Chapter 541

Chapter 541:

It came to her immediately — Professor Nelson. Her mentor at the Institute had close ties with the hospital’s senior management. She had never wanted to use that connection, never wanted to risk drawing attention to her carefully buried past. But she had no other option.

She was about to dial when a sudden burst of movement erupted at the nearby nurses’ station. The head nurse crossed the floor briskly with a team behind her, her voice sharp and purposeful.

“Hurry — prepare VIP Room 1 immediately. The patient arranged by Mr. Lancaster will be arriving shortly p>

Ellyn’s dim, exhausted eyes lit up at once. Her grip on Isolde’s hand tightened convulsively.

“It’s Grayson. He must have found out — he must have arranged this for us p>

Isolde said nothing, but something felt wrong. Grayson had not answered any of her calls. How could he have known? How could he have already arranged a ward?

But that faint, life-saving flicker of possibility was as difficult to release as it was to trust. She couldn’t bring herself to extinguish it.

She held her phone tightly, her chest heavy with a mixture of humiliation and fragile, desperate hope, and walked slowly toward the VIP elevator bank.

Isolde stood at the end of the long, sterile corridor, her eyes fixed on the elevator panel. The numbers descended from the top floor in slow, deliberate jumps, each one landing like a blow against her already frayed nerves.

Behind her, Ellyn paced in tight, anxious circles, her hands clasped together, her lips moving in a silent, desperate prayer.

The elevator chimed. The soft sound echoed like a gunshot in the quiet hallway.

𝖱𝖾а𝖽 𝗳r𝘰m y𝗈u𝘳 𝗉𝗵on𝖾 𝗼n

The stainless-steel doors slid open. The first to emerge were not doctors or nurses but two imposing men in dark suits, scanning the corridor with practiced efficiency. Bodyguards.

They stepped aside. An orderly rolled out a mobile hospital bed. On it lay a middle-aged man with a cast on his leg and a ruddy complexion — holding a phone to his ear, laughing at something being said on the other end.

He looked perfectly fine.

Isolde recognized him from a dozen society pages. Hector Escobar. Belle’s uncle.

Her pupils contracted sharply.

Then Grayson and Belle stepped out of the elevator, side by side.

Belle was holding his arm, her face arranged into an expression of grateful, attentive concern. “Gray, thank you so much,” she said, her voice soft and warm. “But it really is just a minor fracture. Is a VIP suite truly necessary? It feels like such a waste p>

Grayson did not look up from the file in his hand. “The orthopedics department here is the best in the city. Let him rest comfortably p>

A minor fracture. In the only available VIP suite in the entire hospital.

And her uncle Saul was one floor below, dying of organ failure.

The world tilted.

“Grayson! Grayson p>

Ellyn broke from her stupor and rushed forward past the bodyguards, her voice cracking with desperation. Grayson looked up, startled, and went still when he saw Ellyn — and then Isolde, standing behind her like a statue carved from ice.

“Aunt Ellyn? What are you both doing here p>