"She hit me..."
Stan turned and glared at me, fury blazing in his eyes.
"Jade, you have a death wish."
He strode over and backhanded me across the face.
I had no strength left. The blow knocked me onto the bed, and blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. All I could hear was a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
"Touch her again, and I'll end you."
I wiped the blood from my lips and lifted my face, laughing.
"Go ahead. Kill me now."
Stan seized my chin in a crushing grip.
"Kill you? That would be letting you off too easy."
"Annette's kidneys are failing. Your tissue was a perfect match."
"Next month, you're going into surgery."
My mind went blank. He was going to cut a kidney out of me while I was still breathing.
"I won't do it!"
"This is a crime!"
Stan's lip curled.
"In this house, I am the law."
The days that followed were a living prison.
Every day they forced needles into my arms, pumping me full of nutritional supplements to keep my organs in peak condition. I tried to escape, but the villa was surrounded by bodyguards. I couldn't even get past the front gate.
Despair swallowed me whole.
Then one day, a maid forgot to lock my door.
I slipped out and crept downstairs to the landline, dialing 911 with shaking hands.
"Hello, I need help. I'm being held against my will. They're planning to harvest my organs—"
The line went dead. Someone had ripped the cord from the wall.
Stan stood behind me, his face dark as a storm.
"Jade. You never learn."
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me all the way back to my room, hurling me onto the bed.
"Since you're so desperate to run, we'll do the surgery today."
He called in the bodyguards. They strapped me to a gurney.
The surgical light was blinding. I thrashed against the restraints until the straps carved raw, bleeding lines into my wrists.
"Stan Delgado, you'll rot in hell for this!"
"Let me go!"
Stan stood beside the operating table, his expression empty.
"Jade, this is what you owe Annette."
He turned to leave. The moment he did, a violent cramp tore through my abdomen.
"It hurts..."
"God, it hurts..."
The doctor rushed over to examine me. The color drained from his face.
"Mr. Delgado, she... she's pregnant!"
"There are signs of a threatened miscarriage. If we proceed with the kidney extraction now, both the mother and the baby could die."
Stan froze mid-step.
He turned slowly and stared at my flat stomach.
"What did you just say?"
The doctor's voice trembled. "She's almost two months along."
Two months. That lined up exactly with the night we signed our marriage certificate. The night he forced himself on me.
The pain was dragging me under, but I clung to the sheets with white-knuckled fists.
"Stan..."
"Please... save the baby..."
This was my flesh and blood. No matter how much I despised Stan, I couldn't let my child die.
Stan's expression shifted, unreadable, warring with itself.
The doors swung open and a nurse wheeled Annette in.
Her face was ashen, her voice a pitiful whimper.
"Stan, I feel so awful..."
"The doctors said my kidneys are already shutting down. If I don't get the surgery soon, I won't make it through the night..."
In my past life, he'd ignored me while I hemorrhaged during a difficult labor. Now, with two lives hanging in the balance, he walked toward Annette all the same.
Stan's voice was ice.
"It's just a bastard. Losing it changes nothing."
"Prep the kidney transplant. Save Annette first."
My whole body shook. He wouldn't even spare his own child.
"Stan Delgado! You'll pay for this!"
The scream ripped from my throat, tears and cold sweat streaming down my face.
Then the explosion hit.
