Chapter 7 - The Lake Forest Incident
Adeline lay awake on the massive bed, watching the shadows of the pine trees dance across the ceiling as the wind blew outside.
Her mind was pulled backward, six weeks into the past, to the night her life had intersected with Cassian Raldi’s for the very first time.
It had been a rainy Thursday night at St. Brendan’s Hospital. The medical center was hosting its annual fundraising gala on the main floor—a glittering affair with champagne, tuxedos, and wealthy donors. Adeline had opted out of the party, volunteering to work a double shift in the ER upstairs.
At 2:15 AM, the heavy glass doors of the ground-floor lobby were shattered as three men pushed through, carrying a tall, heavily built man who was completely unconscious.
Adeline had been coming down the stairs with a fresh tray of sterile dressings when she saw the commotion.
"Clear the floor!" one of the men had shouted, drawing a heavy black pistol from beneath his coat and pointing it directly at the triage nurse. "Get a doctor out here now!"
The emergency room erupted into chaos. Patients screamed, nurses ducked behind desks, and the single security guard on duty backed away with his hands raised.
Adeline didn't run. She set her tray down on a chair and walked straight toward the men, her medical bag gripped tightly in her right hand.
"Put the gun away," she said, her voice dropping into the authoritative, calm tone she used with violent psychiatric patients. "You're in an emergency room. If you want him to live, let me see him."
The man with the gun looked at her, his eyes wild with adrenaline. "He's not breathing right! Do something!"
Adeline dropped to her knees beside the man on the floor.
He was large, broad-shouldered, and soaked through with rain. His face was gray, his lips blue, and his pulse was a thin, erratic thread that fluttered against her fingers before vanishing entirely.
"He's in cardiogenic shock," Adeline said sharply, checking his pupils. "We need to get him to Trauma Bay 1 right now! Call the cardiac team!"
"No trauma bays!" the second man snapped, grabbing Adeline by her upper arm with a grip like iron. "No records. No hospital files. You're coming with us."
Before she could scream, something hard, cold, and indisputably metal was pressed firmly against the small of her back through her scrub top.
"Move," the man whispered in her ear. "Or three people in this lobby die before the police arrive."
They shoved her into the back of a black SUV with tinted windows. The unconscious man was hauled in beside her, his heavy head resting against her lap.
For forty-five minutes, the vehicle sped through the dark, winding roads outside the city, eventually turning down a hidden gravel driveway surrounded by thick, black woods in Lake Forest.
They dragged the man inside a sprawling, dark mansion and laid him across a massive mahogany dining table beneath a bright chandelier.
"Fix him," the leader ordered, standing by the door with his gun drawn.
Adeline didn't waste time arguing. She stripped off her coat, dumped her medical bag onto the table, and went to work with the cold, methodical efficiency of a woman who lived in the space between life and death.
There were no heart monitors. No oxygen tanks. No defibrillators.
She had only her stethoscope, two bags of saline she found in her kit, and her own two hands.
For three hours, she fought for the man's life under the harsh light of the dining room chandelier.
She started two large-bore IV lines in his arms. She cleared his airway with a pocket tube. She monitored his blood pressure using a manual cuff, recording his vitals every ten minutes on the back of a printed real-estate brochure she found on the table.
03:12 AM — BP 80/50, HR 110, irregular. 03:25 AM — BP 70/40, pupils sluggish.
She drew three vials of blood using her spare tubes, labeling them meticulously with her ballpoint pen according to hospital protocol. If this man died and these thugs murdered her in the woods, she wanted there to be a physical paper trail left behind.
At 04:10 AM, his heart stopped.
Adeline didn't hesitate. She climbed onto a wooden dining chair, leaned over the massive table, and began manual chest compressions.
One, two, three, four, five...
She threw the entire 110 pounds of her weight into his sternum, her hands locked together, her breath coming in ragged gasps as sweat poured down her neck.
"Come on, you bastard," she grunted through clenched teeth. "Breathe!"
Ten, eleven, twelve...
For six terrifying minutes, she performed CPR alone while three armed mobsters watched in stunned silence as a tiny nurse in dirty scrubs fought to pull their boss back from the grave.
On the forty-second compression, the man gasped violently.
His chest heaved, his eyes flew open, and a ragged, wet cough echoed through the room as his pulse came roaring back to life.
Adeline collapsed backward onto the floor, her legs trembling so violently she couldn't stand. Her throat burned. Her arms felt like lead.
She reached up to the dining table, grabbed a glass pitcher of water, and drank directly from the spout, her hands shaking so hard water spilled down her neck.
May you like
Then, a strange, sweet smell filled her nostrils—a faint, floral perfume that had been sprayed on the glass.
The world tilted on its axis. The chandelier above her expanded into a blinding sun, and Adeline Whitmore blacked out on the cold hardwood floor.
