A Woman Worth Billions Dated the Wrong Brother novel Chapter 420

Slipping through my fingers

Jason POV

Mr. Asher lasted less than five minutes after Mr. Stait finished speaking about Jasmine before deciding he was done waiting.

“If members of my family are involved, I want to know which ones.”

Mr. Stait looked up from his phone. “My people are already investigating.”

“And they’ll continue investigating,” Mr. Asher replied. “But they’re investigating a criminal conspiracy. I’m investigating my family.”

There was enough difference between those two things that Mr. Stait didn’t argue.

Mr. Asher stepped into the hallway with his phone already in his hand. I stayed beside Amber, listening to his voice through the partially open door as he started making calls. He didn’t begin with accusations. He asked questions about family gatherings, recent conversations, Adrian’s relatives and anyone who had suddenly changed plans after Amber was hospitalized.

It didn’t take long before the answers became strange.

Mr. Asher returned almost half an hour later, looking older than he had when he left.

“My sister has been contacting members of the family.”

I knew immediately who he meant. “Adrian’s grandmother?”

He nodded.

Mr. Stait straightened. “What did she tell them?”

“That her branch is leaving the Asher family.”

I frowned. “Leaving?”

“Her words, apparently. She told several relatives that she and her descendants no longer want to be considered part of the Asher family. She said they were cutting ties completely.”

The timing was impossible to ignore.

Amber had been poisoned. Someone was impersonating Mr. Asher at an Asher hotel. Adrian’s younger brother had been found drunk inside that suite, and now Adrian’s grandmother had apparently announced that her entire branch wanted nothing more to do with the family.

Mr. Asher looked furious, but beneath the anger there was something else.

Confusion.

“Did she say why?” I asked.

“No. That’s the problem. My sister and I have disagreed plenty of times, but you don’t erase generations of family through a few phone calls without an explanation.”

“Can you reach her?”

“She’s not answering me.”

1/6

Sipping through my fingers

ཀཊ༥།

+15 Bonus

Mr. Stait was already typing. “We’ll locate her.”

Asher nudded before looking down at his phone again. “There’s more.”

Of course there was.

“Adrian is missing.”

I stared at him.

“What do you mean, missing?”

“I mean nobody seems to know where he is.”

That was different.

Adrian wasn’t some distant cousin whose name I barely recognized. He was Amber’s vice president. He had remained involved in Rose’s life even after his father and grandmother refused responsibility for her. He worked with Amber constantly. If he disappeared while members of his family were discussing Amber’s poisoning, that mattered.

“When was anyone last in contact with him?” Mr. Stait asked.

“I’m still establishing that. His phone isn’t connecting. He hasn’t responded to company communications, and according to the people I’ve spoken to, no one in his immediate family will give me a straight answer.”

“Was he supposed to be working today?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Stait stood. “Then we treat his disappearance separately from the poisoning until evidence connects them. I want his last confirmed location, vehicle records, phone activity and security footage.”

Mr. Asher’s jaw tightened. “Find him.”

“We will.”

I looked at Amber.

Everything was branching again.

Every answer opened another door, and behind every door seemed to be another person missing, another lie, another family secret. I wanted to help. I wanted to take Noah’s information, Mr. Asher’s calls and Adrian’s disappearance and force them into a pattern that made sense.

Then Amber’s monitor alarmed.

Every thought vanished.

Emory turned before I did.

One second he had been standing near the end of Amber’s bed reading something on his tablet. The next, the tablet was abandoned on the counter and he was beside her.

“Jason, move back.”

“What happened?”

A nurse rushed into the room, followed almost immediately by another. Emory’s attention moved between

2/6

+15 Bonus

Amber, the ventilator and the monitors as the numbers changed too quickly for me to understand.

Her oxygenation is dropping.”

My hands tightened around the wheelchair.

“But she’s on the ventilator.”

“I know.”

That answer terrified me more than anything else could have.

Emory began issuing instructions, and the room filled with people. Respiratory therapy arrived. A critical-care physician followed. Someone adjusted the ventilator while another nurse drew blood. Emory was talking about airway pressures, oxygen levels and the possibility of worsening neuromuscular weakness, but I caught only pieces.

Amber’s numbers continued falling.

“Emory.”

He didn’t look at me.

“Emory!”

“I’m working, Jason.”

The sharpness in his voice stopped me.

Not because I was offended.

Because Emory was scared.

I had watched that man discuss poison, paralysis and emergency surgery without losing his composure. I’d seen him walk into situations that made everyone else panic and immediately start solving the problem.

Now his movements were still controlled, but his voice had changed.

Mr. Stait put a hand on the back of my wheelchair.

“We need to give them room.”

“No.”

“Jason.”

“I’m not leaving her.”

Emory finally looked at me. “Then stay against the wall and let us work.”

I pushed myself backward.

Mr. Asher moved beside me. Whatever he’d just learned about his sister and Adrian disappeared from his face as he watched his granddaughter surrounded by doctors.

The alarms kept sounding.

“Blood pressure is falling,” someone said.

3/6

۷۸

sanning through my fagers

My stomach dropped.

+15 Bonus

Emory moved closer to the head of the bed. “Increase support. I want repeat gases now. Check the tube position again. Get toxicology back on the line and notify ICU attending that she’s deteriorating.”

A nurse rushed out.

I stared at Amber’s face.

She looked exactly the same.

That was the worst part.

Her eyes remained closed. Her hand lay motionless against the sheet. There was no visible sign that anything had changed, yet the machines around her were suddenly telling us that her body was losing ground.

I wanted her awake.

I wanted her angry.

I wanted her complaining that everyone was being dramatic while trying to get out of bed against medical advice.

Instead, the ventilator pushed another breath into her lungs.

Emory and the hospital team worked around her with frightening speed. Medication entered her IV. The ventilator settings changed again. More blood was drawn. A portable imaging machine was brought into the room while the critical-care physician and Emory argued through possibilities faster than I could follow them.

Then Emory said the word I had been trying not to think.

“Critical.”

I looked at him.

“You said she was stable.”

“She was.”

“Then fix it.”

The words came out harsher than I intended, but Emory didn’t react.

“We’re trying.”

“No. You told me she could recover. You told me she could wake up.”

“And she still can.” He stepped toward me just long enough to force me to look at him. “But right now her condition has changed, and I need you to understand what that means. Amber is critically ill. The toxin affected the nerves controlling her breathing, she’s recovering from major surgery, and her body has been through an enormous physiological stress. We’re supporting every system that needs support while we determine exactly why she’s deteriorating.”