A pacemaker. Sothat’swhat the senator meant when she said she was the one with the bad heart.
“Clear!” cried Nurse Ponytail and Julia watched as the two medical professionals pulled away from the senator.
The defibrillator delivered its jolt of lifesaving electricity. But the movies got it all wrong. The device didn’t make a loudkathunk. Nor did Senator Chastain’s back arch off the floor. Instead, there was an eerie silence as the senator simply…stiffened.
Julia’s own heart thundered in her chest as she watched Nurse Curly Hair go back to pumping oxygen into the senator’s lungs. At the same time, Nurse Ponytail checked the senator’s pulse.
“Still in V-fib. I’m increasing the joules,” Ponytail declared.
A doctor—or, at least, Juliaassumedthe woman with the cropped brown hair and lab coat was a doctor—hurried into the room and dropped to her knees.
“What have we got?” she asked, her tone calm and efficient.
Nurse Curly Hair gave her the scoop using medical terms Julia had only heard onGrey’s Anatomy. The doctor nodded and pulled out a tray from the crash cart.
“Administering epi,” she declared with a clenched jaw as she shoved a needle into the senator’s arm.
Whatever the syringe carried didn’t work. Because the senator was shocked twice more.
“Damnit!” Ponytail snarled after the final try. “We’ve lost her. Starting chest compressions.”
Julia sat helplessly. All she could do was numbly watch as the hospital staff valiantly attempted to save the senator’s life. And after what felt like an eternity, but could only have been a handful of minutes, the doctor sat back on her heels and blew out a shaky breath.
“Stop.” She placed a hand on Ponytail’s shoulder. “She’s gone.” Glancing at the large analogue clock that hung on the wall above the doorway, she added, “Time of death 3:04 AM.”
“Like I said,” Dillan murmured beside Julia.
She shot him a censorious look.
“What?” He lifted a hand. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
15
Black Knights Inc.
Britt Rollins quietly slipped out the front door of the old menthol cigarette factory. When he turned to shut it behind him, he had to awkwardly balance the two mugs of hot chocolate he carried.
He couldn’t sleep. Which was usually the case when he got a middle-of-the-night call from his older brother.
Knox had been on the outside for little more than two weeks following his second stint in the big house. And even though Knox had promised Britt he was keeping his nose clean, Britt had recognized the fast, excited way his brother was talking.
Knox was on the trail of a new con. Britt was sure of it. And like an addict who’d just taken a hit, Knox was high on the excitement.
In a way, Knoxwasan addict, Britt supposed. His big brother didn’t crave the oblivion of booze or the zest of cocaine, but he lived for the euphoria of the next big score. And the quest for easy money meant Knox had spent the majority of his adult life behind bars.
If Knox got caught this time, he’d spend therestof his adult life there. There’d be no more five-year stints. The long arm of the law believed in second chances. But it didn’t believe in third ones.
Britt couldn’t help but feel responsible.
Not in anydirectway. He wasn’t pushing his brother toward illegal activity. Quite the opposite. He did his best to encourage Knox to steer clear of such nonsense and make a life for himself he could be proud of.
But Britt was responsible in anindirectway. Because Knox Rollins’s life had taken a sharp turn onto its current twisted and illicit road when their father died, and Britt had become Knox’s responsibility.
Had nineteen-year-old Knox not taken on the burden of raising thirteen-year-old Britt, had he not been forced into some less-than-legal dealings to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates, had he been allowed to stay in college and finish his degree, things might have been different.
Knoxmight have been different.
Or maybe not…
