Chapter Sixteen: Hello Jane.
1129 Words
I stared at my phone until the screen went dark in my hand.
At some point, exhaustion dragged me under because when I opened my eyes again, the room was flooded with pale morning light, and my neck ached from the awkward angle on the pillow.
I lay there for a moment, heart racing with the memory of the box. Rising from the bed, I washed my face in cold water, but the tightness in my chest remained.
Then I put on my coat the way I always did when I needed to feel like a doctor instead of a woman barely holding herself together.
No new calls.
No packages waiting outside my door.
Nothing moving on the security cameras that shouldn’t be there.
Whoever had sent the finger wasn’t finished.
They were either very patient… or very confident.
The thought made a cold knot tighten in my stomach.
I suspected both.
I was in the medical bay at eleven AM when my phone rang.
Not an unknown number this time. A number I recognized.
A number I had deleted two years ago and apparently still knew by heart because my body reacted before my mind could catch up.
My hand went cold around the phone. My pulse lurched. The room seemed to shrink until all I could see were the eleven digits glowing on the screen.
I answered before I could talk myself out of it.
“Hello, Jane.”
His voice hadn’t changed.
That was the thing about Magnus Vance. Nothing about him ever seemed to change.
The same calm warmth. The same steady confidence. A voice patients trusted with their lives, never realizing they were putting themselves in the hands of something far more dangerous.
My hand clenched around the phone, knuckles white.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” I said.
Magnus chuckled softly, like I had made a small, amusing mistake.
"So are you… and yet here we both are.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“I want to talk. Just talk, Jane. The way we used to.”
A bitter laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
“We never talked, Magnus. You pushed me down a flight of stairs… and then stood over my hospital bed smiling.”
“That was a misunderstanding.”
“You are a god-forsaken psychopath. You shattered my arm.”
“You were going to destroy everything I built.” His voice stayed warm. Patient. The particular reasonableness of a man who had convinced himself his version of events was the true one.
“I made a mistake. I’ve had a long time to think about that.”
A chill crept up the back of my neck.
“You faked your suicide.”
“I did.”
“The confession note. Chen’s name. All of it.”
“Buying time.” A small pause, like he was savoring the memory.
“For both of us, actually. Chen was always going to be a liability. I simply… accelerated the timeline.”
The casual way he said it made something cold crawl down my spine.
I pressed my back against the supply cabinet. Tried to slow my racing heart.
"Where are you?"
He laughed. Soft. Almost fond. "Close."
"How close."
"Close enough to know that you signed for the medical supplies yourself on Tuesday because the neurosurgeon was in consultation." A pause.
"Close enough to know that you've been given a week of space by a man who doesn't strike me as the patient type."
"You've been watching the compound."
"I've been watching you. There's a difference." His voice shifted. Just slightly. Something beneath the warmth I always relied on hummed with danger if you listened closely.
"You should have stayed dead, Jane. We had an arrangement."
"You almost killed me and called it an arrangement."
"I gave you a choice. You chose wrong." He paused.
"You always choose wrong. Report me, get pushed. Hide, get found. Run to a mafia boss, become a target.”
"How is Frank Costello, by the way?"
My grip on the phone tightened, nails digging into my palm.
"He has quite the reputation. Ruthless. Brilliant. Completely devoted to his family."
"Interesting choice for a woman with a conscience. Although I suppose after two years of running, you'll take safety wherever you find it."
"Is that what you think this is?"
"Isn't it?"
I said nothing. My throat tightened. Words stuck somewhere between fear and disbelief.
"I'm not calling to threaten you, Jane." His voice shifted again. Back to warm. But it carried the weight of someone who could destroy you without lifting a finger.
"I'm calling because I think we can help each other."
"I don't need your help."
"You need someone who isn't Frank Costello. The finger in the medical supplies… that wasn't me. I want you to know that.”
"Someone in that compound is playing a game that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with him. And you are standing in the middle of it without knowing the rules."
He let that sink in. The pause felt like a hand pressing against my neck.
"I know things about the Costello family that Frank doesn't know. Things that would change how you see this situation entirely."
"You're lying."
"Maybe." His voice carried the faintest edge of amusement. "But you're still listening."
He was right. I was still listening. And hating myself for it. Hating how my chest flinched at every word.
"What do you want, Magnus?"
"A conversation. In person. Somewhere neutral. I think you'll find what I have to say very interesting."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I will find another way to get your attention… and the next one won't be as polite as a phone call." His voice stayed calm, but every word pressed against me like a threat I couldn’t escape.
"I'd rather not do that. I think we've both had enough unpleasantness."
"You're threatening me."
"I'm presenting options. There's a difference. Think about it. I'll call again in forty-eight hours. I'd like an answer by then."
The line went dead.
I stayed frozen in the medical bay, every muscle refusing to move. My ears ringing with the echo of his voice.
Magnus was alive.
Magnus was close.
The finger in the supplies wasn’t Magnus.
But whoever sent it had been in contact with him.
And that thought pressed down on me, the air thick and suffocating, the walls closing in like hands I couldn’t push away.
I put the phone into my pocket.
In the morning, I told myself.
One night to think about what Magnus had said. If the information he was offering was worth the meeting he was asking for.
One night wasn't a betrayal.
- Writer
