Chapter Eighteen
The rhythmic, mechanical hiss of the ventilator had become the metronome to their living nightmare.
For five agonizing, suffocating days, the intensive care unit at Ashford General had been trapped in a state of suspended animation.
The sterile, white-tiled walls offered no comfort, and the sharp scent of clinical antiseptic did nothing to mask the overwhelming stench of sheer terror that clung to the family keeping vigil.
It was the dead of night, the darkest hour just before the dawn of the fifth day. The hospital was tomb-quiet.
Marcy Dane sat slumped in the vinyl chair on the left side of the bed, her head resting on the edge of the mattress.
Pure, marrow-deep exhaustion had finally pulled her into a fitful, fragmented sleep.
Her fingers, however, remained loosely curled around Kinsley’s left hand, a physical tether she refused to sever even unconscious.
On the opposite side of the bed, Cruz Tate was awake.
He had not slept in one hundred and twenty hours.
He stared blankly at the steady, green mountain-peaks of the heart monitor, his large hands wrapped securely around Kinsley’s right wrist. The dark stubble along his jaw had grown into a rough shadow, and the aristocratic billionaire of industry looked dismantled.
He was a hollowed-out shell, existing only from one artificial breath of the machine to the next.
And then, it happened.
It was so infinitesimal, so incredibly fragile, that Cruz almost dismissed it as a hallucination born of sleep deprivation.
Beneath the pad of his thumb, where it rested against Kinsley’s pulse point, the tendons shifted. A second later, Kinsley’s index finger twitched, scraping ever so slightly against Cruz’s palm.
Cruz stopped breathing. His dark eyes snapped down to her pale hand.
Another twitch. And then, a weak, deliberate squeeze of her fingers.
The adrenaline that spiked through Cruz’s veins was violent enough to restart a dead heart. He shot to his feet, his chair screeching harshly against the polished linoleum floor.
"Marcy," Cruz barked, his voice a raw, fractured shout that shattered the silence of the ICU suite.
Marcy jolted awake, gasping as she scrambled upright, her eyes wide with instant, residual panic. "What? What’s wrong? Is she—"
"She squeezed my hand," Cruz breathed, leaning over the mattress, his gaze locked intensely onto Kinsley’s pale face. "Marcy, she just moved."
Before Marcy could fully process the words, Kinsley’s left hand—the one resting beneath Marcy’s—flexed. The fingers curled inward, weakly grasping at Marcy’s palm.
"Oh my God," Marcy sobbed, a sound of pure, unadulterated shock tearing from her throat. She leaned over the bed rails, pressing her face close to her sister’s. "Kinsley? Kins, can you hear me? Wake up, please, wake up. Don't you dare leave me here."
The commotion in the quiet room was an immediate magnet. The glass doors of the suite burst open as Kade Lancaster and Connor Tate, who had been dozing fitfully in the adjacent waiting area, rushed in.
"What happened?" Kade demanded, his frame tense, his eyes darting frantically between Marcy’s weeping face and the medical monitors. He crossed the room in two strides, his hands coming down to grip Marcy’s shoulders protectively.
"She's moving," Cruz said, his voice trembling so violently he could barely form the syllables. He gripped Kinsley’s wrist, his eyes burning with frantic tears. "She's moving, Kade."
Connor’s breath hitched in his throat. He turned on his heel, sprinting back out the glass doors into the corridor.
"Leon!" Connor’s panicked, desperate shout echoed down the hallway. "Leon, get the doctor! Now!"
Within seconds, the sound of Leon Lancaster’s footsteps was heard sprinting down the linoleum corridor toward the nurses' station, shouting for the lead trauma surgeon.
Inside the room, Marcy was weeping openly, her hands hovering over Kinsley’s face. "Come back to us, Kins. Please, just open your eyes."
Beneath the sterile bandages on her chest, Kinsley let out a soft, shuddering moan that vibrated around the plastic tubing of the ventilator. Her eyelids fluttered, a fragile, agonizing struggle against the darkness.
And then, the medical team swarmed the room.
Dr. Thorne and four nurses descended upon the bed, expertly but firmly ushering the billionaires and Marcy away from the mattress.
"We need space, please, step back," Dr. Thorne commanded, pulling out a penlight as he leaned over the patient.
For the next two hours, Kade, Cruz, Marcy, Leon, and Connor were exiled to the cold, fluorescent purgatory of the hospital corridor.
It was an agonizing, suffocating wait. The sliver of hope they had just been handed was a terrifying thing to hold; it meant they had something to lose all over again.
Cruz paced the length of the hallway like a caged panther, his hands running through his dark hair, his chest heaving with suppressed emotion.
Kade held Marcy tightly against his side, burying his face in her hair as she wept silently into his chest. Connor and Leon stood shoulder-to-shoulder by the frosted glass doors, their eyes locked on the blurry movements of the medical staff inside.
Finally, the doors opened.
Dr. Thorne stepped out, pulling the surgical mask down beneath his chin. He looked completely exhausted, but there was a genuine, brilliant smile etched into the lines of his face.
"The extubating was successful. She is breathing on her own," Dr. Thorne announced, his voice carrying the weight of a miracle.
"Her vitals are stabilizing nicely. She is in a considerable amount of pain, and the trauma to the shoulder and chest wall will take a long time to heal.
But she is awake. And she is incredibly lucid. "
Cruz didn't wait for permission. He shoved past the doctor, breaching the doors of the suite with Kade and Marcy right on his heels.
The harsh overhead lights had been dimmed. The terrifying, mechanical hiss of the ventilator was gone, replaced by the soft, natural sound of Kinsley Bennet drawing a ragged breath.
She was propped up slightly against the pillows, an oxygen cannula resting beneath her nose. She looked terrifyingly pale, the dark circles under her eyes stark against her skin, and a restrictive brace wrapped around her left shoulder and chest.
She slowly turned her head as they burst into the room. Her chaotic, expressive eyes were clouded with painkillers, but they were open.
"Well," Kinsley rasped, her throat raw and dry from the breathing tube. She offered a weak, lopsided grimace that was meant to be a smile. "I officially retract... every good thing I ever said... about coastal towns."
Marcy let out a sound that was half-scream, half-sob. She rushed forward, collapsing gently against the edge of the mattress, burying her face in the side of Kinsley’s neck. "You idiot," Marcy wept, her tears soaking into the hospital gown. "Don't you ever, ever do that to me again."
"I missed you too, Marce," Kinsley whispered, lifting her right hand with trembling effort to weakly stroke Marcy’s dark hair. A tear slipped down Kinsley’s own cheek, betraying the immense pain she was in.
Cruz Tate stood frozen at the foot of the bed.
The terrifying, ruthless titan of industry was completely, fundamentally undone.
He dropped to his knees right there on the linoleum, his hands gripping the metal railing of the bed as he buried his face against the pristine white blanket, his shoulders shaking with the violent force of his weeping.
The staggering relief of hearing her voice completely broke him.
"Cruz," Kinsley breathed, looking down at the broken billionaire kneeling at her feet. She managed a watery, breathless laugh. "If you ruin my blanket with your billionaire tears... I’m going to kick you."
Cruz let out a wet, fractured laugh of his own.
He pushed himself up, leaning over the bed to press his forehead gently against hers, mindful of her injuries.
"I love you," he whispered fiercely against her skin, breathing in the scent of her like a man emerging from a suffocating abyss. "God, I love you."
Kade stood by the doorway, his arm wrapped securely around Leon and Connor, watching Marcy and Kinsley hold each other. He wiped a tear from his own eye, an unshakeable peace settling into his bones. The universe had righted itself.
***
It came as absolutely no surprise to anyone that Kinsley Bennet was the worst patient in the history of Ashford General Hospital.
A few days later, she was moved out of the ICU and into a sprawling, sunlit VIP recovery suite. The immediate, life-threatening danger had passed, leaving behind the slow, incredibly irritating process of physical healing.
Kinsley hated hospitals. She hated the smell of antiseptic. She hated being tethered to a rolling IV pole. And above all else, she passionately, vocally loathed the dietary restrictions.
"I am just saying, Cruz, this is a violation of the Geneva Conventions," Kinsley complained loudly from the hospital bed, aggressively prodding a quivering cube of orange gelatin with a plastic spoon.
"This jello tastes like despair and crushed dreams. I took a bullet for your family.
The least you could do is bribe a nurse to bring me a cheeseburger. "
Cruz sat in the comfortable leather armchair beside her bed, a sleek laptop balanced on his knees. He wasn't looking at the screen. He was looking at her, a soft, devastatingly handsome smile playing on his lips.
To Kinsley, her rants were expressions of genuine annoyance. To Cruz, Marcy, Kade, Connor, and Leon, her dramatic, chaotic complaining was the greatest symphony ever composed.