Everything shook.
Evan’s face.
His little, broken body beneath my hands.
That fucking flat line.
A scream. A plea. Hope on her knees. “I need you. I need you . . .”
I bit back the roar that threatened in my throat, a clod of fear and desperation that took up the entire cavity of my chest.
I pumped and pumped and pumped as people moved around the trauma room in a controlled chaos.
I tried to shrug off the hand that landed on my shoulder. “Dr. Bryant . . . you need to step down. We have him. We have him.”
“No!” I shouted, continuing to pump through the tears and the cries that raked from my soul.
No.
Evan.
Oh, God, no.
I wouldn’t let this happen again.
I couldn’t.
Another hand landed on my shoulder, and this time it was Dr. Krane’s face that cut into my vision. “Dr. Bryant, we need to move him, and we need to do it now. I will do everything in my power to save him. I promise.”
Grief tore through me as I looked down at Evan, to where I was still straddling him on the gurney, the precious little boy’s face covered by the mask where one of the nurses pumped the bag.
“We have to move him,” Dr. Krane said again in attempt to break through the mayhem that scattered my brain and scrambled my spirit.
No. Evan.
My favorite. My favorite.
Feeling a piece of me rip away, I let two male nurses haul me off the gurney. Knees weak and my arms screaming from the exertion, I slumped forward, sucking for the nonexistent air.
I tried. I tried. I tried.
I would have given anything.
I’d never be enough.
Grief ricocheted from the walls as the trauma room door slid open, and they quickly wheeled out his tiny, broken body and moved him toward the elevators that would lift him to the surgical floor.
Open-heart surgery.
His only chance.
His last chance.
They’d already gotten Hope’s consent. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right then. The devastation she had to be dealing with.
Fuck. I wanted to take it from her. Shoulder it all.
I staggered out five feet behind them. Hopelessness swooped down, winding around me.
Destroying.
Dizzying.
Overpowering.
I tried.
I tried.
They stopped to wait for the elevator, and my attention was captured by the two big wooden doors that led out to the front entrance as it buzzed and swung open.
That awareness was back. Coasting across my skin like an omen.
A chill.
That sixth fucking sense that knotted my stomach and curled my fists.
Dane Gentry strode through, still wearing the suit he’d been wearing back at Hope’s place an hour before, though, his crisp white shirt was smattered with blood and his fucking pretentious face, which he’d tried to wipe clean, was mottled with rising bruises and gaping cuts.
And I wished . . . I wished with all of me I hadn’t stopped when I did.
That I’d ended the piece of shit the way he’d deserved to be.
Because there was no missing what was written all over Hope who was right behind him. She was screeching and clawing and trying to jump on his back to keep him away from her son.
The one she’d been living for because she’d always been living for the right things.
The best things.
Dane’s voice boomed, a vile echo across the linoleum floors. “Stop what you’re doing. That child has a DNR.”
Hope screamed. A scream made up of fury and protection. A mother’s fight. “He’s lying. I would never sign that. Never. Don’t listen to him.”
Caught off guard, Dr. Krane paused to twist at the waist to check out the commotion behind him. He frowned, confusion and disgust lining his brow. “Excuse me, but I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”
When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, he turned back around and started to move forward, but Dane’s voice was bellowing again. “I’m Dane Gentry, Evan’s father.”
Dr. Krane shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea who Evan Gentry is. If you’ll excuse me, I have a patient to treat.”
A blast of hot fury blew through me. I was already moving toward Evan as Dane approached. I’d fight to the end for that little boy.
With everything.
It was all I had left.
What I had to give.
The dickbag had no clue I was there, his attention all wrapped up on one goal. His disgusting ambition that was slowly beginning to make sense.
Those disordered pieces and threads that’d been dangling around me for close to the last two weeks finally coming together.
Seeping into my consciousness.
Dane’s words hit Dr. Krane and his team from behind, “If you proceed, I will have your medical license. Your home. Your life. My attorney is on his way, so I suggest you stop whatever she has consented to. This woman’s name is Harley Gentry, and that boy’s name is Evan Gentry. She perjured his records.”
Hope’s sweet, sweet voice ripped through the air. Pain. Grief. She tried to scramble around him as she screamed, “No. Don’t listen to him. Please, save my son. Save him!”