sophia or I might have accumulated over the years, and though nothing concrete emerged, that same unsettling instinct from before crept back into my thoughts, the persistent, nagging sense that this entire situation was somehow connected to something buried far deeper in my past than either of us had yet uncovered.

Tyler’s death. The camp. The years of misplaced blame between Mason and me.

I didn’t yet understand how those threads connected to what was happening now, but standing in my apartment that evening, staring out at the city lights while Sophia slept peacefully in the next room, I felt certain of one thing beyond any doubt.