Chapter 156

The St. Jude Hospital at noon was bustling, but the tension in the air was impossible to ignore. After a private jet flight through the night, we were all gathered in the VIP waiting room of the cardiac surgery wing—Gideon, Dominic, Eleanor, Charles, and me. The room was small and private, yet it carried that same heavy, anxious energy every hospital seems to have.

The trip had been silent and ten