BXBX NOVEL Chapter 202 Ilom brothers
The only free receptionist out of three in the main hall looked at him and the world with palpable exhaustion. The hall itself was crowded with visitors even at the late hour. People wanting to see doctors in the last hours before they stopped working, people who were asking about their loved ones in the patient rooms, and visitors who were just leaving.
\'Nelson and Asher were definitely not the only people admitted here,\' Tristan thought.
He approached the free receptionist at the registration desk and gave her his most charming smile. The smile she gave Tristan in return was almost genuine.
"Hello, how may I help you, sir?"
"Hello to you, too. Can you ask Mr. Asher Ilom if he will invite me for a visit, please? My name is Tristan Hayes—I\'m a friend of his brother."
The woman blanched. A moment later, she forced her previous service smile back again, but it was too late.
"I apologize, but there are only fifteen minutes until the visiting hours are over. We don\'t accept new visitors anymore. Please, come tomorrow."
Tristan put his elbow on the registration counter and propped his chin on his palm.
"So his brother IS here? Did he give you any trouble? I bet he wasn\'t on the list of people Asher originally permitted visiting him."
His eyes bored into the receptionist\'s face like lasers. She froze, caught in that gaze, ensnared by Tristan\'s slightly melodic and absolutely hypnotic voice.
"I… Um… Ye-yes, he\'s here, but I\'m not free to give that information… I apologize, uh…"
Tristan leaned even closer to her—just on the edge of what was socially acceptable under the circumstances. He felt a pair of gazes at him from behind—there were people queuing to the registration deck behind him.
"Let me be honest with you, miss. I came here specifically for Mr. Damien Ilom. Let me in for five minutes and I will make sure he\'s out of your hair. And nobody will have to do something ugly like calling the police or risking the reputation of your hospital."
Under the immense psychological pressure Tristan was expelling, the receptionist teared up without realizing it. With Tristan right in front of her, and her bosses far and away somewhere, she didn\'t feel like she actually had a choice. Read latest chapters at empire
The thought of calling her superiors and passing this decision to them didn\'t even come to her head.
"I… I will give y-you a visitor\'s pass… P-please go d-directly to Mr. Ilom\'s room…"
With shaking hands, the receptionist tapped keys on her computer, which swiftly printed a small rectangle of a visitor\'s pass with Ilom\'s room number on it.
"Thank you, miss. Now breathe out." Tristan grinned at her, snatched the pass, and slipped away from the registration counter before anyone thought anything wrong about him.
As soon as she left, the receptionist put, "down for maintenance" sign over her counter—to the disappointment and anger of people in the queue—and slunk off to cry in the toilet.
Tristan made himself as inconspicuous as he could without literally blending with the walls and went to room number 338. It really wasn\'t on the same floor as Nelson\'s.Nôv(el)B\\\\jnn
There were security guards posted at key points, and they all frowned even though Tristan showed them his visitor\'s pass. But words, "I\'m only here for a minute," when spoken with enough conviction and charm, convinced them to let Tristan pass without a fuss.
As he approached the right door, Tristan saw one of his relationship threads—a thick blue one with indistinguishable dashes of other colors inside—go into the room.
Tristan stood straighter. His expression became stony and the cloudy aura of approaching doom began surrounding him—not to the supernatural level yet.
Then he opened the door without knocking and stepped inside.
It was another spacious, but bland and clean expensive hospital room. Two people, with their faces identical up to their haircuts and scars, were inside.
Asher Ilom, whose face was smoother but whose hair was spread on the pillow like a blot of ink, was sleeping in the hospital bed. There were a few machines hooked to him, including an IV drip, but less than there were when Tristan had visited Nelson this morning.
Damien Ilom, who wore a short goatee and gathered his long hair into a ponytail, was sleeping in a leather chair near the wall, with his head rolled back and his mouth ajar.
When Tristan opened the door, both of them jolted awake. Damien pulled out a gun from a hidden holster and pointed it at Tristan; Asher huddled under his blanket as much as the cables and tubes attached to him allowed.
A moment later Damien realized whom he was pointing a gun at and hurriedly put it away.
"Oh. Boss. That\'s you. Sorry for that—reflexes, you know how they are…" he chuckled nervously as he stood up.
Tristan closed the door behind him, silently raising an eyebrow. By this point, Damien seemed to remember where he was—and where Tristan was.
His expression hardened, became defensive.
"Why are you here, anyway?"
Tristan glanced at Asher, who was watching the things going on with scared eyes of a civilian who was afraid that the big bad gangster might just shoot them for an imaginary offense.
Knowing this man and his social anxiety, Tristan dimmed down his fearsomeness for the moment and purposefully looked away from him.
It was always somewhat weird to talk with people you knew, but who didn\'t recognize you, anyway.
"Did you look at the time lately, Damien? Did you forget that you have obligations to fulfill?"