You Can Let It Go [ZARRY]

Eight

Harry:

In the car on the way back to the estate, I tugged at my tie and rubbed my eyes.

Jeff Azoff had talked a good game, selling me on his department’s strategies likely in the same way he sold our painkillers to the nation.

The bottom line:

we’d become the world’s largest and most profitable drug dealer. OxyPro, that was supposed to treat terminal cancer patients and others with chronic, severe pain, was being prescribed for wisdom teeth removal and tennis elbow.

It had taken me all of a week to figure out I’d get a better high from crushing and snorting the pills than from swallowing them to feed my own addiction.

I couldn’t be the only one.

This is bad.

But the drug’s addictive potential for abuse wasn’t part of Azoff’s battle plan. I’d ordered him to show me overdose data for those same counties and he smoothly replied,

“Essentially, you’re new to the game and need not trouble yourself with all the details just yet.”

I essentially told him to get the fuck out of my office, ordered Sylvia to pull the data for me by Monday, then went home.

“Christ,” I muttered now as the sedan pulled into the circular drive. I didn’t have the big picture, but what little I’d seen told me that, at best, Styles Pharma was wading
through a minefield of potential lawsuits for over prescription that could bankrupt us. At worst.....

Heads nodding in a dim room. Misery. Addiction.

At worst, thousands upon thousands of lives ruined.

The car came to a stop and I shook my head. It was too early to be this pessimistic. I’d talk to Dad and let him tell me I was a fucking moron for worrying over matters I knew nothing about.

He’d set me straight, and then I’d find Marcel and play piano for him. The rain had stopped gray sunlight filtering in through the clouds.

Maybe we could take a walk and pretend we were strolling through the English moors in 1885, or wherever he imagined us to be.

Inside the expansive foyer, Cesar Castro was speaking to a man in royal blue nurses’ scrubs and two doctor looking types-Dr. Webb, Dad’s neurologist, and Dr. Tran, Dad’s primary physician.

“Ah, Harry,” Cesar said.

“The doctors were just explaining that the nursing team for Mr. Styles is in place,under the command of Mr. Roberto Carrillo, here.”

He indicated the nurse in royal blue. Cesar had decided that all the hires for Dad would wear a uniform while on duty.

I nodded curtly at the group. “How is he today?”

“Better,” Dr. Webb said. “The flare-up seems to be quieting. He—”

“Can he talk? I need to speak with him.”

“Yes. Much more clearly today. He’s up there with his full nursing team, giving them their marching orders, so to speak.”

Poor bastards.

“Roberto will go up with you,” Cesar said.

I nodded and we headed up the spiraling staircase. Roberto was a tall guy with a friendly face.

“I was speaking to Cesar just now about the possibility of putting in an electric mobility chair on this staircase to help your father come down when he’s ready.”