A Life for the Sister's Cure

I was seven months pregnant, lying on an operating table, and my own husband was the one holding me down.

He believed the umbilical cord blood from our premature baby could save Sonia—the girl my family adopted. So he conspired with a private clinic to cut my child out of me. The moment they had harvested our baby's cord blood, he rushed away—leaving my fragile, premature child to die alone in an incubator.

Later, my parents told me, "Harper, you owe Sonia. It's time you paid her back."

My husband said, "We can always have another one. Is one child's life more important than Sonia's?"

Rage and grief overwhelmed me, and I bled to death on that table. My soul floated above, watching them save Sonia with my child's lifeblood. They didn't even bother to cover my body with a clean sheet.

No one mourned for me. My death caused no one pain.

They pushed me into the morgue without a second thought and threw a party to celebrate Sonia's new lease on life.

When I opened my eyes again, I had traveled three months into the past—to the day my family was pressuring me to sign the divorce papers.

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1

I sat in the opulent dining room, gazing at the faces that were once so familiar. For a disorienting moment, I could almost feel the glare of the surgical lights.

"Harper, please... just sign the divorce papers," my mother pleaded, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "This is Sonia's last chance!"

She sat across from me, clutching Sonia's hand, her gaze branding me a criminal.

My father stood silhouetted against the window, his expression cold as stone.

"You stole Spencer from Sonia the moment you came back," he said. "The stress nearly killed her. You owe her."

I laid a hand on my swelling belly and glanced at Spencer, seated opposite me. "Do you also want to divorce me and marry Sonia?"

He massaged the bridge of his nose, his face a mask of anguish. "Harper, Sonia is gravely ill. I grew up with her; we were supposed to be together. If you hadn't come back—"

"Don't pressure Harper!" Sonia interrupted, her voice trembling. "I know I can't compare to her... I'm not good enough for Spencer..."

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she collapsed into his arms. He held her instinctively.

"Even though Mom and Dad raised me, and I grew up with Spencer, I'm not really part of the family, not by blood—"

"Sonia, don't say that!" my mother cried. "You will always be our daughter."

She dabbed at Sonia's tears, her heart aching for the girl's plight. But when she turned back to me, the tenderness in her eyes curdled into fury. "Harper, you were never truly one of us! How can you be so cruel as to deny your sister's dying wish? You're a cold-hearted monster!"

"This is for Sonia," my father warned, his voice low. "Don't be selfish."

"Sonia, trust me. I'll give you a wedding to remember," Spencer whispered to her before his eyes, hard as flint, met mine. "It's not a real marriage, Harper. It's just a piece of paper to grant a dying wish. How can you be the one to say no?"

I stared at the divorce papers on the table, my hands trembling. In my past life, and now in this one, they always chose Sonia. Because of a nurse's blunder at the hospital, Sonia and I were switched at birth. I was only returned to the Vance family last year.

At first, I believed I had finally found a home, a family that would love me. But from the moment I arrived, I was an intruder. My parents blamed me for stealing Sonia's boyfriend and the life they believed she deserved.

But they were the ones who had scoured the globe to bring me back... and it was Spencer who had once begged me to be his wife.