Chapter 6 - The Breach
The shrill wail of the Code Blue alarm tore through the quiet of the corridor, turning my blood to ice.
I reached Room 304 a fraction of a second ahead of Callum, shoving the heavy double doors open with my shoulder. The room was already a chaotic blur of motion. Dr. Park was at the bedside, her hands rhythmically compressing Patrick’s chest, while a resident scrambled to prep the defibrillator paddles. The heart monitor flatlined into a flat, agonizing, continuous tone that vibrated in the soles of my shoes.
“Asystole!” Dr. Park shouted over the alarm. “Charge to two hundred! Clear!”
Callum froze in the doorway, his broad frame blocking the light for a single, terrifying heartbeat. The man who commanded rooms, dismantled corporate boards, and terrified grown men looked utterly paralyzed.
“Callum, move!” I snapped, grabbing his forearm and yanking him backward out of the medical team’s path.
The jolt broke his trance. He stumbled back against the wall outside, his eyes locked on his father’s lifeless face beneath the overhead lamps.
I didn’t wait. I stepped straight past the crash cart, grabbing suction and securing the airway as Dr. Park delivered the shock. Patrick’s body jolted violently against the mattress.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A weak, erratic rhythm crawled back across the screen.
“We have a pulse,” Dr. Park breathed, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her forearm. “Sinus rhythm is returning, but it’s dangerously fragile. Push one milligram of epinephrine now.”
I drew the medication, my hands steady despite the adrenaline hammering in my throat, and administered the IV push. For four agonizing minutes, nobody in the room breathed. We watched the monitor climb from thirty beats per minute to fifty, then sixty, stabilizing into a low, steady hum.
Dr. Park exhaled a long, shuddering sigh. “Get him prepped for emergency transfer to the cath lab. His left main coronary artery must have re-occluded. Move!”
As the nurses swarmed the bed, wheeling the equipment toward the double doors, I stepped out into the hallway.
Callum was standing motionless against the wall, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides, his knuckles stark white.
“He’s stable,” I said quietly, stepping up beside him. “We caught it in time. They’re taking him down to the cath lab right now.”
Callum slowly turned his head. The cold, unreadable armor he usually wore had completely shattered, leaving raw, undisguised vulnerability underneath.
“It wasn’t a natural occlusion,” Callum whispered, his voice dangerously low.
I frowned, my professional instincts instantly spiking. “What do you mean?”
Before Callum could answer, Vance—his lead enforcer—came jogging down the hall from the elevators, his expression grim. He didn't care about the hospital staff staring at him; he walked straight up to Callum and handed over a small, clear plastic evidence bag.
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Inside the bag was a crushed ceramic vial.
“Found it lodged in the intake valve of your father’s oxygen regulator behind the wall panel,” Vance reported, his voice hard as iron. “Traces of fast-acting vasoconstrictor residue. Someone didn't just hope his heart would fail today, boss. Someone forced it.”
