7 - The Price of Breath
The phone rang—
sharp, insistent, slicing through the hush of dawn like a scream in a church.
Emma Landon stirred in the armchair where exhaustion had finally claimed her.
The half-spilled glass of water on the table shimmered faintly in the lamplight, trembling with each shrill ring.
For a moment, she didn't know where she was.
The world had no edges, only the echo of sound and the taste of something metallic in her mouth—fear, rising fast.
Her hand groped for the phone, brushing the crystal paperweight Mathew had given her years ago. It caught the light and shattered it across the wall—fragments of color dancing wildly over stillness. Beauty in the wrong place, wrong time.
She pressed the receiver to her ear.
"Mrs. Landon!" The voice on the other end was frantic, winded, words tumbling over each other. "Your husband—he collapsed at the office. We did everything we could—he's at St. Vincent's. It's critical."
The words struck her like a physical force, scattering thought into nothing. For a beat, she didn't breathe. Then her knees gave, the edge of the couch catching her weight as she half-fell, half-sat. The world became soundless, save for the faint hiss of the line.
Her gaze drifted to the mantel.
A photograph stared back—a frozen family in summer light. Mathew's easy smile. Scarlett, sun-drunk and laughing. Their son perched on his shoulders.
Perfect. Distant. Untouchable.
"I'll be right there," she whispered. The words were hardly sound—just air shaped by panic.
The keys clattered into her palm. Cold metal bit her skin as if urging her to move, move, move. She left the house with the door still swinging open behind her, dawn's first light bruising the clouds. The wind carried the smell of rain and something electric, like the air before a storm.
St. Vincent's Hospital.
The waiting room was a place without time.
White walls hummed under harsh fluorescent light.
The air stung with antiseptic and cheap coffee.
Emma stood motionless near the reception desk, hands clasped together as though she could will herself into steadiness.
Every few seconds, her eyes flicked to the double doors marked ICU, but no one came through.
She was porcelain—fine, fragile, and one breath from shattering.
Then—footsteps. Fast. Light. A rush of air as Scarlett burst through the sliding doors, her copper hair catching in the sterile light. Seventeen and burning with fear, she moved like someone who refused to believe the world could break this suddenly.
"Mom!" she gasped. "What happened? Where's Dad?"
Emma turned slowly. Her face was pale, eyes rimmed red but dry. "They're still with him," she said, voice a paper whisper. "It was a heart attack. The doctors think... stress. Too much. Too long."
Scarlett froze, her brother's hand slipping into hers. His eyes—wide, confused—searched both their faces for a truth he couldn't yet name.
Emma's voice broke the silence again, thin and frayed. "He hid it so well, Scarlett. The late nights, the pressure—he said it was fine. He always said it was fine."
Scarlett's throat tightened. Memories came in flashes: her father's tired smile at the dinner table, the unopened mail piling on his desk, the way he'd sometimes sit in the dark after everyone else had gone to bed. She hadn't asked then. She didn't dare now.
And then—the soft hiss of automatic doors. A new presence cutting through the air.
Sarah Blackwood
She entered like she'd been expected.
Sarah Blackwood was the kind of woman who never seemed to arrive; she simply appeared, as though the room had been waiting for her.
Every movement measured, every glance deliberate.
Her cream blouse gleamed against the dark sweep of her tailored skirt.
Her perfume—cool, expensive—threaded through the sterile air, softening it, owning it.
Her eyes landed on Emma. "I heard," she said quietly. Smooth voice. Controlled. "How is Mathew?"
Emma tried to stand taller but failed. "Still critical," she murmured. "They're doing everything they can."
Sarah's expression flickered—an emotion passing too fast to name. She gestured toward the corner, and Emma followed her like someone drawn by gravity.
Their voices dropped to murmurs. Scarlett could see their silhouettes from across the room: her mother's trembling shoulders, Sarah's stillness—like a statue carved to contain storms.
Emma's voice came in fragments. "The company... it's spiraling. Stocks collapsing. The Carsons turned on us. They want Scarlett—for a deal. A business marriage. If we agree, they'll absorb her shares. If we don't—Mathew's company dies."
Sarah's gaze sharpened. "Does Scarlett know?"
Emma shook her head. "No."
"Then don't tell her," Sarah said. "We'll find another way."
She reached out and took Emma's hand. Warm, steady.
The contact cracked something in Emma's composure, tears spilling silently down her face.
Sarah let her cry, her expression unreadable.
But in her eyes—just for a moment—a flicker.
Not pity. Calculation tempered by something dangerously close to compassion.
When Emma's sobs faded into trembling breaths, Sarah straightened, smoothing invisible creases from her skirt. "Come," she said softly. "We'll handle this."
Scarlett's head lifted when she saw them walking toward her. Something in Sarah's stride set her on edge—a purpose too deliberate.
"What?" Scarlett asked. Her voice was wary.
Sarah stopped before her, eyes calm, almost kind. "I have a solution," she said simply.
Emma's brows drew together. "A solution?"
Sarah's smile was slight, razor-thin. "Marry our children."
The air went still.
"Ethan and Scarlett," she continued, tone as composed as a contract reading. "A merger. Your family's company with Blackwood Enterprises. Ethan can stabilize the board, protect Mathew's position, and quiet the markets. It's clean. Efficient."
Emma's breath hitched. "Sarah... that's asking too much. They're—"
"This isn't about them, Emma." Sarah's gaze softened, but her words stayed sharp. "It's about saving everything Mathew built. About protecting you. And I assure you—Scarlett will be safe with Ethan."
Scarlett felt the room tilt, her heartbeat rushing in her ears. "Are you kidding?" she breathed. The word sounded too small for the weight it carried.
No one answered.
Emma twisted her wedding ring, as if the motion might ground her. Sarah didn't move, didn't blink. Her stillness was power.
Finally, Emma whispered, "Ethan rejected it before. Will he agree now?"
Sarah's lips curved. "Leave Ethan to me."
The quiet that followed was thick enough to choke on. Then—Scarlett's voice, barely above a whisper. "If it's what it takes to save him," she said. "Save Dad... then fine."
She turned away before they could see her face, the sound of her heels cutting through the sterile air like punctuation marks on the end of something.
Scarlett stood motionless. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, but all she heard was her pulse.
Marry Ethan Blackwood.
The name rolled through her mind like a threat wrapped in silk. She could see his face from the news—cold eyes, a jaw set in marble. The Iceman Cometh. The Billion-Dollar Bastard.
And now, somehow, her future husband.
No one had asked her. No one ever asked.
Emma sat nearby, her hands clasped, staring at the floor. Her face looked older, carved with helplessness. She had traded her daughter's future for her husband's chance to keep breathing.
Scarlett wanted to scream. Instead, she looked at her little brother. His hand found hers, small and warm, his thumb brushing her knuckles in innocent comfort. He didn't know what had just happened. He didn't need to—not yet.
Outside, rain began to fall—slow at first, then harder, drumming against the windows in a rhythm that sounded like time running out.
Somewhere beyond those walls, machines kept a man alive.
Inside them, a deal had already rewritten their lives.
Scarlett Landon—daughter, sister, heir—
had just become a bargaining chip in a war she didn't start.
And in the shadows of that quiet, sterile room, Sarah Blackwood's plan began to breathe.