Crashing into an Old Flame
Chapter 256: Who are you?

Chapter 256: Who are you?

"Do act in a dignified manner. We have every right to sue you for behaving inappropriately with the opposition’s advocate.’’

’’Bullshit sue me! Bullshit advocate. You fu...’’

Maxim dragged Alex back with one hand, his other hand efficiently gripping the man’s chin and clasping it tightly.

Alex glared at him, swinging his limbs.

Maxim narrowed his eyes, ’’Call your lawyers over,’’ he whispered in a voice only they could hear.

"Can’t,’’ Alex spoke through gritted teeth, ’’They work for my grandfather, not me. They most probably won’t take my orders.’’

’’Then contact your grandfather,’’ Maxim narrowed his eyes.

As Maxim’s grip loosened on his shoulder, Alex straightened the collar of his shirt and fixed his hair before he calmly uttered, ’’I can’t.’’

Maxim frowned.

But Alex did not bother to repeat his sentence or explain his stance.

’’Then, I can call him and inform him about this mess.’’

When Maxim moved to pull his phone out of his pockets, Alex snatched it from his hands with urgency.

’’What do you want to prove to him by doing this? That you are better than me?"

Maxim’s frown got deeper, ’’You are ridiculous.’’

’’I am being practical,’’ Alex shrugged, ’’In all his years of handling this hospital, there has never been a mishap. But now that I am taking care of the hospital temporarily for a few days in his absence, things reached the point of a patient filing a lawsuit against us. If he knows this, won’t he think that I am incompetent?" he chuckled, ’’And then, you will swoop the hell in and find some miracle third way out of this situation, and boom! You are the best. Is that what you are trying to aim for?"

’’You...’’ Maxim looked at him speechlessly.

’’Don’t bother acting smart with me. I am not falling for your sly tricks,’’ Alex turned to glance at the group of lawyers who were patiently waiting without interrupting them, ’’Are you going to get out willingly or do you need me to call the security over so that they can drag you?"

The people in the group looked at each other before one of them spoke up, ’’Sure. Since you are willing to be charged for using violence against us.’’

"You.."

Maxim dragged Alex back, ’’Give me back my phone.’’

Alex pulled his shirt forward from its collar and dropped the phone inside, ’’You are still thinking about calling my grandfather?"

Maxim shot him a glare, ’’I will call my lawyer.’’

’’I don’t trust you. You can’t be so kind.’’

"_"

’’It seems to us that you don’t want to call your lawyer over. No issues. This issue can be settled right this instant,’’ one of the lawyers stepped forward.

Maxim’s brows tugged together.

At this time, the door to the VIP room opened and soft ’clicks’ of stilettos dragged everyone’s attention towards the newcomer.

The woman who entered the room was dressed in a black trench coat paired with beige stilettos. But with every step she took, her coat moved, revealing the slightest of the smooth expanse of her bare skin under it.

One could see the hot pink color peeking from her cleavage. And combined with her damp hair, it was not hard to assume that the lady was wearing a swimsuit beneath that coat.

She took off her shades, ’’How are you going to settle this issue?’’ her judgemental gaze doing a once over of the whole team of lawyers.

’’Who are you..?" the main advocate in the group spoke up when he felt her disdain towards them.

’’Mr. Warner’s lawyer at the moment.’’

Alex narrowed his eyes at Maxim suspiciously before he peeked inside his shirt and glanced at Maxim’s phone which was still being held captive by him.

Even Maxim’s expression turned dark for a moment.

But a second later, his face brightened up and a small smile played on his lips.

He stepped back and took a seat on the couch, crossing one leg above the other, all set to witness the show ’someone’ had prepared for him.

Alex fell speechless when he noticed Maxim’s relaxed stance. What was this guy chilling for? Why did he look like he needed popcorn?

Sensing the intrusion, Louis stopped feigning calmness and opened his eyes to look at the unfamiliar person, ’’Who are you?’’

’’Mr. Louis, I have been standing right outside, getting a feel of your team’s professionalism all this while, and trust me when I say that, I feel rather let down. My fifteen minutes were destroyed by a bunch of lawyers who are omitting facts just to impose a crime on doctors who worked to save your life,’’ the lady folded her arms in front of her chest, her narrowed eyes scanning through the whole group of lawyers, ’’Ridiculous, isn’t it?"

’’What did we omit? What are you trying to imply?’’ the head advocate of Louis’ group glared at her.

’’Every patient and their family definitely has the right to receive information about their medical condition. Sure. And the patient’s consent is absolutely important. But...’’ the lady paused, her gaze shifting back to Louis as she spoke, ’’To give informed consent, a patient must be competent.’’

’’All adults are competent,’’ the head of the group argued.

’’Are they now? In cases of mental illness or other impairments, an adult cannot be considered competent. Under such cases, the patient’s family is required to give consent but from what I have gathered, Mr. Louis’ family did not show up during his treatment and surely not until his operation went downhill.’’

’’But that doesn’t give these doctors the right to operate on my client in an unauthorized...’’

’’Sure it does,’’ the lady cut him off, ’’Under emergency circumstances, the competency standards are different. For example, say if a person is unconscious with his vitals dropping gradually, healthcare providers must instead consider whether a reasonable patient would deny medical attention if such a patient were in the same circumstances and could give consent.’’

’’As I heard some of you say, mutual trust between the doctor and his patient is vital which your client had established with Dr. Rick. But due to Dr. Rick’s absence... oops... his intentional stunt of leaving the patient opened up and dying in the operation theatre, my client had to uphold professional ethical standards and save the patient in a team surgery with another doctor.’’

Alex, the other doctor: "_"

If it was some other time, he might have felt offended being addressed in that manner by such a beautiful lady but with the given situation, he stayed put and heard the lady continue.

’’You want to sue my client? Get him charged with a criminal offense? Are you not scared of being laughed at by the public if words of a doctor saving a dying patient and getting sued for it get out of this hospital?"

’’You...’’ the head advocate’s face turned green with every poisonous word that the woman uttered. In fact, he knew about the flaws in this case but he had to act according to Louis’ orders.

And in his field, he had never met someone who could take him down easily so he did not put this matter in the eye before. He had purposely omitted a few things and made the whole thing sound like a serious offense to rattle their confidence and instill fear in them before he moved to the next step.

But surprisingly, this devil appeared out of somewhere and smoothly countered all his statements.

Taking a deep breath, he composed himself and said, ’’It’s a fact that my client was perfectly healthy before this surgery but now he is being told that he doesn’t have much time to live. That is enough to prove my stand.’’

’’Well then, you should take your client to other hospitals and have his condition checked. My client, Maxim Warner, sure is a great neurosurgeon that people in the medical field look up to along with Alex Qin who also has an outstanding profile and who also happens to be the head surgeon of this surgery. But both of them combined, cannot perform magic, unfortunately.

And medical science has not reached a point where a stage four cancer can be inserted within the patient through surgery.’’

"My condition is not as serious as these people are making it out to be. No other doctor had told me that my health condition is this grave and no such thing as a stage four cancer had been traced from my reports.’’

’’Unfortunately, now, I am not a doctor,’’ the lady stepped back and turned to Maxim, ’’I believe my client can put it in simple words for you to understand.’’

’’Bullshit! I can do it better than him,’’ Not giving Maxim an opportunity, Alex spoke up, ’’You had a minor tumor. That’s true. And it’s precisely because of that that your symptoms went unnoticed. The doctors assumed that your tumor was causing all the symptoms, hence not bothering with further tests and recommending surgery to get it removed. That’s what Dr. Rick thought too. But it was not until your tumor was removed did he realize how grave your condition was.’’

Louis shook his head, ’’What nonsense!" he snarled, ’’I don’t believe...’’

’’You have to believe,’’ Maxim pushed himself to his feet, ’’If you think you were mistreated during the operation, I have the whole operation recorded. You can take it to any medical institution or any expert who will tell you if the surgery was performed correctly or not.’’

Louis’ eyes widened in disbelief.

Alex looked at Maxim like he misheard him. ’’You... can you repeat that?"

Maxim shot him a look and the events of that day flashed in his mind.

Although Diana and he argued that day, he had never taken her words lightly.

Since she was insisting on the patient being a problematic person, Maxim trusted her enough to understand that this surgery might get complicated as well.

So, he had this backup plan of recording the whole surgery on a nurse’s phone. And once he got a breather today, he got the recording onto his phone.

Being the head surgeon, Alex was too busy to pay attention to what was happening in the background hence the whole matter went unnoticed by him.

’’You mean... you have that thing?" Alex gulped.

Maxim nodded.

’’Where?"

’’Phone.’’

Alex gently unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and took out Maxim’s phone. With careful hands, he extended the phone towards him, ’’Here.’’

"_"

’’Sir...’’ The head advocate of Louis’ team turned to look at Louis, waiting for his advice.

Louis was too frazzled to say anything but Elder Qin could not keep his silence any longer, ’’We will let the matter rest for now until we are sure about Boss’ health condition.’’

The head advocate nodded, inwardly relieved that he did not have to deal with the devil anymore. He turned towards the woman who was standing with her arms crossed, ’’Um, miss... Are you from California?" he asked the lady lawyer. Not to be smug, but in their field, there weren’t many lawyers that made him look up to them.

’’I am from West Virginia.’’

’’West Virginia..?"

’’Evelyn Moon,’’ the lady said her name calmly, not noticing the way the group’s face blanched.

In recent days, who hadn’t heard of this name? The woman was the talk of the States for her recent case. Her client was a rape victim who had murdered three men brutally and Evelyn Moon fought her case till she was declared innocent.

It was a controversial case. Some people were worried that such a brutal young girl, no matter how pitiful, did not deserve to roam out freely in the world. And some praised this lawyer Evelyn Moon for giving a new life to the young girl.

But no matter what, almost every person who kept track of tabloids was aware of this name—Evelyn Moon.

...

A/N: I have a work in progress and it will probably take a year for you all to hold... yes, HOLD it in your hands but I can’t wait to tell you so here I am. I am about to publish my first paperback. And Evelyn Moon happens to be the female protagonist of my WIP~ Wish me luck and perseverance <3