Page 115 of Forged in Deception

Certainly not at Senera Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Bajwa was currently out on bail while the police investigated the legitimate allegations she and Axel had made against him, but several ofthe company’s executives and members of upper management were still in custody.

It was going to be a long haul, but Karlin had already spoken to the prosecution team, and they had assured her that so long as she was willing to help them bring Senera to justice, she would not face any charges related to her own conduct. Including in the now reopened case of Amira Gorsky’s suicide.

But those assurances did little to calm her fears.

It was still very possible that her career in medical research could be over for good.

“Dr. Erica Cliett,” the woman said, giving them both a tight smile. “Please, follow me.”

Karlin forced her body forward, not wanting to let the woman see how anxious she was. Dr. Cliett was talking, but she struggled to focus on the words.

The memories were suffocating her again, no matter how much she tried to hold them down.

She remembered the pain of performing CPR on John until it felt like she couldn’t carry on another second. She remembered all of those nights sleeping in a chair in the hospital because their parents had given up on him…and she remembered Cora.

When she’d taken that knife to herself, they had both reacted on autopilot.

Asher had forced Lily back against a wall so she couldn’t run, leaving Karlin to jump in and try to stop the bleeding. When the paramedics finally made it inside, they had taken over, leaving her standing there covered in blood until Asher could safely let Lily go.

It had taken a while.

They’d had to explain everything to the police, and even then, the officers had ended up calling the Forge Brothers Security police liaison in San Antonio, Allie Parker, to confirm Asher was in fact a legitimate private security operator.

And the whole time, Lily had been chanting something unintelligible, probably directed by the demon that she’d allowed to poison her mind.

“Ms. Trejo is stable now,” the doctor was saying, snapping Karlin back to reality, “but it’s going to have to be a quick visit. We have to run some labs on her in the next little bit, okay?”

Karlin nodded numbly, noticing the local police officer who had been posted outside of the door to Cora’s ICU room, standing guard.

“Thank you doctor, officer,” Asher said, nodding to them both in turn. “We won’t be long.”

Offering another quick smile, Dr. Cliett jabbed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and strode off down the hall.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Karlin nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Ready or not, she was going into that room.

It was all Karlin could do to suppress a gasp when she entered the room and saw Cora stretched out on the bed.

She looked like a shadow of the woman she had been.

Her formerly shining brown waves looked dry and dull, and her tanned skin was ashen. Worst of all were her eyes, which were pressed firmly shut.

Her attempt at ritual suicide had almost been successful.

She’d managed to get the knife to strike her heart, but her aim had been off just enough to avoid immediate death. Still, she’d caused catastrophic blood loss and other internal damage, and her medical team had opted to place her in an induced coma in an attempt to promote healing.

They were hopeful that she would retain relatively normal brain function when she woke up, but Karlin knew better than anyone that these things were impossible to guarantee one way or another.

She drew in a deep breath, frozen in the doorway as Asher gave her hand a squeeze.

She’d thought she was prepared for how bad Cora’s condition was, but seeing it in person and hearing it secondhand were two very different things.

“If you need to go, I promise, it’s okay,” he said gently. “We can do this another time.”

“No. I want to stay with you,” she said, refusing to allow herself to hesitate. “But I still don’t really understand why you wanted us to come in the first place.”

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