Chapter 4
Applause rolled through the room.
Wyatt ignored the speech and watched the crowd.
Derek Hollis sat in the third row. Silver hair. Expensive suit. Calm smile.
Too calm.
Twenty minutes in, Wyatt saw the man in the maintenance uniform near the lighting rig.
He was adjusting something above the side aisle. Quick hands. Head down. Cap low.
Wyatt knew every maintenance worker in Blackwell Tower.
He had never seen that man in his life.
He caught Marcus’s eye and nodded toward the rig.
Marcus moved.
Too slowly.
Wyatt looked up.
The main support cable above the stage was fraying.
Thread by thread.
Snap by snap.
Vivien stood directly beneath it, speaking about rural hospitals and children who might live because diagnostic technology reached them in time.
Then the cable screamed.
Wyatt ran.
Part 3
The cable snapped like a gunshot.
Vivien looked up too late.
Wyatt hit her at full speed, arms locking around her as he drove them both sideways off the stage. They crashed hard onto the floor below, Wyatt twisting in midair so his back and shoulder took the impact instead of her head.
The chandelier struck the stage half a heartbeat later.
The sound was not a crash.
It was an explosion.
Glass blew outward. Metal buckled. Sparks sprayed across the podium. The stage cracked under the force.
For one stunned second, the ballroom went silent.
Then chaos tore it apart.
People screamed. Chairs overturned. Cameras flashed. Security shouted into radios. The giant screen behind the stage flickered and died.
Wyatt lay on his back, pain roaring through his ribs and shoulder so violently he couldn’t breathe.
Vivien was on top of him, alive, shaking.
“Are you hurt?” he gasped.
She pushed herself up. Her face had gone white.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Wyatt, you’re bleeding everywhere.”
“Good,” he said, trying to focus. “Then it worked.”
Marcus appeared above them. “Medics are coming. Don’t move.”
“The man,” Wyatt said. “Maintenance uniform. Lighting rig.”
“Building’s locked down,” Marcus replied. “We’ve got him.”
Vivien pressed both hands against Wyatt’s shoulder. Blood seeped between her fingers.
“Ma’am, we need to move you somewhere secure,” Marcus said.
“I’m not leaving him.”
“Ms. Blackwell—”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
The medics arrived. Wyatt tried to tell them he was fine, but his words blurred around the edges. The ceiling lights stretched into long white lines. Someone strapped him to a board. Someone cut open the expensive suit.
Vivien stayed beside him.
In the ambulance, sirens wailing through downtown Chicago, she held his hand like it was the only thing keeping either of them in the world.
“Stay with me,” she said. “Wyatt, look at me.”
“Tired,” he mumbled.
“I know. But you don’t get to do something stupidly heroic and then die. That is not how this story ends.”
He tried to smile. “Bossy.”
“Yes. I’m a CEO. Stay awake.”
“For you?”
Her thumb brushed over his knuckles. “For Ivy.”
That worked.
His eyes opened.
Vivien leaned closer, voice shaking. “Tell me about her.”
“She builds things,” Wyatt whispered. “Rockets. Castles. Bridges. Took every blanket in the apartment last month and made a fort so big I couldn’t reach the kitchen.”
“What did you do?”
“Ate takeout in the fort.” His breathing hitched. “Best three days ever.”
Vivien laughed through tears.
“She’s lucky,” she said.
“No,” Wyatt whispered. “I am.”
Then the hospital swallowed him in white light.
When Wyatt woke, Ivy was holding his hand.
Her small face was blotchy from crying, her curls escaping the purple headband she always wore when she wanted to feel brave.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
“Hey, bug.”
She burst into tears. “You woke up.”
“Course I did.” His voice sounded like gravel. “I said I’d do everything I could.”
“You have seventeen stitches,” she said, sobbing harder. “And two broken ribs. And a concussion. Grandma said your shoulder looks like a shark tried to eat it.”
“Grandma needs better metaphors.”
Mae appeared behind Ivy, one hand pressed to her chest in relief. “Thank God.”
Wyatt tried to shift and immediately regretted being alive.
Mae kissed his forehead. “Don’t move, hero.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Too late. It’s on every news station in the country.”
Wyatt closed his eyes. “Great.”
Ivy sniffled. “Miss Vivien called Grandma. She sent a car. It had snacks and a TV and a man named Benjamin who said I could control the temperature on my side.”
“Fancy.”
“She’s in the waiting room,” Mae said softly. “Hasn’t left since they brought you in. Her security people look like they’re aging by the minute.”
Wyatt’s chest tightened for reasons that had nothing to do with broken ribs.
“Can I talk to her?”
Mae nodded. “Come on, Ivy. Let’s get more ice cream.”
“I already had two.”
“Then we’ll make poor choices together.”
