While My Husband Cheated I Married His Powerful Brother novel Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Chapter 14 Not a Heart Attack

The old woman’s lips were turning blue.

Veyra knelt beside her on the cold marble floor, her fingers pressed to the thin, fragile wrist, counting heartbeats that came too fast and too irregular. The grandmother’s chest barely moved. Each breath was a struggle, a small war between a body that wanted to quit and a spirit that refused to let it.

"Everyone back up," Veyra said again. "She needs air."

People shuffled backward. But they did not leave. They stood in a wide circle, watching, their expensive shoes planted on the expensive floor, their faces a mix of fear and something uglier. Curiosity. Like she was a spectacle.

Dorian returned. His hand was wrapped around a small brown bottle. Nitroglycerin. He pressed it into Veyra’s palm.

"Her usual medication," he said. His voice was tight. But she could hear the crack underneath.

Veyra looked at the bottle. Then she looked at the old woman’s face. The blue lips. The fluttering eyelids. The way her hands were curled into fists, fingers twitching.

Something was wrong.

She had seen a heart attack before. Her mother’s neighbor, Mr. Hendricks, had dropped dead of one when she was sixteen. Clutching his chest, sweating and complaining of pressure. The classic symptoms.

This was not that.

The old woman’s heart was not slowing down. It was racing. The pulse under Veyra’s fingers was fast and chaotic, like a bird trapped in a cage. Her breathing was shallow but not labored in the way a heart attack would cause. And her hands—

Veyra looked at the old woman’s hands again. The twitching. The way her fingers curled and uncurled like they had a mind of their own.

Torsades de pointes.

The words came to her from somewhere deep. A medical textbook she had read three years ago, in the middle of the night, while Caspian slept beside her. A rare arrhythmia. Often misdiagnosed as a heart attack. Fatal within minutes if not treated correctly.

Nitroglycerin would not help. Nitroglycerin might actually make it worse.

"Move."

Celeste’s voice cut through Veyra’s thoughts. Dorian’s stepmother stood over her, her white dress pristine, her frozen face arranged into an expression of outrage.

"You did this," Celeste said. "You stressed her out. You and your—your presence. She was fine before you walked into this house."

Veyra ignored her. She was trying to remember the treatment protocol. Magnesium sulfate. Intravenous. Fast. Before the arrhythmia degenerated into ventricular fibrillation.

"Are you listening to me?" Celeste’s voice rose. "I said move. You’re not touching her. You’re not a doctor. You’re not even—"

"Magnesium sulfate," Veyra said. She looked up at Dorian. "She needs magnesium sulfate. Now. Do you have any in the house?"

Dorian’s gray eyes locked onto hers. "You’re sure?"

"I’m sure."

Celeste laughed. It was a sharp, brittle sound. "Magnesium sulfate? She’s having a heart attack. Everyone can see she’s having a heart attack. What do you know about medicine? You dropped out of high school."

Veyra stood up. Her ankle screamed. She ignored it.

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