Believing her ex-fiancé when he’d said he was clean might have been stupid, but she was no whore. Nor was she dirty or even ashamed of her HIV status. She fervently wished that the whole world didn’t know about it, but she’d been outed against her will by one of her brother’s former classmates. How the kid had found out, she didn’t know. She didn’t really want to know. She could only push forward and make the best of the hand she’d been dealt, which included refusing to cower to bigots.

Even when they were her own family. Especially then.

Seeing as you’re . . . y’know. Yes, she did know. She lifted her chin. “A good doctor.”

“Diseased,” Jim spat out. “God, I can’t believe how stupid you were. And that you touched people without them knowing. Your aunt can barely hold her head up in church. I thought I raised you better, but I can see—”

She wanted to remind him that she could not transmit the virus to anyone as long as her viral levels were undetectable, which hers had been for years. She wanted to remind him that even if she were detectable, HIV wasn’t transmitted through touch, and that she’d followed every rule and policy put in place by County General Hospital while she’d been an attending physician in the emergency department. But she’d been down that road before and knew it was useless. Her uncle didn’t want to believe facts.

He’s an asshole and abusive. Let it go. “Good-bye,” she interrupted. “Call Tammy’s doctor.” She ended the call and took a few seconds to regroup and force her lips to curve in a smile before turning back to the others in the room.

Tommy and Edna watched her, pity in their old eyes. Dani’s friend Scarlett Bishop was visibly angry, but Scarlett knew the family well. Scarlett had worked with Dani’s cousin Adam on the homicide squad for years, and he had gotten it from Jim and Tammy worse than Dani had. God only knew how he had survived growing up in the Kimble house.

Dani’s older brother, Deacon, barely had survived. And her younger brother, Greg? I should have gotten him out. I should never have let Jim raise him.

But she’d been too young to fight Jim back then. Young and confused and grieving the loss of her parents. At least Greg didn’t have to live with Jim and Tammy anymore, having moved in with Deacon and his wife, Faith.

And none of that belonged in her mind right now. She needed to focus on the elderly man on her exam table. “So where were we?” she asked Tommy. “Oh, right. Pneumonia with a side of gout.”