Unlike her calm, measured response after her own near-death experience, this time, Joanne was in full-blown panic mode.
Nothing else in the house mattered. No one else mattered.
She didn't hesitate—she shoved past the stunned bodyguards, barking orders at them to carry Jeffrey downstairs. Her voice was sharper, more desperate than she had ever heard it.
She knew kidney stones were painful, but not life-threatening. Her Papaw had suffered through them before, and it always took hours to pass.
But seeing Jeffrey like this—his body slack, his skin fever-hot, his breaths coming slow and labored, her mind barely functioned.
She didn't think about Charlotte. She didn't register Philip Winchester, who had woken up amidst the chaos.
She only knew one thing.
She had to get him to the hospital.
She barely waited for the bodyguards to settle Jeffrey in her car before she sped off, the world outside a blur.
