Chapter 3 - The Family Strategy Meeting
"Do you have any idea what you have done?"
Althea didn't look at my leg. She didn't look at the IV lines snaking into the back of my hand, nor the digital monitors tracking my erratic heart rhythm. She marched straight to the edge of the bed, her diamond tennis bracelets clattering against the metal railing.
"The catering staff is standing around with fifty thousand dollars worth of prime rib and Chilean sea bass," my mother hissed, her face contorted into an ugly mask of social panic. "The Pierce family left the terrace! Senator Hayes’s aide just called your father asking if the ceremony tomorrow is still occurring! And you’re lying here playing the martyr!"
I stared at her, the morphine making my head feel as if it were packed with wet wool, but the cruelty of her words cutting through the chemical haze with surgical precision.
"Mom," I whispered. "I'm going into emergency surgery. The pins broke."
"Because you fell!" Sutton shouted from the doorway. She stepped into the room, pointing an accusatory acrylic nail at me. She had changed out of her silk robe into an immaculate cream-colored cashmere sweater set, but her makeup was streaked with theatrical tears. "You fell because you were wearing those ridiculous, clumsy crutches! I barely touched you! I was trying to hug you, and you threw yourself onto the floor!"
"Sutton," Alden said.
The single word fell like an iron curtain.
Sutton stopped. She looked at Alden, and her entire posture shifted in an instant. The rage vanished, replaced by an expression of wounded, tremulous innocence. She rushed toward him, her hands reaching out to grasp his forearms.
"Alden, baby, thank God you're here," she sobbed, burying her face into his chest—or trying to.
Alden caught her by the wrists. He didn't squeeze hard enough to bruise, but his grip was unyielding, holding her hands suspended six inches from his body. He pushed her back, creating a deliberate, immovable space between them.
"Don't touch me," Alden said.
Sutton blinked, startled. "Alden? What is wrong with you? I'm your fiancée! We’re getting married tomorrow! You can't let her ruin our weekend like this! You know how she is! She’s always been jealous of me! Ever since we were kids!"
"Jealous?" Alden’s voice was dangerously quiet. "Jealous of what, Sutton? Your ability to intentionally cripple someone for thirty seconds of internet attention?"
"Now see here, Alden!" Robert Mercer stepped forward, his paternal authority puffing out his chest like an angry toad. "You will not speak to my daughter in that tone! Sutton is high-strung, yes, and she may have made an error in judgment trying to include Fallon in a lighthearted video, but this is a family matter! We don't air our dirty laundry in front of the hospital staff!"
"It isn't a family matter, Robert," Alden said, turning his icy gaze upon my father. "It’s a criminal matter."
The word *criminal* seemed to drop the temperature in the room by twenty degrees.
Althea let out a sharp, aristocratic gasp. "Criminal? Have you lost your mind? She’s her sister!"
"Marcus," Alden said without looking away from Robert. "Show them."
Marcus opened the laptop. He didn't bother offering headphones this time. He flipped the internal speakers to maximum volume and pressed play.
Sutton’s voice filled the trauma room:
*"...When she turns to face the sunset, I’m going to hook my heel behind her right crutch and give it a tug... She’ll wobble, drop to her butt, and look completely ridiculous. The look on her face will be gold..."*
Then the scrape.
The sickening snap of bone.
My scream.
And Sutton’s laughter: *"Don't be so dramatic! It was for content!"*
The audio ended.
The trauma room was dead silent, save for the rhythmic, mechanical beep of my heart monitor, which had spiked to one-thirty.
Althea’s mouth hung open. For the first time in my life, I saw genuine shock on my mother’s face—not because her daughter had done something monstrous, but because it had been undeniably, incontrovertibly preserved in uncompressed forty-eight-kilohertz digital audio.
Robert’s face turned an ugly, mottled shade of purple. He looked at Sutton, who had gone completely rigid.
"Where... where did you get that?" Sutton whispered, her voice barely audible.
"From the professional media team that I paid for," Alden said. "Liam was mic'd. The boom was tracking you. You confessed to premeditated battery five seconds before you executed it."
"It was a joke!" Sutton shrieked, her composure shattering completely, the ugly, spoiled child breaking through the polished socialite veneer. "It was just a joke! People do pranks on the internet every single day! She wasn't supposed to actually break her stupid leg! How was I supposed to know her bones were made of glass?!"
"Sutton, shut up!" Robert barked, finally realizing the legal catastrophe unfolding before his eyes. He turned to Alden, his hands spread in a placating, managerial gesture. "Alden. Son. Listen to me. Let’s all take a deep breath. We are all exhausted. The stress of this wedding has pushed everyone to their limits."
"Do not call me son," Alden said.
"Fine. Alden," Robert continued, his voice dropping into the tone he used when negotiating commercial real estate leases. "We understand that this looks bad. It was reckless. Inexcusably reckless. Sutton will apologize. She will issue a public statement, if that’s what you want. We will cover Fallon’s medical deductibles. Every single penny. We’ll put her up in a private recovery villa in Palm Springs for two months. But you cannot cancel this wedding. The social implications—the business connections—my reputation in the firm—"
"Your reputation?" Alden let out a short, humorless laugh that sounded like breaking glass. "You think I give a single damn about your reputation?"
"Alden, please!" Althea cried, stepping between him and Sutton. "Think of the Pierce name! Your parents! What will your mother’s bridge club say? The announcements were in the *Times*! The society pages—"
"My mother is currently in her suite at the resort, packing her bags," Alden interrupted, his words dropping like heavy stones into a deep well. "My father is calling our guests to inform them that the wedding is canceled. Not postponed. Canceled."
"You can't do that!" Sutton screamed. She lunged forward, her face twisted in pure, unadulterated hatred, but not at Alden.
She lunged toward the bed. Toward me.
"You did this!" she shrieked at me, her fingers clawing at the air. "You ruined my life! You’ve always been miserable, and you couldn't stand seeing me happy! You couldn't stand seeing me marry Alden! You planned this! You threw yourself down to steal him from me!"
"Get out," a new voice commanded.
Dr. Sterling stood in the doorway, flanked by two large, burly hospital security guards in dark blue uniforms. The surgeon’s face was grim, his eyes blazing with professional fury.
"Out. All of you," Dr. Sterling ordered. "This patient is in acute orthopedic trauma. Her vitals are dangerously unstable, and she is being prepped for emergency surgery. If you do not leave this room immediately, I will have the Santa Barbara Police Department escort you from the premises in handcuffs."
"I am her mother!" Althea squawked, puffing up like an offended pheasant.
"I don't care if you're the Queen of England," Dr. Sterling said without blinking. "You are endangering a surgical patient. Officers, remove them."
The two security guards stepped forward, their hands resting authoritatively on their duty belts. "Let’s go, folks. Move it out to the lobby. Now."
Robert, his face pale and sweating, grabbed Althea by the arm. "Althea, come. Sutton, move."
Sutton was dragged backward, her manicured fingers clawing at the doorframe, her eyes locked onto Alden. "Alden! You can't leave me! We have a contract with the venue! You owe three hundred thousand dollars! Alden!"
The glass sliding door hissed shut, cutting off her screeching voice.
Silence returned to Trauma Room 4.
Dr. Sterling stepped to the side of my bed, checking the monitors with practiced, calm movements. He looked down at me, his eyes softening slightly. "We’re taking you up now, Fallon. Anesthesiology is ready."
I looked up at Alden. He was still standing there, his face carved from stone, but his eyes were filled with an infinite, sorrowful regret.
"Alden," I whispered, the sedative finally beginning to pull my thoughts into the dark, swirling edges of sleep. "You don't... you don't have to stay."
Alden reached down and took my hand. His grip was warm, solid, and utterly immovable.
"I’m not going anywhere, Fallon," he said softly. "I’ll be right here when you wake up."
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The last thing I remembered before the blackness took me was the rhythmic squeak of the gurney wheels rolling toward the double doors of the operating room, and the steady, comforting weight of his hand holding mine.
***
