Chapter 4 - The Race Against Time"Vivien!"
Ethan lunged forward, catching her before her head struck the concrete edge of the planting bed. He pulled her into his arms, his heart threatening to tear through his ribs. Her body felt impossibly light, cold, and frail against his chest.
"Vivien, open your eyes. Look at me!" he ordered, his voice cracking with sheer terror as he pressed two fingers against her wrist. Her pulse was erratic—fast, weak, and dangerously fluttery.
He didn't hesitate. He scooped her up into his arms, kicked open the greenhouse door, and sprinted out into the blinding rain toward the main estate house.
"Salvatore!" Ethan roared into his lapel radio as he ran, his boots splashing through the mud. "Bring the SUV around to the east entrance right now! Call Dr. Vance! Tell him to meet us at the private wing with emergency cardiac equipment!"
“Boss, what happened—?”
"Just do it!" Ethan screamed, a sound of unadulterated panic that made the security veteran scramble without another question.
By the time Ethan reached the east entrance, Salvatore had the black SUV idling at the steps with the doors flung wide open. Ethan gently laid Vivien across the back seat, sliding in beside her and pulling her head onto his lap.
"Drive," Ethan snarled, his hand clamped firmly over Vivien’s cold wrist, praying to gods he hadn't believed in since childhood that her heart wouldn't give out before they reached the private medical suite in Manhattan.
The SUV tore down the private drive, its tires screaming against the wet asphalt as they broke through the estate gates and headed toward the city at suicidal speeds.
In the backseat, the dim overhead light cast a harsh, unforgiving glow over Vivien’s pale, unconscious face. Ethan kept his hand pressed against her chest, feeling the terrifying, irregular stutter of her heartbeat.
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"Don't you dare," Ethan muttered fiercely, his thumb stroking her cold cheek. "Do you hear me, Vivien? You built this empire's foundation, and you don't get to walk away from it. You don't get to leave me in the dark."
He realized, with a sudden, crushing clarity, that his entire life—his wealth, his power, his syndicate, his mansion—was nothing more than an empty, rotting shell without her. For fourteen months, she had been the oxygen in a room he had poisoned with his own paranoia and control. And if he lost her tonight, he would spend the rest of his life paying the blood debt of his own unforgivable arrogance.
