Operating lights. Cold metal beneath me.
I blinked against the brightness, my limbs stiff, foreign. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Just the beeping machines keeping time beside me.
Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
“Make sure the hysterectomy is clean,” someone said, just out of sight.
Ronnie.
My fiancé.
He sounded... calm. Calculated.
“She must never know,” he added.
Hysterectomy?
Was this happening to me?
I tried to scream, but my throat was dry. My mind scrambled to piece together how I’d ended up here—why Ronnie sounded more like a business executive than a groom standing beside his injured bride.
Then it hit me.
The crash. The road. The dress waiting for me at the chapel. My wedding.
And before that—nothing. Just excitement. Then… darkness.
“She’s already paralyzed on one side,” the doctor replied. “We’ll need to tell her something.”
Ronnie’s answer was icy. “Tell her it was a complication. She won’t question it. She’s not that clever.”
I felt like the world was tilting.
“She can’t have my child,” he added. “That would ruin everything with Margaret.”
Margaret.
The name carved into every scar I didn’t realize I had. His first love. The one who left. The one he never stopped waiting for—even while holding my hand through years of empty promises.
My heart pounded, though my body refused to react.
“I only proposed to Doris because she’s convenient,” Ronnie went on. “Her family’s name, her money. I never planned to stay. Margaret didn’t marry me, but she’s the only one I’ve ever loved.”
Convenient. That was what I’d been reduced to.
I heard another voice join them. “The driver?” Ronnie’s secretary.
“Pay him off,” Ronnie said flatly. “Move him far. I don’t want any leaks. Doris needs to believe this was an unfortunate accident.”
The betrayal clawed through my chest. The crash—he planned it. All of it.
The doctor lowered his voice. “The boy’s three now. Looks like Doris. What if she finds out the truth about Margaret? Or Margaret’s husband?”
Three years? A child?
I wanted to sob. Scream. Shake him. But I couldn’t even lift my hand. My entire life had been a lie. While I clung to a fantasy, Ronnie lived a double life—with a family of his own. A child. A woman who wanted me gone. And now… a fake surgery to steal my future.
He was taking everything.
And somehow, this was also about my brother?
What had he done that Ronnie would do this to me?
I stayed still, feigning unconsciousness. If Ronnie knew I had heard him, it would be over.
The door opened again. A nurse came in, adjusting my IV. She must’ve thought I was still sedated.
With every ounce of will, I parted my lips.
“…Help.”
She gasped, startled.
I forced my eyes open. “Please… my phone. My brother. Don’t tell Ronnie.”
“Why your brother?” she whispered, confused.
“He’ll know. He’ll stop them. Just… I’ll do anything. Just stop the surgery.”
Her lips parted to speak, but she nodded instead. “I’ll try.”
And then—just like before—darkness began to close in again.
This time, I wasn’t afraid of it.
I was afraid of waking up and realizing no one made it in time.
