Chapter 2

Then she started pumping my chest, shocking me.

I could feel her hands pressing down on my ribs, hear her ragged breath above me, feel the sweat dripping from her face onto my skin. Almost like she actually cared.

Then, air was back into my lungs. I was shivering and alive again.

And there was screaming. Her screaming.

"Are you insane? Are you seriously that pathetic? You'd really throw your whole life away for a womb that doesn't even work?"

I stared at her, the pain in my chest was tearing through.

"Is that all I lost, Mom?" I rasped. "Just my womb?"

The room went tomb-quiet.

Then the door exploded open—

Julian burst in and dropped to his knees by the bed—then slapped himself, hard, across the face.

"I'm sorry, El. It's my fault. I didn't protect you when that car came out of nowhere... you were hurt so bad, your heart just... it couldn't take the trauma."

He was crying now, crawling to the edge of the bed to grab my hand.

"The driver is gone. I handled it. I promise, I'll spend the rest of my life making this up to you. Your mom is the best doctor in the world. She'll fix you."

My father leaned in, stroking my hair like I was some prized poodle.

"He's right, baby. Dominic is already working on a new treatment just for you. You're still our princess. You're a Moretti."

I looked at this pack of Oscar-winning liars and felt a chill settle into my marrow.

In just two sentences, they'd turned Sienna's attempted murder and their organ theft into a tragic accident.

I let out a sharp, dry laugh.

"Where's Sienna? I saw her face behind the wheel. I want to ask her why she did it."

A beat of dead silence. Just the IV dripping. Steady. Relentless.

Mom's face hardened.

"Are you insane? Sienna was with me at the club—she collapsed the second she heard. If a heart donor hadn't shown up right when it happened, we'd have lost her."

I laughed. A small, hollow sound.

She flinched. Turned her head away. Her voice trailed off. "I'll let this slide. Once. I'll put it down to trauma—to shock. But don't you ever talk about your sister like that again."

There it was. The same old move. Shut me up before I get too close.

Not this time.

"What a coincidence. " I looked at her. "My heart was damaged—and she gets a healthy heart at the exact same time."

Silence.

The dead silence in that VIP suite was so heavy it was hard to breathe.

Just then, a nurse stepped in. "Don Moretti. La principessa is awake. She wants to see all of you."

Silence, again. None of them moved.

But I knew exactly how this would end.

Three... Two...

I started counting — the same way I always did.

Then they scurried out like rats.

Only Julian stayed. He looked at me with that nauseating guilt.

"Go to her, Julian," I said, voice flat. "Then come back and tell me how her new heart is beating."

"Fine. "He didn't even argue. He turned and walked out.

Click.

The door closed. The room fell back into that cold, dead silence. Empty. Just me.

I pulled out the phone I'd hidden under the mattress.

Before I went under the knife, I'd used a System Wish to secure two video.

Videos of them planning how to sacrifice me.

I hit play.

I watched, in that dark office, as Julian calmly signed the donation consent form. "It's all for Sienna. Elena would want this."

"She doesn't need to understand. "My brother chimed in. "I'll cook up a cocktail. Then Elana won't feel a thing, and she'll never know about her damaged heart."

"Good. "My dad nodded, slow and deliberate. "The transplant is scheduled for tomorrow. I'll have the legal team ready—death certificate, cremation, the works. By the time anyone asks, Elena Moretti never existed."

Then I played the second video.

There it was. My own mother—slicing through my vessels, handing my heart over like a piece of meat—the same hands that held mine when I was a child. For Sienna.

My blood was ice.

And for the first time—I was glad I hadn't died.

If I left now, these bastards would go on living—perfect, bloody, untouched—with my heart as their trophy.

Too easy. I wasn't about to let that happen.