My Husband Tricked Me Into Saving His Mistress

The mahogany walls of Cyrus’s study always felt like they were closing in, but tonight, on the eve of my twenty-fourth birthday, they felt like the interior of a coffin. Cyrus sat behind his massive oak desk, the shadows clinging to his sharp jawline. He looked weary, a calculated exhaustion that pulled at the terrified strings of my heart.

"Renal failure," he said, the words falling like stones into the silence. "The doctors say I don't have much time, Novah. Unless there's a match."

I didn't hesitate. I couldn't. For eight years, this man had been my god. He had plucked me from the freezing grime of a New York alleyway and placed me in a penthouse that touched the clouds. I owed him my life. If he needed an organ to sustain his, it was his by right.

"Take mine," I said, my voice trembling not with fear, but with desperate devotion. "I’m a match. I know I am."

Cyrus studied me, his dark eyes unreadable. He didn't look grateful; he looked like a chess player moving a pawn. "It’s a major surgery, Novah."

"I don't care." I stepped forward, pressing my hands against the cold edge of his desk. "But I have one condition."

His brow arched, a flicker of irritation breaking his mask of frailty. "A condition?"

"Marry me."

The silence stretched, taut as a wire. I needed this. I needed to know that I wasn't just a charity case he’d kept as a pet. I needed the permanence of ink and law. If I was going to cut myself open for him, I wanted to be Novah Parker, not just Novah the Stray.

Cyrus’s lips thinned, but he opened a drawer and slid a document across the wood. A marriage license. Already prepared. "I wanted to secure your future before the surgery anyway," he lied smoothly. "Sign it."

His lawyer, a silent gargoyle in the corner, bore witness as I signed my life away. There were no vows, no rings, just the scratch of a pen and the cold satisfaction in Cyrus’s eyes.

***

The anesthesia wore off in jagged waves of nausea and fire. I woke in a recovery room that smelled of antiseptic and loneliness. My side throbbed with a violence that stole my breath, a hollow ache where a part of me used to be.

"Cyrus?" I croaked, my throat like sandpaper.

The room was empty save for a nurse adjusting a drip. She didn't look at me. "Mr. Parker is recovering in the East Wing. He cannot be disturbed."

"He’s my husband," I whispered, forcing my body to move. The pain tore through my abdomen, white-hot and blinding, but the need to see him was stronger. If he was in pain, I had to be there. I had to hold his hand.

I dragged myself out of the bed, my legs trembling like a newborn foal’s. gripping the cold metal of the IV pole, I shuffled into the hallway. Every step was a battle, the hospital gown clinging to my sweat-dampened skin. The corridor stretched endlessly, sterile and indifferent, but I pushed forward, guided by the terrifying thought that he might be dying while I lay sleeping.

The East Wing was different—plush carpets, soft lighting, the scent of fresh lilies. I found the VIP suite at the end of the hall. The door was slightly ajar.

I reached for the handle, prepared to see Cyrus hooked up to machines, pale and suffering. Instead, I heard laughter.

I froze. It was a rich, throaty sound I recognized—Dr. Harrison Webb, Cyrus’s oldest friend. And beneath it, the low, smooth baritone of Cyrus.

I peered through the crack. The room was bathed in warm light. In the center bed lay a woman with pale skin and golden hair—Laylah Campbell, Cyrus’s "childhood friend." She looked fragile, like porcelain, but her cheeks were flushed with life.

And sitting in the armchair beside her, looking perfectly healthy, was Cyrus. He held her hand with a tenderness he had never shown me in eight years.

"The transplant was flawless," Harrison said, checking the monitors. "The little stray's kidney is functioning perfectly in Laylah. Her levels are already stabilizing."

My breath hitched. The world tilted on its axis. *Laylah?*

Cyrus brought Laylah’s knuckles to his lips. "Thank god. I thought I’d run out of time finding a donor."

"You cut it close," Harrison chuckled. "Especially with her demanding a wedding ring. That was a bold move for a gutter rat."

Cyrus let out a scoff that shattered my heart into dust. "Let her have the fantasy. The certificate is a forgery. It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. I couldn't stomach actually marrying her. Touching her for eight years was difficult enough."

Ice flooded my veins, numbing the physical pain of the surgery. I wasn't a wife. I wasn't a savior. I was livestock.

My grip on the IV pole slipped. I stumbled back, my elbow catching a metal tray on a cart behind me. It crashed to the floor with a sound like a gunshot.

The laughter inside the room died instantly. Cyrus turned his head. Through the gap in the door, his eyes locked onto mine.

There was no guilt. No panic. No regret. He looked at me with the cold, dead indifference of a man looking at a discarded wrapper.

Laylah followed his gaze, a small, cruel smile touching her lips. "Oh look, Cyrus. Your donor is awake."

I didn't wait for him to speak. I turned and ran, the agony in my side nothing compared to the knife he had just buried in my back.