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홈 / Romance / On My Deathbed, She Wants a Confession / Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

작가: Shadow Maze
The oxygen deprivation continued into the fourth day. During that stretch, only a regular nurse came by once a day to swap out my basic IV fluids.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Julian came to the ward alone. He pulled the blue curtain shut around my bed, blocking the view from everyone else, then walked to the head of the bed and switched off the small oxygen concentrator keeping me alive at the bare minimum.

The suffocating, drowning feeling closed in on me again almost instantly.

Julian pulled a tablet out of his bag and opened a video, then shoved the glowing screen right up against my sunken eyes. The moment the image came into focus, my breath caught in my throat.

On the screen was my sister, Amelia Bennett, the one person who'd always carried herself with pride and treated her dignity like her life. She was on her knees on the floor of Sutton Group's lobby.

"Please, Ms. Sutton, please let Miles go. He's really sick… He's dying."

She sobbed and pleaded, pressing herself to the floor again and again, her forehead striking the tile each time. The dull thud of it carried through the screen, hammering into my nerves one blow at a time.

A pair of familiar custom heels stepped into frame. It was Renee's.

"Throw this lying lunatic out. I don't want her filth in my building." Renee's voice was ice cold.

A group of burly security guards rushed forward and brought batons down on Amelia's back without mercy. She didn't fight back, only curled up tight on the floor, arms locked over her head, still begging through her tears.

"Please, please just go check on him at the hospital... Save him."

A sickening crack of bone rang out clearly through the video. Amelia coughed up a mouthful of blood that spread across the tile in front of her, and then she went still.

Julian hit pause, freezing the frame on her bloodied, battered face. "Your sister's got three broken ribs. Right now she's in some run-down clinic across the street, waiting to die."

Something in my chest tore open like a rusted blade dragged straight through it. This was the sister who'd shielded me since we were kids.

After our parents died, she'd dropped out of school to haul bricks on construction sites, her hands blistered raw so I could stay in class. She'd once told me, eyes wet, that she wanted to live long enough to see me in a suit, the happiest boy in the world.

And now, she was on the ground taking a beating because of me, a man who couldn't even lift a finger.

My eyes burned, my chest heaved, and a raw, broken sound tore its way out of my throat. I wanted to rip Julian apart with my bare hands. I wanted to charge out and take Renee down with me.

But I couldn't even move a finger. All I could do was let my soul bleed and scream inside a body that wouldn't answer me.

Why? She could have taken everything from me and I wouldn't have cared. Why did she have to go after the one family I had left?

Hatred coiled through me, total and consuming, eating me alive from the inside. Julian watched me suffer, savoring it, then pulled out a waiver with a cold smile.

"Sign this. Admit you moved assets during the marriage, and state that your condition is from starving yourself on purpose."

He slapped the paper down over my face, blocking out my last view of the room. "Sign it, and I'll have someone treat your sister. Otherwise, she can lie there and die in pain."

The paper trembled faintly with each ragged breath I took. I closed my eyes, and tears slid down into my dried-out hair.

Fast footsteps suddenly approached outside the curtain. The blue fabric was yanked open, and Renee stood there, radiating cold.

Julian stepped back at once, his expression shifting instantly to wounded and anxious. "Renee, Miles still won't admit what he did. He just covered his face with the paper and won't even look at me."

Renee strode over and tore the waiver off my face. She looked down at my tear-streaked, ashen face, and there wasn't a trace of pity in her eyes.

"Don't feel like dealing with anyone?" She crushed the waiver in her fist.

"Miles, your sister made a scene outside my company for you, groveling on the ground, and you've still got the nerve to put on an attitude."

She leaned down, staring straight into my eyes from above.

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  • On My Deathbed, She Wants a Confession   Chapter 10

    Six months later, in winter, inside the ICU of City General Hospital, the numbers on the heart monitor began to fall off a cliff. Oxygen saturation dropped below 60%, and the ventilator let out one high, piercing alarm after another.Dr. Marsh stood at the bedside, watching every reading lose all meaning for resuscitation. She checked the time."Call it," she said.A nurse stepped forward and switched off the ventilator and the monitor. The alarms stopped, and the only sound left in the room was the faint hum of the equipment's cooling fans.Amelia stood at the bedside in a sterile gown. She picked up a damp cloth and slowly wiped my face, smoothed down my hair, and then drew the white sheet up over my head.Outside the room, Renee stood in front of the glass window. Over the past six months, she'd stepped down as CEO of Sutton Group, sold off all three of her properties and every share of her private stock, and put the money into the national ALS research foundation.Julian's se

  • On My Deathbed, She Wants a Confession   Chapter 9

    Renee reached for the tablet on the desk. Her fingers brushed the metal casing with a sharp clink, but her grip failed, and it slid across the surface.She stood without picking the foreign medical papers back up and walked out of the office. She headed for the stairwell, skipping the elevator, and climbed the fire stairs one floor at a time until she reached the ninth floor. She stopped outside the ICU, in front of the glass window.Inside, I lay on the bed. A thick tube ran from the opening at my throat to a ventilator standing half my height beside the bed.A feeding tube ran through my nose, and an IV pump pushed yellow nutrient fluid in a steady rhythm. Months of lying still had wasted my limbs down to almost nothing, the bones visible beneath the skin. My hospital gown hung loose over deep hollows where muscle used to be. An eye-tracking screen was mounted directly above the bed.The ICU door opened, and Renee stepped in wearing a blue sterile gown, a mask, and shoe covers.

  • On My Deathbed, She Wants a Confession   Chapter 8

    Renee walked out through the doors of the holding facility. Sunlight spread across the pavement outside. She made her way to a green trash bin at the curb and doubled over as her stomach seized violently. She leaned over the bin and was sick in the liner.She threw up three times until nothing was left in her stomach but yellow bile. She pulled a handkerchief from her jacket pocket, wiped the corner of her mouth, and dropped it into the bin.Then, she got into her car, started the engine, and drove toward the hospital.Renee returned to City General Hospital, but instead of going up to the ICU on the ninth floor, she went straight to the neurology office on the eighth. Dr. Marsh was reviewing an EEG report. Renee pulled out a chair and sat down across the desk from her."Dr. Marsh, there's an experimental ALS drug currently in Phase 3 trials overseas. I've already arranged a medical charter flight and a team of specialists from overseas. I'll cover every cost." Renee pulled out s

  • On My Deathbed, She Wants a Confession   Chapter 7

    Renee's fingers tightened around the papers, and they crumpled slightly with a soft, folding sound.The ICU's automatic doors slid open, and Dr. Marsh stepped out, pulling off her mask."His blood pressure's stabilized, barely," she said, looking at Amelia. "But the fall caused a second injury to his cervical spine, and it's irreversible."He's lost his ability to swallow and to breathe on his own completely. From here on, he'll need a feeding tube to eat and a ventilator just to keep his vitals going."Renee walked toward her. "Dr. Marsh, I want to transfer him overseas, somewhere with the best equipment available."She pulled out her phone.Dr. Marsh blocked the doorway. "Ms. Sutton, his condition right now can't survive any kind of transport. And according to the authorization document Mr. Bennett signed three days ago using an eye-tracking device, all medical decisions are now entirely in Ms. Bennett's hands. You don't have visitation rights."…At the city police departmen

  • On My Deathbed, She Wants a Confession   Chapter 6

    The officers didn't stop her. Renee followed the gurney down the hallway, and the patients' families lining the walls pressed back to clear a path. The gurney disappeared into the elevator, and the doors closed.Renee stood outside the elevator, watching the floor numbers climb one by one until they stopped on the ninth floor, the ICU.Renee sat down on a plastic bench outside the ICU doors. Dust clung to one side of her suit jacket from where the officers had pinned her against the bed earlier. The hallway light fell across her face.The elevator doors opened, and Amelia burst out. Gauze wrapped her forehead, a patch of yellow fluid seeping through at the center, and a brace was strapped around her right ribs, forcing her to lean to the left as she walked. She crossed straight to Renee.Renee looked up. Amelia's right hand swung and struck her across the left cheek. Renee's body pitched to the right and slammed into the armrest of the plastic chair.She didn't fight back. She sat

  • On My Deathbed, She Wants a Confession   Chapter 5

    Renee's eyes moved slowly from the document in the officer's hand down to me on the floor. I lay on my side against the cold tile, blood still pouring from my throat. My eyes stayed open, my gaze passing straight through her toward the pale gray window across the room.Dr. Marsh knelt on the ground, both hands pressed hard over the bleeding at my tracheotomy opening. Blood seeped through her fingers and dripped onto the white tile.The door burst open, and four ER nurses rushed in pushing a crash cart."Get the suction ready, clear the airway of blood. Open two IV lines and push a tiny ounce of epinephrine," Dr. Marsh ordered.A nurse pulled open a drawer on the cart and grabbed a portable suction device, feeding the tube into the opening at my throat. The machine switched on, pulling out a steady stream of dark red blood and fluid through the tubing.Another nurse cut open the sleeve of my hospital gown and set two IV lines into the veins of each arm, connecting them to saline an

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