Page 22 of Sinful Deception

The paddles mean her heart has stopped… again. And when a doctor moves to the head of her bed with a steel tool and longtubing, it doesn’t take a genius to know they’re gonna try to breathe for her.

“Clear!”

More doctors rush in. Too many bodies in too small a space, so Tim snags Aubree’s hand, who grabs Minka’s, and drags them both through the packed room and into the hall. They file out, one by one, and though Aubree is with Tim, the fucking mafia heir, she squeezes between me and Archer and wraps me in a hug that could almost heal.

Any other time. Any other place.

The doctor presses the paddles to Jada’s chest and zaps her, popping the too-thin woman what seems like a foot off the bed. But that’s probably just my imagination. “Turn it up,” he shouts, prompting a nurse who turns to the machine.

“And clear!”

“We need to move,” Aubree coaches, putting her weight against my chest and pushing. Though I don’t move. “Fletch!” She looks up into my eyes. “We have to move. If they need to rush her out of there, they need the hall clear for her bed.”

“Shit!” Minka spins on her heels. “Fifi’s still in there.”

“Sera?” Tears burn my eyes, and my throat closes up, threatening to choke me to death and end this whole fucking day. This whole nightmare. “Sera needs to?—”

“She needs to go with Minka.” Aubree pushes harder, exhaling when I allow a step back. Then another. “She’ll be fine, and Jada is getting the help she needs.”

“Turn it up!” the doctor shouts again. More power. More pain. A dead fucking heart too sickly to last, and a body too broken to qualify for a new organ. Because the girl who was a prima ballerina made poor choices directly following my request for a divorce.

Me. This all ties back to me.

“Fletch…”

“I shouldn’t have jumped straight to divorce after I caught her out with Fox.” Desperately, I search for Archer. “I could have saved her before she needed saving.”

“No.” Helping Aubree, he fists my shirt and walks, so I have no choice but to go with him… or fight. And I have nothing left for the latter. “There’s no going back.” He shoves me to the wall on the opposite side of the hall and scoots Aubree out of the way, so it’s just him and me. Eye to eye. Nose to nose, almost. “We’ve worked through this, Fletch, and you’re not at fault for the choices she made.”

“We always knew she was the type to look for an easy path.” I reach up with a jerky hand and swipe my cheek. I could swear it tickles. “We knew who she was, Arch. As if me walking away was gonna end well. Like she’d sit back and think, ‘Well shit, he’s right. I should be a better person.’”

“You didn’t make her cheat,” he snarls. “And you sure as fuck didn’t hand her that first taste of whatever drug she started with. She knew how to do things properly, and she knew what would happen if she chose wrong. We’ve seen it,” he shoves me back again when I try to move off the wall. When all I hear is a solid fuckingbeeeeeeeeeeeeep. “She knew what happens to people who choose drugs over hard work. She went in with full knowledge of how it would go.”

“So she deserves to die for it?”

“No. But you don’t deserve to take the blame for it, either. This was her path, and these were her choices.”

“Here.” Minka emerges from the room and tosses Sera our way, so Tim sweeps her up and grabs her wrist before she turns and runs. Because she looks like she might, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

I have nothing left for her. I have nothing left for me.

“I don’t…” I heave for air and scan every face that stares back at me. I look at the hospital staff who sprint the halls andthe machines wheeled around. It’s like the world is set to fast-forward, and here we are, standing on the outside and watching it happen. “I don’t know what…”

“I should go.” Sera attempts to wriggle free of Tim’s grasp. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Stay,” Aubree argues. But at least she takes her hand from Tim and walks with her back toward the elevators. “You’ll stay with me for a little while.”

“Sera…”

“She’s gonna be okay.” Archer grabs my jaw and drags me back to look into his eyes. “She’s going to be fine. But you need to take a fucking breath.”

My head swims, as the longer Jada’s solidbeeeeeeeepgoes for, the longer my lungs seize and refuse to work. Stars float in my eyes, and my heart just… well, I don’t fucking know. It hammers, and yet, feels like it’s not anything at all. “Arch…”

“Down.” He claps his hands on my shoulders until my legs give out. Then my ass hits the floor, and my forehead slams against my knees. An explosion bursts in the back of my mind, but it’s the stretch I feel in my neck as Archer shoves my head between my legs that I notice most of all. “Breathe through it, Charlie. Everything’s gonna be fine if you just fucking breathe.”

“I can’t intubate!” A nurse—or a doctor maybe, I don’t know—shouts from Jada’s room. “I can’t get it in. Give me a smaller tube.”

“They said her heart isn’t strong enough.” I swallow the ball of dread building in the base of my throat. Sticky, slimy, and so fucking large, I can’t drag air past it. “They said they wouldn’t fix it because she’s an addict.”

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