Chapter 1 1

The rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Upper East Side penthouse, a violent, rhythmic drumming that matched the frantic pounding of Emelie's heart.

Inside the nursery, the air was thick with the scent of lavender and sickness.

Emelie stared at the digital thermometer in her hand. The backlight glowed an angry red.

104F.

"Mommy..." Lily whimpered. The sound was small, wet, and terrified.

Emelie dropped the thermometer on the nightstand and scooped her five-year-old daughter into her arms. Lily's skin was burning, radiating a heat that felt unnatural, dangerous.

"I've got you, baby. I've got you," Emelie whispered, her voice trembling.

She fumbled for her phone with her free hand. She dialed Clifton.

One ring. Two rings. Three.

Click.

"You have reached the voicemail of Clifton Wilder. Please leave a-"

Emelie ended the call and dialed again.

She needed him. She needed the car. She needed to not be alone in this cavernous, empty house while her daughter burned up in her arms.

The call went straight to voicemail this time. He had declined it.

Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in her chest. She opened her text messages and typed rapidly to Gavin, Clifton's executive assistant.

Lily is sick. Fever 104. Going to NY-Presbyterian. Tell Clifton. NOW.

The status changed to Read instantly. No reply.

Suddenly, Lily's body went rigid in Emelie's arms. Her eyes rolled back, showing only the whites, and her small limbs began to jerk rhythmically.

A febrile seizure.

"No, no, no! Lily!" Emelie screamed.

She didn't wait for the nanny. She didn't wait for the driver.

Adrenaline flooded her system, sharpening her vision. She hoisted Lily onto her hip, grabbed her purse, and ran.

Down the marble staircase. Through the grand foyer.

Mrs. Higgins, the housekeeper, was moving at a glacial pace near the coat closet. "Madam, it is pouring outside. Shall I locate an umbrella?"

"Open the damn door!" Emelie roared, her voice unrecognizable to her own ears.

Mrs. Higgins flinched, her eyes widening, but she pulled the heavy double doors open.

The wind hit Emelie like a physical blow. The rain soaked her silk blouse in seconds, plastering it to her skin. She didn't feel the cold. She felt only the terrifying heat of her daughter's convulsing body.

She fumbled with the keys to the SUV, her fingers slick with rain. She threw Lily into the car seat, buckling only the chest clip, and jumped into the driver's seat.

The engine roared to life. Emelie peeled out of the driveway, the tires screeching against the wet asphalt.

The wipers slashed back and forth, fighting a losing battle against the deluge. The city lights blurred into streaks of neon and gray.

Emelie hit the speed dial on the dashboard screen. Clifton.

"The subscriber you are dialing is currently busy."

"Busy," Emelie spat the word out, hitting the steering wheel. "Busy."

She swerved around a taxi, running a red light at Park Avenue.

Ten minutes later, the bright red "EMERGENCY" sign of New York-Presbyterian Hospital loomed ahead.

Emelie abandoned the car at the entrance, tossing the keys toward a startled security guard. "Park it!"

She sprinted through the sliding glass doors, Lily limp and heavy in her arms.

The triage area was chaos. Coughing, crying, the beep of monitors.

Emelie rushed to the desk. "My daughter. High fever. Seizure. She's having trouble breathing."

The nurse behind the glass didn't look up. She slid a clipboard across the counter. "Fill this out. ID and insurance card."

"Did you hear me?" Emelie slammed her hand on the counter. "She's turning blue!"

The nurse looked up, her expression bored. She took in Emelie's soaked blouse, the messy hair, the wild eyes. She saw another hysterical Upper East Side mother.

"Ma'am, everyone here is sick. Take a seat and fill out the forms."

Lily let out a wheezing gasp. Her lips were taking on a terrifying violet hue.

Emelie looked at Lily's fingers. The nail beds were swollen. Clubbing. This wasn't just a flu. This was hypoxia. Long-term, or acute and severe.

"She is hypoxic," Emelie said, her voice dropping an octave, turning ice cold. "Get a pulse ox on her. Now."

A young resident, tag reading Dr. Aris, walked by, holding a chart. He stopped, looking at Emelie with mild amusement.

"It's likely just a viral spike, Mrs...?"

"Wilder. Emelie Wilder."

"Mrs. Wilder. We need to lower the temp first. Tylenol and cool compresses."

"Look at her nails!" Emelie shouted, thrusting Lily's hand toward him. "Check the capillary refill! Look at the cyanosis! This is systemic!"

Dr. Aris sighed, clearly annoyed by the backseat driving. "We'll get to her, ma'am. Please calm down."

Suddenly, Lily lurched forward and vomited clear fluid. Her head lolled back.

The triage monitor she was near began to scream.

SpO2: 84%... 80%... 78%.

Panic erupted.

"Get a gurney!" Dr. Aris yelled, his demeanor changing instantly.

They rushed Lily back. Emelie ran alongside the gurney, gripping the metal rail so hard her knuckles turned white.

In the hallway, her phone vibrated violently in her pocket.

Emelie pulled it out, thinking it was Clifton.

It was a news notification from Page Six.

BREAKING: Clifton Wilder and Muse Eleanora Hardy Dazzle at the Met Gala.

Emelie's thumb froze over the screen.

There was a photo. High resolution.

Clifton, in a tuxedo, looking devastatingly handsome. He was draping his suit jacket over Eleanora's shoulders. He was looking at her with a practiced, cinematic tenderness-a gaze so perfectly constructed for the cameras that it almost looked real.

Eleanora was laughing, her hand resting intimately on his chest.

The timestamp was ten minutes ago.

While Lily was seizing. While Emelie was screaming at a nurse. While she was driving through a monsoon.

Clifton was keeping his mistress warm.

Something inside Emelie shattered. It wasn't a loud break. It was a quiet, structural failure of her heart.

But as the grief hit, something else rose up to meet it. A cold, hard clarity.

Dr. Garvin Glover's daughter woke up.

They wheeled Lily into a trauma bay. A portable CT machine was already there for another patient.

"We need to clear the airway!" Dr. Aris was shouting orders.

Emelie shoved her phone into her pocket. She stepped up to the monitor where the CT images were loading.

"Ma'am, you need to step back!" a nurse barked.

Emelie ignored her. She stared at the grayscale images of her daughter's lungs.

White patches. Everywhere. Like shattered glass scattered through the dark tissue.

Dr. Aris was looking at the manual, hesitating. "Is that... pneumonia? Or atelectasis?"

"It's neither," Emelie said. Her voice was steady, devoid of the hysteria from moments ago.

She stepped past the yellow line, pointing a trembling finger at the screen.

"Bilateral Diffuse Alveolar Hemorrhage. Look at the ground-glass opacities in the lower lobes. This is DAH triggered by rapid-onset vasculitis."

Dr. Aris froze. He looked at Emelie, really looked at her, for the first time. "How do you..."

"She needs a bronchoalveolar lavage immediately," Emelie commanded, the words flying out of her mouth with the precision of a machine gun. "And start her on Methylprednisolone. Two grams. IV push. Now."

"We can't just administer high-dose steroids without a confirmed diagnosis," Dr. Aris stammered. "It could be bacterial. Steroids would kill her."

"If you wait for a culture, she suffocates in ten minutes," Emelie hissed. She grabbed the consent form from the counter, snatched a pen, and signed it so hard the tip tore through the paper.

"I am citing the Glover Protocol for pediatric DAH. If you ignore a presenting Diffuse Alveolar Hemorrhage and she codes, the autopsy will confirm I was right, and the malpractice suit will end your career before it starts. Do it!"

Her eyes were dark voids of authority. It was the gaze of a Chief of Surgery, not a housewife. She held up her phone, displaying a graph from a restricted medical database she shouldn't have had access to. "Look at the pattern. It's undeniable."

Dr. Aris swallowed hard. The sheer force of her will, backed by the specific data she flashed, crushed his hesitation.

"Get the steroids," he ordered the nurse. "Prep for BAL."

The team sprang into action.

Emelie backed away until her back hit the cold tiled wall. She watched them intubate her daughter. She watched the drugs flow into the IV.

Her knees gave way. She slid down the wall to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest.

Her hands were shaking uncontrollably now. Not from fear. But from the crash of adrenaline.

Her phone buzzed again.

She looked down.

Incoming Call: Clifton.