Chapter 4 - The Golden Minutes
The words hit the balcony like a physical blow.
Cardiac arrest.
The murmurs from the surrounding crowd turned into outright gasps. Several investors staggered backward, shielding their eyes. Vivian froze, her face turning the color of ash.
“No,” Vivian whispered, shaking her head violently. “No, she’s sixteen. She’s healthy. She went to her routine physical last month. You’re... you’re just a nurse. Get away from her!”
Evan didn't argue. He didn't have the luxury of soothing a terrified mother's ego. Seconds meant brain cells dying.
“Her heart just stopped, Ms. Mercer,” Evan said calmly, his hands already positioned over Chloe’s sternum. “I need you to listen to me right now. Either you help me save your daughter’s life, or you sit back and scream while she dies on this marble floor. Choose.”
The raw brutality of his words shocked Vivian into momentary silence. She stared at him, the arrogant CEO completely dismantled by maternal agony.
“What... what do you need?” she choked out, tears streaming down her face.
“Call 911 on speaker phone right now. Tell them cardiac arrest at Crestline headquarters, second-floor balcony,” Evan instructed rapidly, already beginning chest compressions.
One, two, three, four...
His body weight pressed down rhythmically, efficiently, perfectly paced. Every compression was deep, calculated to circulate what little oxygen remained in her blood.
Brooke Delaney, trembling from head to toe, rushed forward with her phone already dialing. “I have dispatch! I have them on speaker!”
“Put it on the floor beside us,” Evan ordered without looking up. “Chloe, can you hear me? Chloe!”
No response. Her lips were turning a frightening, dusky blue.
“Where is the AED?” Evan shouted over his shoulder, his hands never stopping their relentless rhythm. “The emergency station downstairs! Someone run!”
“I’ll go!” shouted a junior marketing director, turning and sprinting toward the stairs.
Evan tilted Chloe’s chin back, checking her airway to ensure her tongue wasn't blocking the trachea. He prepared to deliver rescue breaths. In his head, the familiar, metronomic count of a code blue echoed clearly. He had run hundreds of these in the trauma bay, but doing it on the cold marble floor of an corporate showcase with the CEO screaming overhead was a different kind of hell.
“Come on, kid,” Evan muttered under his breath, his brow slicked with sweat. “Breathe.”
Vivian knelt beside him, her hands hovering helplessly. She reached out and touched her daughter’s cold, limp hand. The woman who commanded billions of dollars, who made hospital presidents tremble, was utterly powerless.
“Please,” Vivian wept, her voice breaking into a ragged sob. “Please don't let her die. Take everything I have. Take the company. Just save her.”
“Save your tears, Ms. Mercer, I need your focus,” Evan said sharply, pressing down again. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...
“Mr. Carter!” a voice shouted from the stairs.
It was the marketing director, sprinting back up the steps like an Olympic athlete, clutching the bright yellow case of the automated external defibrillator against his chest.
“Throw it!” Evan yelled.
The man hurled the AED case across the marble floor. Evan caught it cleanly on one knee, popped the latches with one swift motion, and tore open the foil packet containing the adhesive electrode pads.
“Clear!” Evan shouted, gesturing for Vivian and the onlookers to pull back.
He slapped the first pad onto Chloe’s upper right chest, and the second onto her lower left ribcage, plugging the connector into the machine.
The AED immediately whirred to life, its automated diagnostic voice cutting through the silent tension of the balcony.
ANALYZING HEART RHYTHM. DO NOT TOUCH THE PATIENT.
Evan held his hands up, his eyes fixed on the device's flashing screen.
SHOCK ADVISED. CHARGING.
The high-pitched whine of the capacitor building voltage filled the air.
STAND CLEAR OF PATIENT. PRESS FLASHING BUTTON.
Evan locked eyes with Vivian for a fraction of a second.
May you like
“Pray,” he said softly.
Then he pressed the shock button.
