He was already seated when she entered, waiting in the old conference room with the frosted glass that didn't quite reach the ceiling. The space hadn't been used in months, not since the last failed restructuring meeting, but Brenner always chose his battlefields carefully—quiet places, tucked away corners, rooms where the walls wouldn't talk. Nora didn't knock. She stepped in and closed the door behind her with calculated calm, her posture composed, detached. She didn't need to ask why he had called her. She already knew.
Brenner sat at the far end of the table, hands folded neatly in front of him, a pristine suit wrapped around the same cold precision he always carried. In front of him, a single folder rested between them like a line drawn in silence. His voice was smooth when he spoke, pretending this was cordial. "You're back," he said, as if she had just returned from a vacation rather than a suspension. "You already knew that," she answered, not rising to the bait. He smiled faintly, the kind of expression that left the eyes untouched. "Of course. Word travels fast around here. Especially when it comes to ghosts."
She remained standing. "You didn't call me here to play with metaphors." He didn't deny it. Instead, he tapped the folder softly. "That's a reinstatement offer. Conditional. We remove the suspension from your record, reopen surgical access, close the internal review." Her jaw tensed, but she said nothing. "In return," he continued, "you end whatever it is you're doing. You stop accessing sealed files. You formally agree not to pursue personal claims regarding your sister's case. Statute of limitations protects the institution we just need your silence to protect its image."
Nora stared at him for a long second, then moved forward and opened the folder. Her eyes scanned the text legal terms, policy cleanups, signatures. A neat little trade: reputation for silence, erasure for access. She closed the folder again and slid it back across the table toward him, her movements deliberate. "You built this place on the backs of people you thought would stay quiet. Patients. Interns. My mother. My sister." Her voice didn't waver or rise. It didn't need to. "And now you think I'd walk away for a clean file?"
Brenner said nothing. She didn't wait for an answer. "I didn't come back to fix my reputation," she said, each word slow and precise. "I came back to ruin yours." There was no threat in her tone. Just the certainty of someone who had nothing left to lose. She turned and walked to the door, pausing only long enough to glance back. "You should've burned that file when you had the chance." Then she was gone. And for the first time in years, Brenner didn't follow.