Chapter 4 - THE THIRTY-HOUR COUNTDOWN
The door to Suite 401 burst open.
Four doctors and three trauma nurses flooded into the room, pushing Alexandre and Sophie back against the wall.
"Vascular collapse!" Dr. Laurent barked, placing a stethoscope against Claire’s chest. "Her pulmonary artery pressure is spiking! We need ten milligrams of Epinephrine immediately! Get the manual ventilator!"
Claire’s body began to spasm weakly against the mattress, her lips turning a faint, terrifying shade of blue.
"Mommy!" Sophie shrieked, dropping her guitar case, trying to rush toward the bed.
Alexandre grabbed Sophie in his arms, pulling her small body tight against his chest, turning her away from the terrifying scene. Sophie kicked and screamed against his suit, her small fists pounding onto his back.
"Let me go! Let me go to my mom! Mommy!" she sobbed hysterically.
"I’ve got you, Sophie! I’ve got you!" Alexandre cried out, holding her with all his strength, his own tears falling into her hair. "Look at me! Don't look at the bed! Look at me!"
Dr. Laurent turned to Alexandre, his face pale behind his surgical mask. "Mr. Moreau! We are intubating her now, but her lung tissue is completely failing! She has entered end-stage respiratory arrest! If we do not perform a transplant surgery within thirty hours, her heart will stop!"
"Where is the donor lung?!" Alexandre shouted over his daughter’s screams. "I gave your team twenty million euros this morning! Where is the match?!"
"The Eurotransplant registry in Munich located a compatible donor three hours ago," Dr. Laurent said, his voice tense. "A perfect tissue match from a young donor in Frankfurt. But there is a legal blockade."
Alexandre froze, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure, deadly fury. "What legal blockade?"
"The donor's estate is tied up in a private corporate insurance dispute," Laurent explained quickly, adjusting the ventilator tube. "The hospital in Frankfurt is refusing to release the organ for international transport until the primary insurance guarantor signs a release form. The chairman of that insurance group... is your uncle, Victor Moreau."
Alexandre felt the floor drop out from beneath his feet.
Victor Moreau—his father’s ruthless younger brother, the man who had taken control of the Moreau family's traditional banking assets after Alexandre had broken away to build his media empire. Victor had despised Alexandre for years, viewing him as a traitor to the family bloodline.
Victor was holding Claire’s life in his hands out of sheer, petty, corporate vengeance.
"Get Jean-Luc in here," Alexandre said, his voice dropping into a register so quiet and cold it chilled the doctors in the room.
Two minutes later, Jean-Luc ran into the corridor outside the ICU.
Alexandre handed Sophie, who was now trembling silently from exhaustion, to a senior pediatric nurse. "Take her to the private lounge down the hall. Give her warm tea. Keep her safe."
He turned to Jean-Luc, his hands gripping his assistant’s collar.
"Ready the helicopter," Alexandre commanded. "We are flying to Frankfurt."
"Sir, the German airspace regulations require a three-hour clearance window for private transport—"
"I don't care about airspace regulations!" Alexandre snapped, pulling a secure satellite phone from his pocket. "Call the Minister of Transport in Paris! Tell him that if my helicopter isn't granted an immediate emergency medical corridor to Frankfurt within ten minutes, I will pull all advertising revenue from state television networks by noon!"
"Yes, sir!" Jean-Luc turned and ran down the hallway.
Alexandre looked back through the glass window of Suite 401. Claire lay motionless under the harsh fluorescent lights, a machine pumping air into her lungs, a digital clock on the wall counting down from 29 hours and 59 minutes.
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He walked over to where Sophie’s small guitar sat leaning against the wall. He picked it up gently, setting it inside the leather armchair.
Then he walked out of the hospital, stepping toward his helicopter with the cold, unstoppable determination of a man going to war.
