Chapter 24 - Code Red in Aspen
The double doors of Aspen Valley Hospital burst open under the force of the trauma team.
"Female, twenty-six, twenty-two weeks gestation, acute blunt trauma and suspected toxic reaction!" the paramedic shouted into the hallway.
A team of doctors and nurses in blue scrubs immediately swarmed the gurney, pushing past the security barriers.
"Sir, you have to wait out here!" a nurse insisted, placing two firm hands against Daniel's chest.
"That's my wife! That's my child in there!" Daniel shouted, trying to push through the swinging doors.
"I know, sir, but you have to let the surgical team work!" she pleaded, her eyes compassionate but unyielding. "If you go in there, you are putting her life at risk."
Daniel stopped, his chest heaving as the doors slammed shut, cutting Emily off from his sight.
Through the small glass panel, he could see doctors inserting central lines, alarms blaring on the cardiac monitors in frantic rhythms.
He collapsed onto a plastic chair in the sterile hallway, burying his face in his blood-stained hands.
He had never felt so utterly powerless in his entire life.
All the billions in the Van Allen trust funds, all the corporate power, all the prestige—none of it could buy a single heartbeat for the woman he loved.
Footsteps echoed sharply down the tiled corridor.
Daniel lifted his head, his eyes burning with exhausted fury.
Vanessa strutted toward him, flanked by two attorneys in tailored wool coats and her private bodyguard.
She looked entirely unbothered, her posture straight, her makeup flawless despite the midnight hour.
"Daniel, thank goodness you are safe," she said smoothly, as though the plane incident had never occurred.
"Get out," Daniel said, his voice flat and dead.
"Don't be childish, son," Vanessa sighed, signaling her attorney to pull a document from his leather briefcase. "We have already secured the hospital’s executive board. We are having Emily transferred to a private sanitarium by dawn."
"I told you to get out," Daniel repeated, rising from the chair like an executioner approaching the scaffold.
"Listen to me, Daniel!" Vanessa barked, her mask slipping. "She is trash from the gutter! She intentionally staged this drama to extort fifty million dollars from our family estate!"
Daniel walked up to her until their faces were inches apart.
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"You poisoned her," Daniel whispered.
Vanessa's eyes flickered with a momentary, barely perceptible tremor.
