My Ex-husband Threw Us Out During A Storm Because Our Son Was A “defective Product.” 18 Years Later, He Crawled Into My Son’s Hospital Begging For His Life. Who Is The “defective” One Now?

The Identity of the Doctor

Leo slowly raised his hands. He touched the straps of his mask. His movements were slow, deliberate. He took off his reading glasses and placed them on the desk.

Mark looked at the doctor, confused. He didn’t understand what was happening. He still thought this doctor was a neutral stranger.

“You said you want to live, Mister Peterson?” Leo asked.

His voice had changed. It was no longer deep and contrived. It was his real voice. A voice Mark might vaguely remember from the past, but now deeper, more mature.

“Yes, Doc. I want to live,” Mark answered.

“That’s a shame,” Leo said as he pulled his mask down completely, revealing his entire face. “Because I’m not sure I want to save the man who once prayed for me to die.”

The face was there in plain sight: a strong nose just like Mark’s, the same piercing eyes, the jawline a genetic inheritance. It was Mark’s face, but younger, healthier, and better.

Mark froze. His eyes traced every inch of Leo’s face. His brain struggled to connect the dots of memory.

Then his gaze fell to the nameplate on the desk: Dr. Leo Vance.

Mark’s mouth fell open, but no sound came out. His breath caught. His heart might have stopped for a second.

He was seeing the ghost of his past, now sitting in a seat of power, holding his life at the tip of a pen. The silence in the room was so heavy that the ticking of the wall clock sounded like a gavel.

Mark stared at Leo’s face with a vacant expression, as if his soul had just been sucked out. Bella, sitting beside him, was also gaping. She looked back and forth between Leo and Mark, recognizing the undeniable resemblance between them.

“El… Leo?” Mark’s voice came out like the squeak of a trapped mouse. “You’re… You’re Leo?”

Leo didn’t answer. He just stared straight into Mark’s eyes with a cold, piercing gaze, letting Mark digest the bitter reality on his own.

Mark tried to get up from his chair, but his knees were shaking so violently that he collapsed back down. His thin, trembling hand reached out, trying to grasp the strong figure before him.

“It’s me, son. It’s your father,” Mark whispered, his eyes welling up.

Not with tears of remorse, I was sure, but with tears of fear and manipulation.

“My god, you’re all grown up. You… You became a doctor. My son became a doctor.”

The words “My son” slid from his mouth as if he had any right to Leo’s success. As if he had paid for his tuition, as if he had driven him to school every morning. In reality, he was the one who had thrown that son onto the street.

Leo brushed away Mark’s hand as it tried to touch the hem of his white coat. The movement was sharp, full of rejection.

“Don’t touch me,” Leo said firmly. “Your hands are filthy.”

Mark pulled his hand back as if he’d been electrocuted.

“Leo, it’s your father, son. Your biological father. Your own flesh and blood. Don’t you recognize me? We used to play horsey. Remember?”

I snorted with disgust. Play horsey? That probably happened when Leo was two, before Mark got busy with his affairs and started hating his son’s disability.

“I remember,” Leo answered. “I remember everything. I remember you saying my leg was disgusting. I remember you throwing divorce papers in my mother’s face. I remember you kicking us out in a thunderstorm. My memory is crystal clear, Mr. Peterson.”

Mark’s face turned pale. He realized the long-lost father tactic wasn’t working. He switched to the suffering father tactic.

“Forgive me, son. I wasn’t myself back then. I was stressed. I had a lot on my mind. But look at me now.”

Mark pointed to his bandaged foot and his gaunt body.

“I’m sick, son. I need your help. You’re a doctor, right? The Hippocratic oath says you have to help everyone, right? Especially your own parent.”

Leo smirked a terrifying smile. He picked up Mark’s charity care form.

“A parent?” he repeated. “Since when were you my parent? For 18 years you vanished. No child support, no phone calls, no birthday wishes. And now that your kidneys have failed and your money is gone, you suddenly claim to be a parent.”

Leo stood up. His tall frame loomed over Mark, who sat pitifully.

“So you’re my father?” Leo asked with a mocking tone, one that perfectly mirrored Mark’s tone in the lobby earlier. “Ugh, I’d be ashamed to have a sickly-looking father.”

That sentence hit Mark like a bolt of lightning. His eyes bulged. It was a perfect reversal of every insult he had ever thrown.

He used to be ashamed of his disabled son. Now his son was ashamed of his sick father. Karma had come full circle.

“You! You’re a disgrace!” Leo suddenly heard Bella shriek.

Either because she couldn’t stand her husband being insulted or because she feared her source of medical funding was about to disappear.

“He’s your father! Without his sperm you wouldn’t exist! You have to be respectful. Sign that paper. We don’t have any money.”

Leo shifted his gaze to Bella. His look grew even colder. He picked up another sheet of paper from a stack on his desk.

“No money?” Leo read. “Mrs. Bella Peterson, let’s look at the bank transaction records our hospital’s legal team managed to track down. Last month you sold a house in an upscale neighborhood for $200,000. Two weeks ago you sold an SUV for $40,000. Last week you cashed out a certificate of deposit worth $50,000.”

Bella’s face turned beet red. She stammered.

“That… that was to pay off debts.”

“What debts?” Leo countered. “Our records show no major debt payments. The money was transferred to your personal account at another bank. You’re saving it for yourself. While your husband is forced to beg with a charity form here.”

Mark turned quickly toward Bella, his eyes wide with fury.

“What, Belle? You said the money was gone to pay suppliers! You said we were totally broke!”

Bella panicked. She took a step back.

“Don’t listen to him, Mark! He’s lying! He’s just trying to turn us against each other.”

“The data doesn’t lie, Mrs. Peterson,” I stepped forward again. “We have the transfer receipts. You’re getting ready to leave Mark, aren’t you? You know he’s going to die soon, so you secured his assets. You want to be a rich widow while your husband rots in some run-down hospital.”

“You bastard, Bella!” Mark screamed.

He tried to hit her, but his body was too weak. He could only swing his arm wildly in the air.

“You tricked me! I left a good wife for you and now you robbed me blind!”

“It’s your own fault for getting sick!” Bella screamed back, her mask completely off. “I’m tired of taking care of you, changing your bandages every day, the rotten smell, the bedwetting. Your money is gone, Mark. You’re just a burden. If I had known, I never would have married you.”

A fight broke out in the room. The husband and wife who had once united to destroy my life were now tearing each other apart like wild dogs over a bone. Leo and I just watched with our arms crossed. It was a deeply satisfying sight.

“Enough!” Leo boomed, his voice thundering, stopping their brawl.

He held the charity care form in both hands.

“I don’t care about your domestic drama. My decision is final,” Leo said.

Mark turned back to Leo, his eyes full of hope.

“Son, Leo, please forget this snake of a woman. I’ll divorce her. I’ll come back to your mother. We can be a family again. Please sign the paper. I need dialysis. I’m in so much pain.”

Mark was sobbing, mucus running from his nose. He was truly pathetic.

Leo looked at the paper in his hands. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he tore the paper in half. The sound of ripping paper was deafening in the silent room.

Mark’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“No! What are you doing?”

Leo tore it again and again until the form was nothing but tiny scraps of trash. He dropped the pieces to the floor right in front of Mark’s worn-out shoes.

“Your application is denied,” Leo said coldly. “This hospital is not a charity for traitors. And I, Doctor Leo Vance, refuse to treat a patient who has no ethics and no conscience.”

“You’re killing me,” Mark whispered, trembling. “You’re killing your own father.”

“You died to me 18 years ago,” Leo replied without a hint of doubt. “The moment you murdered my childhood, you also murdered your rights as a father. Feel free to find another hospital. But I guarantee you, with a medical record this bad and without a penny to your name, no one will take you.”

Leo pressed the intercom button.

“Security, please come to my office now. There’s a disturbance that needs to be removed.”

“Yes, doctor,” the voice from the intercom replied promptly.

Mark slid from his chair. He fell to his knees on the floor. Amid the shredded pieces of his shattered hope, he tried to hug Leo’s legs, the same legs he once mocked.

“Forgive me, son! Forgive me! Don’t kick me out! I’m afraid to die!”

Leo stepped back, not allowing even the slightest touch. His face was as hard as stone. He had shut off all compassion for this man.

“Stand up,” Leo said. “Save your energy for the walk out. You’re going to need it.”

Two burly security guards entered the room.

“Escort them out,” Leo commanded. “And make sure they don’t disturb the other patients in the lobby.”

The guards immediately lifted the limp Mark. He struggled, screaming my name and Leo’s.

“Eleanor, forgive me! Leo, my son, don’t do this! I’m your father!”

His voice faded as he was dragged down the hall. Bella ran after them, not to help, but because she was afraid of being arrested too. She didn’t even glance back at her husband being dragged away.

The door closed. Silence once again filled the room. I looked at Leo; his strong shoulders slowly slumped. He let out a long sigh as if releasing a heavy burden he had carried for half his life.

He looked at me, his eyes glassy. But there was a smile of relief on his lips.

“It’s over, Mom,” he said softly.

I walked over to him and hugged him tightly.

“Not yet, son. This is just the beginning of their destruction. But our part, yes, our part is victorious.”

I felt my son’s body tremble slightly in my embrace. No matter how strong he was, kicking out his own biological father was still an emotional act.

But he did what had to be done. He broke the toxic chain that had bound us for so long.

Downstairs, the real drama was about to begin. Mark was about to be made a public spectacle as he was dragged out, and I couldn’t wait to see that final act.