Doctors gave my six-year-old twins ten days to live, and for the first time in my life, every dollar, connection, guard, and ounce of influence attached to the Mercer name became completely worthless while I watched two children disappear beneath hospital blankets.
My name is Lawson Mercer, and men who disliked me used to whisper that I controlled half of Chicago, but standing beside Jonah and Blythe inside the private medical wing I had built, I would have traded everything I owned for one ordinary morning.
Dr.
Franklin Yates stood beside me while machines hummed around the twins, and when I asked how much time remained, he stared at the floor before quietly saying the words no parent should ever hear: “Perhaps ten days, Lawson, maybe less.”
Leukemia had already stolen their hair, their appetites, their energy, and most of their laughter, yet the cruelest moment came when Blythe squeezed my finger and whispered, “Daddy, if I go first, can Jonah come with me so I won’t be alone?”
I promised nobody was going anywhere, although even a six-year-old could hear the lie in my voice, and when Blythe looked toward the empty chair beside her bed and said, “Mommy went somewhere,” I nearly collapsed beside her.
