Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 689

Chapter 689: Lila Flatlines

"Yes," Rojas confirmed. "Surgical ICU. Continuous ICP monitoring if we bolt her. Neuro checks every hour. Labs every two."

They moved around the bed in practiced choreography—adjusting drips, recalibrating monitors, speaking in clipped shorthand I understood perfectly: GCS 8, possible evolving DIC, high ARDS risk.

Glasgow Coma Scale of eight—deep coma. Disseminated intravascular coagulation—her blood could start clotting inside vessels and bleeding everywhere else. Acute respiratory distress—lungs filling with fluid, drowning her from the inside.

I knew every grim statistic. Every mortality curve.

And it was all useless.

Rojas peeled off her gloves with a sharp snap, stepping back to survey the quiet battlefield. "We’ve done everything we can right now. We stabilize. We watch. We intervene the second anything shifts." Her dark eyes found mine, steady and unflinching. "The rest is up to her. Her body has to choose whether it still wants to fight."

I nodded, throat too tight for words, and pulled the chair closer to the bed. I took Lila’s cold hand in mine—careful of the IV—and settled in to wait.

The monitors kept their slow, stubborn rhythm.

Beep... beep... beep...

As if, somewhere beneath the swelling and the bruises, she was already deciding.

The monitor beeped.

Beep... beep... beep...

Steady. Weak. But there.

Then it changed.

Beep... beep... beep-beep...

Santiago frowned. "Arrhythmia."

Beep-beep... beep... beep-beep-beep...

"Heart rate climbing," Elena called out. "Seventy. Eighty. Ninety."

Rojas moved fast. "What’s her pressure?"

"Dropping. Seventy over forty."

My stomach dropped with it.

"She’s crashing," Santiago said, voice sharp. "Epi, point-five milligrams."

A nurse grabbed a syringe, injected clear liquid into the IV port.

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—

"Heart rate one-forty. Pressure sixty over thirty."

"Not responding," Santiago said. "V-tach onset. Get the crash cart!"

Ventricular tachycardia, my brain supplied uselessly. Lethal arrhythmia. Heart beating so fast it can’t pump blood. Cardiac arrest imminent.

Knowing didn’t stop it.

The monitor screamed.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP—

"V-fib!" Santiago shouted. "Full arrest! Charge paddles, two hundred!"

The defibrillator came out. Paddles in hand, machine whining as it charged.

"Everyone clear!"

Hands lifted. Paddles pressed to Lila’s chest.

"CLEAR!"

THUNK.

Her body arced off the bed, arms flopping, back rigid. The smell of ozone.

The monitor stuttered.

Beep—

Then flatlined.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

That sound. That endless, soul-destroying tone. The green line went flat.

Nothing.

"Asystole!" I yelled. "Start compressions!"

Morgan climbed onto the bed without asking anything, hands locking over Lila’s sternum. He pumped. Hard. Fast.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

"Epi, one milligram!"

Elena injected.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

The monitor stayed flat.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

"Out," Rojas said, looking at me. "You need to leave. Now." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"No—"

"Sir." Her voice was steel. "Let us work."

A nurse took my arm. Gentle but firm. Ava’s hand on my shoulder.

"Eros," she said quietly. "Come on."

They pushed us out. The door closed.

Through the small rectangular window, I watched.

Morgan pumping. "CLEAR!"

THUNK.

Lila’s body jerked.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

Nothing.

"Again!"

My hands pressed flat against the door. Breath fogging glass. Heart hammering so hard it hurt.

Twenty compressions. Thirty. Forty.

THUNK.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

But I wasn’t. I was shattering. Watching the woman who’d whispered Eros as she fell, who’d trusted me to save her—

Fifty compressions. Sixty.

THUNK.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

Three-sixty joules, my brain supplied. If this doesn’t work—

THUNK.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

—beep.

beep.

beep... beep... beep...

Beep... beep... beep...

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