Chapter 4
“Her blood is completely uncoagulable,” Helena said. “Someone poisoned her. They used a synthetic anticoagulant, probably brodifacoum. It weakened the arterial walls and caused a spontaneous rupture. She isn’t just bleeding out. She is melting from the inside.”
A heavy silence fell over the room.
Helena could feel Nicholas’s rage building behind her. He slowly turned toward Vincent. Vincent’s expression remained still, but Helena noticed a minute movement in his jaw.
“Can you fix the tear?” Nicholas asked in a dangerously quiet voice.
“I can graft the aorta, but it won’t matter.”
Helena pressed her fingers against the bleeding artery.
“I cannot put her on the bypass machine. The artificial tubing will shred her blood cells, and because of the poison, she will bleed through her own pores. She needs fresh whole blood to flush the toxin from her system. Massive amounts of it. We need O negative blood now.”
“Call the blood bank,” Nicholas ordered Vincent.
“The blood bank does not have enough whole O negative blood for a complete systemic flush,” Helena said as the monitors began to sound more rapidly.
Caterina’s blood pressure had fallen to 60 over 40. She was dying.
“We need a live donor and a direct transfusion. We bypass the storage chemicals and pump fresh platelets directly into her line while I operate.”
“I’m O negative,” Nicholas said, immediately removing his suit jacket. “Take mine.”
“I need more than 1 pint. To keep her alive while I replace her aorta, I will have to drain you to the brink of hypovolemic shock. It could kill you.”
May you like
“Do it.”
“If we do this, you are on my table,” Helena said, meeting Nicholas’s eyes. “You are my patient. That means you give up the gun. You give up the power. You lie down, you remain quiet, and you place your life entirely in my hands.”
