Chapter 60 Chapter 60

Chapter 60 Chapter 60
AJ knew something was fundamentally broken the moment he saw Reno’s face at the terminal. His brother’s silhouette was framed against the sterile airport glass, but the usual spark of defiance was gone. Reno’s shoulders drooped as if they had taken on the crushing weight of the world, sagging under an invisible, atmospheric pressure. AJ didn’t ask what was going on; he couldn’t bring himself to break the fragile glass of the moment. Instead, they climbed into the truck and drove in a thick, suffocating blanket of silence all the way to the hospital.

As the familiar city skyline blurred past, AJ wrestled with the ghost of his own nostalgia. When he had first touched down on the tarmac, a tidal wave of longing had threatened to pull him under. He had missed the foundational pillars of his life: his mother’s soul-warming cooking, the sharp but loving edge of his sister’s nagging, the quiet late-night philosophy shared with Reno, and the steady, unshakeable bedrock of his father’s wisdom.

And, though he fought the admission with every fiber of his pride, he had missed Katherine. He missed the way her blue-gray eyes—usually so sharp and clinical—would melt into a dark, stormy desire every time they settled on him. He missed her quirky faults, the melodic, bell-like cadence of her voice, and the memory of her tiny body writhing in a fever of pleasure beneath his own. That last thought was a physical strike; he felt a sudden, traitorous erection fighting against the zipper of his pants, a visceral reminder that his body hadn't forgotten what his mind tried to ignore.

When the hospital finally loomed into view, AJ forced himself to sober up. He was entering his domain now, a world of Latin roots and scientific certainties that made infinitely more sense than the messy, unpredictable terms of the layman. Within these walls, he could handle whatever Reno was about to drop on him. He knew Catalella wasn’t dead—Reno wouldn't be driving toward the hospital if they were heading for a morgue—but the dread remained.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice cautious, vibrating with a suppressed tremor.

Reno cleared his throat, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he shot AJ a quick, pained glance. “Catalella tried to kill herself, AJ.”

AJ felt his heart literally freeze in his chest. A sliver of ice-cold dread raced down his spine, paralyzing his lungs. He searched his mind for the right combination of letters or words that could possibly express the sheer scale of the horror he felt, but his vocabulary had vanished. Once the initial shock subsided, however, a predatory anger began to sizzle beneath his skin, the chill forgotten in the heat of a rising rage. An angry, jagged hiss escaped his lips. “What did you just say?”

Reno shook his head, his voice thick with disbelief. “Your mother went to see her. She found her in a bloody bath, AJ... she wasn't moving. Lisette and I were close by, so when Rosalinda called, screaming, we rushed there. Your mom was losing her mind, just totally gone. Catalella was determined; Lisette found an empty pill bottle on the floor. I couldn't get her to open her eyes, so I just... I lifted her out of the water and ran. We were just lucky Katherine was there. She and some doctor guy stepped in. AJ, she could have died. She almost did.”

She could have died. The words turned AJ’s internal organs into a glacier. But the second part of the sentence hit him just as hard. Katherine. Katherine had been the one to catch his sister as she fell.

“Why?” AJ ground out, his voice low and dangerous. “Was she tired of the treatments? I know she’s going through this hell a second time, and I know this round is more aggressive, but that’s no reason to give up. I flew halfway across the world to give her my marrow—”

“Michael asked for a divorce.”

The silence in the truck snapped. AJ drove his fist into the dashboard with a sickening crunch of plastic and metal.

“Hey, watch it!” Reno protested, though his voice lacked any real heat. “I’d love to drive my fist into that S.O.B.’s face too, but I’ve been at the hospital all night. Dad’s on a business trip but he’s racing back. Once Senior is on the ground, we can launch a full-scale vigilante hunt for the bastard.”

“I can’t wait,” AJ ground out, his jaw set so tight his teeth ached.

The moment they reached the entrance, AJ ran. He ignored the myriad of greetings and surprised looks from former colleagues, the "Welcome back, Dr. Ross" whispers fading into the background. Right now, the only person in the world who mattered was his little sister. He reached her room and froze in the doorway, the air leaving his lungs.

There she was. Even with four other people in the room, his vision tunneled until all he could see was Katherine. She looked exactly as she did in his dreams, yet different—sharper, more tired, but infinitely more beautiful. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail, though soft wisps escaped to curl around her face. Her blue scrubs fit loosely, covered by the authority of a white lab coat. His eyes raked her from head to toe, a silent, desperate inventory, before locking onto her gaze with an intensity that felt like a physical touch. Words jammed in his throat. After eighteen months of silence and a thousand imagined conversations, what could he possibly say?

“AJ.”

Catalella’s weak, thready voice broke the spell. He looked at his sister and had to fight to keep his professional mask from slipping. He was horrified by how fragile she looked; she had lost so much weight that the hospital bed seemed to be swallowing her whole. He needed the facts. He needed the data. And as if Katherine were tapped directly into his neural pathways, she stepped toward him and placed the chart in his hands without a word.

AJ was profoundly thankful for the "doctor mode" switch. It was the only thing keeping him from a lust-filled frenzy sparked by Katherine’s proximity and the familiar, floral scent of her skin. He listened as she began a brief, clinical status report. He was stunned by how well-informed she was—not just about the suicide attempt, but about the specific pathology of Catalella’s leukemia and the nuances of her recent treatments. Katherine told him things even his parents wouldn’t have grasped, the quiet, terrifying realities that doctors rarely whisper to the family.

“What happened last night?” he asked, flipping to the final page of the chart to see the vitals.

“She was brought in unconscious,” Katherine explained, her voice steady but her eyes searching his. “We had to be extremely careful with the gastric lavage because of the chemotherapy she’d had earlier in the week; her system was already compromised. We pumped her stomach, administered a blood transfusion, and started her on aggressive IV fluids.”

“We?” AJ asked, his eyes narrowing slightly at the plural.

He sensed Katherine’s minute hesitation, a flicker of something guarded in her expression. “Lyle helped,” she said softly.

“Thank you. For everything.” AJ took a breath, the weight of the room pressing in on him. “Do you mind... giving my family and me a minute?”

He caught the flash of raw hurt in her eyes before she looked away, a small wince that made him want to drop the chart and pull her into the hallway.

“Call me if you need me,” Katherine said, her voice small but professional, before she disappeared through the door.

In an instant, AJ was swept into the weeping, relieved arms of his mother and Lisette. After the initial embrace, he stepped back and looked at Catalella. He saw the crushing guilt etched into her pale features. He had planned to give her grief, to lecture her on the sanctity of life, or even beat some sense into her for the pain she’d caused their mother. But as he looked at her—broken, small, and fighting a war on two fronts—he realized that the guilt she was already feeling was a heavier punishment than anything he could dish out.

“What were you thinking, Cat?”

“I wasn’t,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m so sorry, AJ.”

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice softening as he took her hand, feeling the bandages on her wrists. “It’s over now. Now, we just focus on getting you better. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere.”