Clara’s Perspective
It was our fifth wedding anniversary. I had told Liam I was traveling for work, but I came home instead, clutching an anniversary gift and a secret I couldn’t wait to tell him.
My husband Liam had always been interested in a collaboration with the Bennett Corporation, so I begged my father—who had insisted I go out and gain experience—for this project. Finally, he secured the deal. I put the document with the Bennett director’s signature into the gift box I had painstakingly prepared.
In my other hand I held a pregnancy test, tightly clenched. Two pink lines. I wanted to tell him good news: he was going to be a father again.
For five years we had been hoping for a child, but I had been pregnant five times and had five miscarriages. Finally, a child of ours was coming.
A brilliant smile on my face, I walked lightly into our house.
The living room was a mess—clothes scattered everywhere, a black dress, the belt I had carefully chosen…
My head spun. I crept up the stairs, my heart pounding.
The master bedroom door was half open. Liam was with my best friend Vanessa.
Vanessa lay on the couch I’d bought, a loose tank top slipping off her arm, her lipstick smudged. One of her legs was thrown over his shoulder, and he knelt between her legs, his shirt rumpled, one hand lifting her red-soled high heel.
I nearly blacked out. My God—what was I seeing?
My best friend… and my husband.
I opened my mouth to scream but the sound was trapped in my throat.
For a long instant I couldn’t move or breathe. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; my reason wanted to deny it, to pretend this was a twisted nightmare.
Because it couldn’t be real.
Vanessa—the woman who had stayed by my side through every bout of morning sickness, who had watched over me every time I miscarried.
And now she was here, panting softly in my husband’s arms.
Betrayal hit me like ice water.
My chest tightened, tears welled in my eyes, and I stared dumbly at the scene.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to rush in, tear her off him.
But my body wouldn’t obey. I stood frozen in the doorway, the gift trembling in my hand.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, Sean’s phone rang.
He frowned, stepped back from Vanessa, and answered, his hand still at her waist.
“Is the surgery scheduled?” he said into the phone. “Seven days from now. I’ll bring Clara to the hospital on time. You only need to make sure Clara’s kidney is given to Vanessa—nothing else to worry about.”
“That doesn’t violate your medical ethics,” the voice said. “The donation agreement bears Clara’s own signature. She’s too foolish—she didn’t even look. The recipient’s name was already changed to Vanessa.”
What? Wasn’t it Liam who was supposed to be sick and need a kidney?
A month ago Liam said he was ill and that only my kidney matched him. He knelt on the floor and cried, begging me to save him. He said he loved me and can't leave me alone in this world like this; he wanted to live to a hundred with me.
With tears all over my face, I signed the kidney donation agreement he handed me.
That kidney was actually for Vanessa?
The call ended.
Vanessa puckered her lips and traced a circle on his chest with her fingertip.
She laughed softly, syrupy: “Liam, you’re ruthless. If Clara found out the truth, would she hate you?”
Liam snorted. “Hate? A woman from the slums—what right has she to hate? I gave up the bone marrow and lives of five children; one of Clara’s kidneys is nothing. You’re the one who matters in my heart.”
Those words—“bone marrow transplant”—stabbed me like a knife. Five children? Bone marrow?
My ears rang, but I forced myself to keep listening.
I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, but Liam’s reply was like poisoned ice: “Those five children shouldn’t have lived. You needed their bone marrow to treat the disease—that was their value. If not for you needing it, how could a woman like Clara ever sleep with me? Clara? She’s just a container.”
My legs went weak; I could barely stand.
The pregnancy test in my hand fell to the floor with a faint sound. They didn’t notice.
My five miscarriages… were they not accidents?
Vanessa had been with me each time I miscarried. She made soup for me, cried with me, told me those children had only temporarily gone back to heaven.
She said, “They’ll always be with us.”
It turned out to be true.
My children… their bone marrow flowed inside her body.
My husband and my best friend were the killers of my five children; those poor children never had a chance to see their mother.
And now they were planning to trick me into giving up my kidney seven days from now.
I braced myself against the wall and stepped backward, tears sliding down silently.
I went back to the bedroom, locked the door, my whole body shaking. My phone vibrated—Vanessa had posted.
A photo of two hands holding, captioned: “Thank you for everything. Soon, we’ll truly be together.”
On that wrist was the watch I’d given Liam for his birthday last year.
I ran to the bathroom and vomited until my body ached.
Seven days from now was the kidney operation I had signed up for.
It was also the day my five-year training period ended, the day I could return home.
I picked up the phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in five years.
“Dad,” I said, “seven days from now my training period ends. Help me prepare the heir banquet and the suitor-selection banquet.”
“Why the sudden change of heart? Didn’t you say you’d go with Liam to the death?” he asked.
“He killed my five children,” I said coldly. “I want him to pay.”
My father’s voice grew serious. “I told you he wasn’t worthy. The heirs of those major families have been waiting five years for you to say that.”
I closed my eyes and let tears fall.
“Tell everyone I’m coming back,” I said.
After I hung up, I took one last look around the place I had called “home.”
Seven days from now the surgery would be canceled, and the marriage would end.
I would make Liam pay for what he had done.
He sacrificed everything of mine to save his lover. Now I would make him watch his world crumble piece by piece.
This was a mother’s vow.
And my father was no ordinary man. He was the real power behind the Bennett conglomerate—the richest man in Asia.
He had always cherished me above all.
