Chapter 10 - The Second Chance
"Clare!" Nathaniel screamed, falling to his knees and catching her lifeless body.
He laid her flat on the cold concrete and immediately began performing chest compressions.
"Stay with me! Please stay with me!" he begged through his tears.
Andrew's security medics rushed over with a portable defibrillator.
They ripped open her ruined hospital gown and attached the sticky pads to her chest.
"Clear!" the medic shouted.
Nathaniel backed away as the machine delivered a massive shock to his wife's heart.
Her body arched off the ground, but there was no response.
"Again! Clear!" the medic yelled.
The second shock hit her, and the entire world seemed to stand completely still.
Suddenly, Clare let out a sharp, ragged gasp of air.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at Nathaniel's terrified, tear-stained face.
He collapsed over her, sobbing in sheer, overwhelming relief.
Fast forward six months later.
The sun was shining brightly over a beautiful, secluded beach house in the Hamptons.
Nathaniel sat on the wooden porch, completely relaxed in a simple white t-shirt.
He had legally sold his entire shipping empire, cutting all ties to his dark, stressful past.
Vanessa Whitmore was currently serving a life sentence in a maximum-security federal prison.
Clare walked out onto the porch, carrying two glasses of iced tea.
She looked absolutely radiant, having fully recovered from her surgeries.
Margaret was visiting them, currently throwing a tennis ball to a golden retriever on the sandy beach.
Nathaniel took the glass from his wife and kissed her deeply, grateful for every single second he had with her.
It was a perfect, beautiful life.
Suddenly, Nathaniel's cell phone rang with a blocked caller ID number.
He answered it, expecting a wrong number.
Instead, he heard Vanessa's cold, mocking laughter echoing through the receiver from her prison cell.
"You really should have checked the donor registry more carefully, Nate," Vanessa whispered maliciously.
"My people made sure Margaret received a little something extra in her IV bag during the transplant."
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Nathaniel felt the blood freeze in his veins as he looked down at his mother playing on the beach.
Margaret suddenly dropped the tennis ball, clutching her chest as she collapsed violently into the sand.
