The carrot and the stick

When the nurse left Olivia's room, her sad expression was instantly replaced by an evil smirk, celebrating her success. Now that she had finally managed to get her hands on a phone, she needed to think about who it would be best to call and then just wait for the result.

Normally this wouldn't have been too hard to decide, but with her currently being on Harold's bad side, and many of her contacts in the underworld business being people she had directly or indirectly come to contact with through him, she needed to be careful on who to trust with such a delicate and risky job. With the slightest hiccup she could find herself being blamed for it all or be betrayed by the person she asked, and worsen her situation even more and losing this one opportunity without ever having gotten even.

Fortunately for her, she had some time to think since the nurse in question, didn't have her phone on her. This is customary for most medical staff as they don't want any unnecessary distractions. All people are provided with a work phone, which in case of emergencies, can be used to contact the home front. Other than that, they are unreachable for private matters until their breaktime. With it being too easily traceable to the two of them, if Olivia used the nurse's work phone, they opted to wait for when Olivia could use the nurse's private phone.

Initially they agreed to wait for her shift to end and use a final check-up as the reason to return to her room. But changed their mind at the last minute. It was certain that there would be less staff running around by then and a lot of the usual chaos wouldn't be there to hide their meeting. Which also meant that there was a big chance for Olivia to be heard as she made the call. If the guard outside her room got alarmed, it could get both of them in trouble. Something that neither of them was willing to risk.

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After a night of little sleep, Olivia had finally narrowed her choices down to a top two, hoping that number one would agree, so that there would be no need for her to contact number two. These were both people she concluded to be the furthest apart from Harold, in terms of being business contacts, and they didn't appear to be too happy with the way Harold did things, both now and in the past. So, by applying the rule of 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend', she figured these two were the people she could currently trust the most. Both in terms of getting the job done as well as not ratting her out to Harold.

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Days passed and life continued. Olivia was discharged and a new date for her hearing was scheduled. Her father had been granted house arrest until his actual trial would take place. With his assets being frozen and having been put on an ancle monitor, the judge didn't see much risk in letting him await his trial at home. Whether Olivia would be given that same benefit of a doubt, would remain to be a question for now.

As for Laila and the others, their lives seemed to be continuing on as usual. Laila was still busy with her newly started business, drawing up sketches after sketched and trying to dig through her memory for the designs she had made in her past that had given her success. With everything she did, she noticed just how much her past was helping her move forward in this life.

Steve's recovery was progressing very smoothly with Maria's good care and had even surpassed the expectations. Maria had done everything she could to grow from the novice she was, to the expert she was now. She took courses on how to tend to wounds. She consulted a physiotherapist and a rehabilitation doctor for a workout plan in order to allow Steve to regain his mobility as safely and quickly as possible. She would go with him to every check-up and would make sure that he wouldn't slack off with his exercises nor overexert himself. But with each step forward in his recovery, she felt the danger for herself drawing near as well.

Even when he was on bedrest and barely able to walk, he managed to practically break down all her defences. The only thing holding him back, had been his physical limitations at that moment and her concern for his wounds. When the limitations and wounds were gone, so would be the struggling restraints that kept them from taking that next step in their relationship. And Maria felt that day drawing near every time she was near Steve and saw the look in his eyes. With every doctors visit, his eyes grew closer and his hands held her more tightly. Their kisses became more passionate and more than once she felt herself ready to give in to him, but was always pulled back to reality before anything could happen. Holding his full recovery as the carrot and the stick, dangling it between him and the finish line.