Chapter 141

Claire's POV The consultation room felt smaller with each passing minute, the weight of impossible decisions pressing down on us like a physical force. My mother sat beside me, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had gone white, while Dr. Peterson waited with the patient sympathy of someone who had delivered similar news to countless families facing the intersection of medical hope and financial reality. One point five million dollars. The number echoed in my mind with the relentless precision of a funeral bell, marking time until we would be forced to accept that my father's life had a price tag we simply couldn't afford. My suspension from VM Group meant no income, no insurance coverage, no access to the kind of resources that could make experimental treatments feasible. My mother's teacher's pension and modest savings might cover a few thousand dollars of medical expenses, but not the astronomical cost of cutting-edge synthetic enzyme therapy. "Dr. Peterson," m