However, I reacted like a cornered animal; hair bristling, nerves tight, I rolled off the bed in a panic.
“Get out! Get out!” I snatched the water cup from the bedside table, hurled it to the floor and pressed a jagged piece of glass to my neck. “Come any closer and I’ll end it. I swear I will!”
Jaylene's expression darkened with irritation.
Stefan’s face drained of color, his eyes wide with panic. “Nadine, please! Don’t do anything rash!”
I stared at him, heart breaking, tears streaming down my face. “You know how scared I am. You know! Ten years ago, you were the one who saved me from that operating table. How could you... how could you send me back?”
I couldn’t form a coherent thought anymore. My voice shook. My chest ached.
The fear clawed up my throat, memories flooding in like a dam had burst.
In his trembling eyes, I saw her again, that helpless eighteen-year-old girl, bound to a hospital bed.
I never want to go through that kind of horror again…
In truth, I only had one heart. The second was a fake, a heart-shaped foreign object my father had someone implant inside me.
Before the company collapsed, he already knew there was no saving it. So he found another way.
He had something shaped like a heart implanted in my chest, just to make it look like I had two hearts on the scan.
No matter how badly my body reacted, no matter how sick or feverish I became from the rejection, he didn’t care.
He just spent millions on rare drugs to keep me alive, because the lie needed to hold. He told the world I was born with two hearts and set my price at ten million.
Just like that, I became a product, wheeled into the operating room like an object on display.
That day, I cried out to the heavens, but no one answered. I was strapped to the table, completely helpless.
The knife had already broken skin. Greedy eyes surrounded me, watching without a flicker of sympathy, no matter how much I screamed or pleaded.
Then Stefan burst through the doors. He ran to me, threw his coat over my body and used every connection, every ounce of power, to shield me.
To me, in that moment, he was a god, my savior, the hand that pulled me from the edge.
For ten years, he gave up his overseas business to stay by my side.
But I never imagined that a decade later, he would be the one to shove me back into the same nightmare.
He knew how terrified I was of hospitals, how I avoided them even when I was sick.
But he still brought me here for her.
I broke down, shattered. The glass in my hand sliced my neck and blood streamed down.
Stefan’s face twisted in horror. He shoved Jaylene away and rushed over, gripping my wrist.
His voice was hoarse with fury. “Nadine, you’ve gone too far!”
I clutched the glass shards, refusing to let go, ready to die at any moment. "Stefan, I know what you're trying to do. I heard everything you said to your friend that day."
His expression froze. He held my hand, tightening his grip without realizing it.
Fear and anxiety surged in me, I was about to tell him the truth: that I only had one heart.
But then he spoke, his voice low and bitter. "I was wrong, Nadine. Let’s go home."
Sunlight spilled through the window. My heart raced as I stared at him in disbelief. Behind him, Jaylene stood motionless, her eyes filled with resentment.
Then, suddenly, I felt weightless. He lifted me into his arms and carried me out of the ward.
The whole way, I buried my face against his chest, just like that day. I wore his coat and held onto him tightly, arms wrapped around his waist.
