A Woman Worth Billions Dated the Wrong Brother novel Chapter 428

Overwhelmed

Jason POV

Emory found me sitting beside Amber with my head resting against the back of the chair and my hand wrapped around hers.

I wasn’t asleep. I didn’t think I remembered how to sleep anymore.

Every time I closed my eyes, something else happened. Someone disappeared. Another piece of my childhood turned out to be a lie. Another person who was supposed to be family became connected to something monstrous. Amber’s heart did something it wasn’t supposed to do, one of the children needed me, or a phone rang with another piece of information that somehow made everything worse.

So when Emory walked into the room and stood beside the monitors without immediately speaking, I prepared myself for another disaster.

“What?”

He looked at me.

“Good morning to you too.”

“Emory.”

“Amber is improving.”

For a moment, the words didn’t register.

I stared at him.

“What?”

“She’s improving.”

I looked immediately at Amber as though I expected her to open her eyes because he’d said it.

She didn’t.

The ventilator continued its steady rhythm. Her face remained still against the pillow, her hand limp inside mine.

“What does improving mean?”

Emory pulled a chair closer instead of giving me one of the short answers I’d grown to hate.

“It means the cardiovascular instability we’ve been worried about is settling. We’ve been following the recommendations from toxicology, cardiology and the specialist we consulted. Her blood pressure has been more consistent, and we’re seeing fewer concerning rhythm abnormalities.”

“The aconite?”

“That’s what we’re hoping. The most dangerous cardiovascular effects appear to be moving in the right direction.”

I stared at the monitor.

I’d spent so many hours watching those numbers that I had started seeing them even when I closed my eyes.

“Is she stable?”

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+15 Banus

“More stable than she was.”

hat’s not the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.”

At least he didn’t lie to me.

Emory leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees.

“The important thing is that we’re seeing improvement instead of continued deterioration. Her circulation is responding. We haven’t seen the kind of persistent malignant arrhythmias we were afraid of, and her blood pressure isn’t requiring the same degree of intervention.”

“And the botulism?”

His expression became more cautious.

“That’s going to take longer.”

I already knew that, but hearing it still hurt.

“The antitoxin prevents circulating toxin from causing additional nerve injury,” he continued. “It doesn’t instantly repair the nerve endings that were already affected. Her neuromuscular weakness has to recover with time. That’s why we’re not rushing the ventilator.”

“So she’s still not breathing enough on her own.”

“Not enough for me to remove support safely.”

I looked down at her.

“But she’s getting better.”

“Yes.”

This time there was no qualification.

Something inside me cracked.

I lowered my head until my forehead touched Amber’s hand.

I didn’t cry.

At least, I told myself I wasn’t crying.

My eyes were burning because I hadn’t slept properly in days. My throat hurt because hospital air was terrible. The wetness against my cheek was probably a completely unrelated medical phenomenon that Emory could diagnose if he felt particularly brave.

He didn’t say anything.

That was probably why I didn’t throw him out.

“I’m tired,” I admitted eventually.

It was such a stupid sentence.

Of everything I could have said, that was what came out.

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Emory nodded. “I know.”

Wo. I’m…” I stopped because I didn’t even know how to explain it. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to deal with

first.”

Amber was unconscious.

Our sons had been born without her awake to meet them.

They still didn’t have names.

Mr. White was somewhere out there. 1

My entire childhood had been rearranged by documents written before I was old enough to understand what a family was.

Mr. Asher’s sister might have ordered Amber’s poisoning.

Adrian was missing.

Clara and her baby were hiding at the castle.

Jasmine had been shot and apparently decided recovery was optional.

There were more than two hundred bodies on an island that now belonged to my wife.

There were families still waiting to learn what had happened to children stolen decades ago.

And somewhere beneath all of that was the simple fact that I wanted my wife to wake up.

I wanted Amber to open her eyes, insult me, complain about the babies being nameless and tell everyone else to get out of her room because they were annoying her.

Instead, I sat there holding her hand while machines breathed for her.

“I’m overwhelmed,” I finally said.

Emory was quiet for a moment.

“That would be the normal response.”

I looked at him.

“Don’t diagnose me.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You sounded like you were.”

“Fine. You’re completely well-adjusted.”

“Better.”

He almost smiled.

My phone vibrated before either of us could say anything else.

Mr. Stait.

The message was short.

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Mr. Asher is moving.

new exactly what that meant.

Mr. Asher had apparently decided grief was something he could deal with later.

With support from the River City military, he had begun tearing through his sister’s life.

Not literally, although I wasn’t convinced that option had been completely dismissed.

Her properties were being checked. Old financial records were being compared against information recovered from the Vincent network. Security footage, vehicle movements, family accounts, company registrations and communications were being examined. The military wasn’t treating Mr. Stait’s theory about Mr/White’s possible parentage as proven, but it was enough to justify looking again at records that had previously seemed unrelated

Mr. Asher was cooperating with all of it.

Every account.

Every property.