Chapter 2: The Lawyer’s Choice
The transition to the Intensive Care Unit was a blur of bright lights, moving ceilings, and the constant, urgent voices of medical staff. They managed to temporarily stabilize my blood pressure with IV fluids and coagulants, buying me a small window of lucidity before the inevitable surgery.
I lay in the sterile, quiet ICU room, the adrenaline slowly giving way to a bone-deep exhaustion. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t afford to lose consciousness. Not yet.
Exactly forty-five minutes after the hospital staff made the call, the heavy doors of the ICU swung open.
Naomi strode into the room. She was a senior partner at the corporate law firm that handled my company’s contracts, and over the past five years, she had become my most trusted advisor. Dressed in a razor-sharp charcoal suit, her heels clicking quietly on the linoleum, she looked completely out of place in a hospital, yet entirely in command of the room.
She didn’t offer empty platitudes or fake sympathy. She took one look at the monitors, then looked at me.
“You look terrible, Sarah,” Naomi said, her tone professional but her eyes betraying a fierce, protective concern. She set a thick leather briefcase on the rolling tray table over my bed.
“I feel worse,” I managed a weak, grim smile.
Naomi unlatched the briefcase and pulled out a manila folder. “The doctor briefed me outside. You have a ruptured spleen and minor internal bleeding. They want to operate in twenty minutes. Are you lucid? Are you understanding me clearly, or are the painkillers clouding your judgment?”
“I’m lucid,” I said, wincing as I shifted my weight. “I haven’t taken the heavy narcotics yet. I told them to wait until you got here.”
