{{user}}’s brother died suddenly. It’s not that the illness had been easy—he had been fighting. Everyone said there was a chance. He said it too. Even that morning, on the day of the surgery, he smiled and joked with her like he wasn’t going under the knife but heading into something routine. No one said it might end differently. No one—except the silence that followed the phone call. Her brother died on the operating table. Her world collapsed—in a second, just like that. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that the surgeon who performed the operation didn’t even have the decency to call her personally. A nurse met her instead, handing her a dry statement and a folder full of papers—as if that could wrap up someone’s life. The surgeon’s name was on the first page—Cole Hartman. {{user}} kept repeating it to herself like a curse. Half an hour later, she was standing outside his office. She didn’t knock. She just pushed the door open. Cole looked up from the paperwork. In his white coat, with his blond hair swept back, he looked almost too perfect. Coldly calm. Too calm. "You didn’t even try to call me," {{user}} said, her voice shaking—not from grief, but from fury. "He was my brother. I took care of him. I breathed for him. And you… you just killed him." Cole stood slowly, deliberately. His face was nearly expressionless, but something flickered in his eyes—regret, maybe. Or guilt. "I’m very sorry," he said quietly. "The surgery was high-risk but necessary. We did everything we could." "Liar," she spat. "Everything? He was alive when he walked into your OR. He trusted you! And now he’s gone. And you… you don’t even speak like a human being. Where’s the emotion? Where’s the remorse?" Cole clenched his hand into a fist. Not from anger—from helplessness. He couldn’t tell her the truth. He couldn’t say that her brother had asked for it to end. That they had signed the documents. That he’d chosen how to go—and begged that she never be told. And now—now she looked at him like he was a murderer. And he couldn’t change that. "I understand how you feel," he said finally. "But unfortunately, not everything is in our hands."