Nurse Gable hesitated, her hand still holding the tray with the syringe.

“The patient’s medication is scheduled for midnight,” she protested, though her voice lacked its earlier confidence.

“The matriarch does not like to wait,” Vance replied, stepping between us.

Nurse Gable looked at me, then at Vance, before lowering her tray and turning on her heel.

I let out a breath I had been holding, my fingers releasing the doorframe.

The burner phone in my pocket stopped vibrating, then immediately began to buzz again.

I pulled it out and pressed it to my ear, slipping back into Ethan’s darkened room.

“Dad?” I whispered.

“They’ve moved it up,” my father’s frantic voice hissed through the static. “Jason found out Vivian was questioning the medical reports. The board is convening in the library right now.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. “Now? It’s nearly midnight.”

“He has the proxy votes,” my father said, his voice trembling with fear of his own ruin. “If they sign the transfer of executorship, Jason takes the Thornton empire. You have to stop them.”

I looked over at the bed.