Chapter One

I am mad as hell! How dare they kill my daughter Julie! All the sons of bitches have to pay for this and I will make sure they pay a hefty price! Slowly but surely, I will torment and destroy them one by one starting with the lab doctor. How can the top hospital like Beverly Hills hire such an incompetent doctor who butchered up my daughter’s case? Who is this bitch? What does she look like? I just want to meet her and see her face to face. She should not be mucking around being a doctor but should just have children and a husband to attend to. And leave these matters and important job of medicine to men doctors. How could Dr. Kline, my trusted doctor, have done this to me, leaving such an important job to a woman doctor when I have been giving him a ton of money for his research? Not only that, but he also botches up my daughter’s care by not giving her radiation treatment in time. Now I regret giving him so much research money after he helped my wife deliver all three of us girls.

I thought he was my friend. Doctors are all the same, they protect each other when there is a lawsuit. And those two must have been hiding something and not telling me the truth. Well, it will all be revealed in the courtroom. My hired guns will reveal their secrets and display them in daylight. Let’s see how these doctors look when we put them on the stand and see if they can extricate themselves out of the situations. I will make sure my lawyers bite them like sharks. We’ll make them spit out all their mistakes with as much bleeding as possible. They will get a dose of their own medicine by the time I get through this lawsuit. The jury will see how vulnerable doctors really are and I will bring them down from their high and haughty white tower, prideful egos and put them to shame. Even so, I am not sure justice will be served. My Julie is still dead, and she will not be with us, forever. This pain of losing my child is so overwhelming and devastating. I can’t think about anything else but to be hyper-focused on revenge. I am her father, and I did not protect her. Feeling like a failure torments me. I have not been talking to my wife or Jane, my second daughter. Luckily, June, my first daughter is at college and there is my excuse to avoid talking. I do not have to see her every day. But Mary and Jane, I must see every day and I have no idea what to say to them. They keep distancing themselves from me, and from each other, too. Everyone goes to our own rooms, closing the doors behind. We no longer have family dinners. My wife does not want to see me anymore. She locks the master bedroom door, so I cannot even get in. She does not address me about the scene at a hotel, as if nothing happened. Sometimes I even wonder if she actually witnessed me standing with another woman in the elevator. I make several attempts to talk about this, but Mary won’t budge.

She avoids me and does not acknowledge I am in the house. Right after the elevator incident with my paralegal Beth, my wife decides to give me cold looks. She will not even talk to me. I cannot believe Mary followed me into the hotel! I almost kissed Beth in front of her. I saw Mary but it did not register I was seeing her right in front of me. I got caught. Guilty as hell. But I deny it, of course. And I will deny it all the way if Mary asks me. Sometimes women can overlook and overthink, and I can fool them to think otherwise. I still have my charm and smarts to get out of a sticky situation like this. Over time, Mary will think maybe she thought she saw things that were not really what appeared to be. I never cheated on her before this time, and we have a fantastic marriage. She will forget about all this because we have girls with us, a family. I have supported my family as a bread winner successfully. They have a beautiful house, private schools and many vacations all over the world with my company’s private plane.

We have a beautiful lake house in Lake Tahoe we enjoy every summer. I always provide for them spectacularly well. What more can anyone ask from me? I am more than a capable man and support my family in prolific abundance. Besides this little slip with the paralegal, I am a perfect husband and a good father. With Beth, it just happened so naturally. I spend a lot of time in the office, and still pull 70–80 hours a week as a senior partner. Making money can be a little addicting. As I make more and more money, I notice there is no limit to the amount that satisfies. If I make a half million dollars, then, I want to see if I can achieve three quarters of a million, then a million, and why not ten or hundred million? Sky is the limit. Nothing is more exciting than to know my capability to profit my company and earn a good living. What is wrong with that? Regarding Beth, it is momentary fire and flirtation I could have resisted, but I said to myself “why not?” Why would a capable man like me settle to have just one woman for life? Although I do not really believe women can be as capable as most men in my business, we are required to hire more attractive female attorneys and paralegals. Plus, they can be helpful in many of our cases. They somehow approach problems in different ways; shall I say more softer and at times manipulative ways, and some of our clients listen to their voices more than mine. We pay very competitively and can be choosy in selecting who will join our company. Stacks of applications pour into our place every year and we can be very selective, and what is wrong with selecting only the attractive ones? This applies to both females and males. After all, it is a fact that attractive people are more successful and they get what they want more easily. Beth is perhaps the most attractive lady in our company. She is a blond, blue eyes, tall, young and thin with figure. Her high heels make her body swing; her full buttocks, it is a killer especially with those long legs of hers crossing when she sits. She flaunts it because she knows she’s got the looks. Among senior partners, we bet who will get her first. Well, not actual money but in a joking manner. Competitive edge always serves me well. I never lose anything when I put my mind and priorities in place. When I begin sleeping with Beth I do not think through things or how it will affect my family. I’ve just got to have Beth. What does she look like naked? She addicts me. I’m willing to do just about anything when a competition is set in front of me. Being first is important, but I have to think about the consequences, unfortunately. I never think about getting caught, to be honest. Beth is becoming more demanding. “Why don’t you buy me this or that? How come I can’t see you in public? Why can’t we go to Hawaii for a vacation together?” Her annoying lists become long, and I am tiring of her whining voice, straining to fulfill her demands. We go to Hawaii, and I lie that it is a business trip to my wife.

At lunch I stop by Tiffany’s to find Beth something, open my wallet and there is not enough cash. My credit card works. Rushing back to the office, I realize Mary now pays the bills. I relinquished that responsibility to her just last month. Now I have to buy something else for Mary and cover up the first charge I just made for Beth. I forget it was from Tiffany’s in Beverly Hills and a couple days later I pick up a necklace from Nieman Marcus for my wife, not thinking whether or not it is packaged in a Tiffany blue box. On top of this, I totally forget about our wedding anniversary. I just took a Hawaii trip with Beth. 

“Oh, it’s not from Tiffany’s!” Mary screams.

I know I blew it, immediately. I have become an insensitive son-of-a-bitch to my wife. Why have I come this far? It is not fair for Mary. She has been a good wife and a good mother to my children. I feel remorse but she will not even face me, and I will tell her how sorry I am if I must. Maybe I have come too far to fool her to think I am not having an affair. My only hope is to show her how much I care about her and the family by winning this lawsuit case. That will show Mary and my family how great I am to take care of matters with my own hands. Not only do I pick five top-notch senior partners for my medical-legal team, I add five more associates who are aggressive, rising stars in our firm. I release hungry sharks to be free in the water for them to seek prey. They will have a field day as they destroy these doctors and that hospital.

Read the entire novel. 100% of profits from book sales are donated. Incidents in my new novel portray a female pathologist promoted to department chair. She encounters powerful forces of indoctrinated prejudice and in medicine and exposes false assumptions about medical-legal justice. Ultimately, the doctor presents a case to decontaminate the poisons in this world of unforgiveness. FORGIVE TO LIVE at Amazon and at Smashwords eBooks