CHAPTER 416: HOSPITAL

The hospital wasn’t just chaos; it was a feeding frenzy. The entrance swarmed with reporters, a seething mass of humanity and greed, their cameras flashing like a thunderstorm of cheap lightning, microphones thrust forward like weapons. Niko and I carved a path through them, a ship pushing through a filthy, churning sea.

"Mr. Roman! Is your father going to survive?" "Was the plane crash an assassination?" "Are you ready to lead the company alone?"

Their voices were a singular, insect-like drone. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My jaw was a locked vault, my teeth ground so tight I could feel the enamel threatening to powder.

Hospital security formed a human barricade, shoving the horde back, and the moment the thick glass doors sealed behind us, the world went from a roar to a whisper. An expensive, suffocating whisper.

Inside, it was all muted tones and plush carpets. A hospital that didn’t smell of antiseptic, but of money and discreet mortality. This was where the powerful came to expire quietly, behind soundproofed walls.

I moved on autopilot, a missile locked on its target, straight to the emergency wing. Niko’s footsteps were a shadow to my own, a steady, grim echo.

A nurse moved to intercept me, a clipboard held like a shield. I brushed past her without a glance, my focus entirely on the nurse’s station, where a doctor in green surgical scrubs, speckled with faint, rusty brown stains, was frowning at a chart.

"Where is he?" The words were not a question. They were a demand.

The doctor looked up, startled. "Mr. Roman—"

"Where. Is. He." Each word was a chip of ice.

"He’s in surgery right now. If you’ll just wait in—"

"Tell me what happened." My voice could have frozen hell. "Now."

He hesitated, his eyes flicking to Niko’s imposing frame before he gestured toward a private consultation room. Once inside, the door clicked shut, sealing us in a soundproof tomb. Every breath I took was heavy, labored, the air thick with the dread I was inhaling.

"Your father’s private jet went down approximately forty minutes after takeoff," he began, his tone brutally clinical. "We’re calling it an apparent mechanical failure... details are still unclear. The aircraft crashed into a field about fifteen miles from the airport."

My stomach plummeted, a freefall into nothing.

"The impact... it wasn’t clean," the doctor continued, relentless. "There was a fuel ignition. A partial explosion. The pilots... they didn’t have a chance. They were killed on impact. There were four passengers. Two sustained injuries we’re calling critical. One... we lost him in the ambulance. Your father..."

He paused. That pause was an eternity, a void into which all my composure began to drain.

"Your father is still in surgery. The trauma... it’s extensive. Multiple compound fractures, significant internal bleeding, severe head trauma. The next several hours... they’re everything."

The words landed not like blows, but like a series of precise, surgical incisions, each one cutting deeper than the last.

It made no sense. This was the man I had built my entire life around resisting. The tyrant whose shadow I had fought to escape. I had dreamed of a world without him in it.

But not like this. Not with a phone call that ripped the entire foundation of the universe out from under my feet.

"The other victims," I managed, my voice rough, splintering at the edges. "The ones who are still alive. I want them given everything. The best specialists. Whatever they need. Money is no object."

"Of course, Mr. Roman."

"And the families of the deceased." The words felt like ash in my mouth. "I want them contacted personally. All expenses covered. Funeral arrangements. Ongoing support. Everything."

The doctor nodded, a quick, jerky motion. "I’ll see to it personally."

"Good." I turned toward the door, because if I stood still for one more second, I would disintegrate. "Update me on my father. The moment you know anything. Anything at all."

"Yes, sir."

I left before the cracks in my facade became a canyon.

Niko was waiting in the hallway, a solid pillar in the storm. "Sir—"

"I need to be alone."

He simply nodded, stepping aside without another word.

I found a private waiting area, a gilded cage for those waiting to learn if their world was about to end. Plush chairs, soft, indirect lighting, a muted television showing the very crash that had brought me here on a loop.

I sat down hard, my elbows digging into my knees, and stared at the intricate pattern of the tile floor until it began to swim and blur into a meaningless mosaic.

The weight was immense. A physical pressure on my sternum, making each inhalation a conscious, difficult effort.

I didn’t know what to do. I, who always had a plan, always had a counter-move, was completely, utterly helpless.

Time lost all meaning. It stretched and compressed, a torturous rubber band, until the surgical doors finally hissed open and a team of doctors emerged, their scrubs rumpled, their faces etched with a profound, bone-deep fatigue.

I was on my feet before my mind registered the movement.

The lead surgeon, an older man with eyes that had seen too much, approached me. He looked like he carried the weight of every life he’d ever lost in the slump of his shoulders.

"Mr. Roman," he said, his voice gravelly with exhaustion. "Your father is out of surgery."

"And?" The word was a bare, desperate thing.

"He’s alive," the surgeon said, and the careful hesitation in his voice was more terrifying than any shout. "But his condition is critically unstable. The head trauma was significant. A subdural hematoma required evacuation. We’ve repaired massive internal bleeding in his abdomen and set multiple fractures, including three spinal vertebrae."

"When will he wake up?" I demanded, the question a lifeline.

The surgeon’s expression darkened, becoming a mask of grim prognosis.

"That’s the complication. The trauma, combined with the physiological stress, has induced a coma. His body... it’s shut down to survive."

A coma.

The word didn’t just hollow me out. It scooped out everything I was and left a cavernous, echoing shell.

"There’s more," the surgeon added, his voice dropping to a near whisper, as if the news itself was too vile to speak aloud. "During the cranial procedure, we discovered an underlying condition that severely complicates his prognosis."

A cold, liquid fear began to seep into my veins. "What condition?"

"Your father has a stage four glioblastoma... an aggressive brain cancer. It’s metastatic. The tumor mass is extensive, throughout his brain and into the spinal column."

The floor didn’t just tilt. It fell away completely. I had to lock my knees to remain standing.

"What?" It was less a word and more a gasp of air.

"I’m sorry," the surgeon said, and he genuinely sounded it. "Given the advanced, pervasive nature of the cancer, and the catastrophic trauma from the accident... his chances of recovering consciousness are... minimal."

Cancer.