Chapter 1
Liam’s hands shook as he stood, but he chalked it up to exhaustion. The board room was full, every seat taken, some faces as familiar to him as his own family, and some brand new. Since his dad had died nine months ago, Liam had tried to visit every Pets and More location and meet individually with the board members. He’d had no idea how much his dad had handled. Sixty-to-seventy hour workweeks had become Liam’s norm. Leaving him precious little time for anything else … including sleep.
“What we have here are next year’s projected numbers,” he stated, casting the presentation slide to the large television at the head of the table. A camera on a tripod across the room recorded and streamed this meeting for the board members who hadn’t been able to make it in person. “We do plan to see a minor decrease in sales as more of our competitor’s Pets! Pets! Pets! stores open up across the nation.”
The shaking in his hands turned into a buzzing in his ears. He grabbed his water bottle to take a long drink from it. Tonight, he had to get more sleep—after he finished writing up this report. And going through manager applications for the store in Albuquerque, which had been causing him problems all year. Normally that was something he delegated, but as this would be their fourth manager in a year, he wanted to take it on himself and see if they could save the store. As he looked around at the board, their faces blurred. He blinked and they came into focus once again.
“That said, Xander and I, as well as our CFO Felicia Dillon, believe that our business models are different enough that after an initial drop in sales, we’ll recover.” He looked at every board member, making eye contact with each of them, stopping momentarily on Felicia, who nodded in agreement. She’d been a lifesaver this last year. Competent and smart, she’d been working with the company since before Liam had graduated from college, and Liam had learned a lot working under her tutelage.
His gaze rested finally on Xander, his younger brother, who had only come to this meeting to officially present Liam as CEO. It was a long time coming and everyone was expecting it, but for some reason, Liam’s chest felt tight. He let out a dry, short cough and took another drink of water.
Xander’s eyebrows shifted inward in concern, but Liam shook his head quickly. He was fine. Maybe he needed to sit for a minute though. His fingertips suddenly turned cold, while his veins felt like they were pulsing with molten lava. He swallowed. “Xander.” He motioned for his brother to take over.
Xander stood and the attention of the board swiveled toward him. “As you know, our father died in February, and it was his wish that Liam take over the company, but the board bylaws do require an official vote. Liam has been working in the capacity of CEO since before our father died, not only keeping the company on-track, but also overseeing the opening of three stores and the ground-breaking of two. Statisticians predicted our sales numbers would drop after our father’s death, but instead, they held steady and even rose slightly despite the announcement of the new Pets!Pets!Pets! franchise.”
While Xander continued to highlight Liam’s accomplishments, Liam could hardly hear him through the ringing in his ears and the distinct feeling that something had clamped onto his chest, squeezing him so tightly he could hardly get in a breath.
His brother’s words became a drone in the background as he struggled to get air through the tiny stir-straw that had become his windpipe. He gripped the edge of the table, blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. Distantly, he saw hands rise, and he caught Felicia’s worried stare.
I’m okay, he wanted to say, but instead he inhaled in a long, loud gasp. He tried to breathe again, with the same result. He couldn’t get any air in. He couldn’t breathe. Panic squeezed his chest even tighter. Xander rushed around the room to his side, his every movement a blur of slow motion. Felicia also left her seat and came toward him, yelling something to someone else.
Everything receded while Liam focused breathing through a throat getting progressively smaller and smaller.
“Is he having an allergic reaction?” Xander asked as the edges of the room started to turn black. Liam went to sit, but his chair wasn’t where he expected and he fell to the ground. There he curled his fingers into the tightly woven carpet, his body slick with cold sweat.
“Does he have asthma?” Felicia asked, kneeling beside him, her comforting hand on his forehead.
I don’t, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t get the words out past his struggled breathing, past the panic squeezing him, past the knowledge that if he didn’t get more air, he was going to die.
“Is an ambulance coming?” Xander shouted, sounding nearly as panicked as Liam felt, but Liam never heard the answer before his body gave in to the suffocation and encroaching darkness.
✽✽✽
Felicia and Xander stood by Liam’s hospital bed, frowning. He’d been hooked up to an IV and was feeling more relaxed and at ease than he had in ages. Perhaps it was the medication the doctors had given him when he’d arrived by ambulance. Something that relaxed every limb and sent him into a deep, dreamless sleep.
“What time is it?” he asked with a scratchy voice. Xander handed him a plastic cup of ice water, and he swallowed it down, reveling in the cold feeling against his throat.
“Nearly seven o’clock,” Xander said. “You’ve been asleep for about six hours.”
“Whatever they gave me knocked me out.” As if to punctuate his exhaustion, he yawned long and loud. It felt so good to have his lungs full of oxygen that he almost hoped he’d yawn again. After a series of tests right after he’d arrived, he’d fallen asleep before the doctor could tell him what was going on with him.
He was still wearing his suit from earlier, though his coat was tossed over the back of a chair in the corner, along with his tie and belt, and the first few buttons of his shirt had been loosened. There was a light rap on the door, and it opened to a man wearing a white doctor’s coat over a checkered button-up shirt and dark brown slacks, a stethoscope slung around his neck. Liam scanned his memory for the doctor’s name. Dr. Wright.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Wright asked. Xander and Felicia moved away from the bed to let Dr. Wright come closer.
“Good,” Liam said. “Did the test results come back with anything?”
“Your heart is good,” the doctor told him, “and your lungs are strong.” He glanced at his tablet, clicking through a few pages. “You need to get more sleep, your blood sugar was low, and you were dehydrated, so we’ve hooked you up with some fluids and electrolytes. Once the bag is empty, you are free to leave, but you need to take it easy.”
“What happened?” Xander asked. “It was like he couldn’t breathe.”
Liam took a closer look at his brother, who looked as ragged as Liam had felt earlier. He tried to imagine what it would be like to see his brother collapse like that, but he couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Xander was all he had.
When the doctor hesitated, Liam shifted nervously in his bed. He’d given the doctor permission earlier, when he’d first arrived, to share his medical details with Felicia and Xander, so he knew that wasn’t why the doctor was hesitating.
“It was a panic attack,” he finally said.