Chapter 4

I yanked my hand back and stared at him in disbelief.

"Are you seriously asking me to give the mistress who ruined my marriage a second chance at life?"

Carter lowered his head, his hair falling across his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I failed you, but Vanessa is still so young. Leo can't afford to lose her. If you'll agree to save her, I'll do anything you want."

A sharp ache shot through my nose. I had never seen Carter lower himself like this, yet now he was willing to beg for Vanessa.

"Get the hell out!" I snapped. "This is her punishment for destroying someone else's marriage!"

His hand flew up and struck my face. The slap rang through the room, leaving my cheek burning. I stared at him in shock, and he froze as though he couldn't believe he'd done it either.

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to."

He reached for my wrist, but I yanked free and struck him over and over. He simply stood there and took it until my strength finally gave out.

"Vanessa isn't the mistress," he muttered, his lips trembling.

He pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and placed a photograph on the hospital bed between us. In the picture was a marriage certificate beside a signed divorce agreement, my own signature clearly visible at the bottom.

"Three years ago, I needed to put Leo under my legal custody and get his birth certificate straightened out, so I divorced you and married Vanessa."

The words hit me like a blow to the chest.

"What did you just say?" I demanded.

"If anyone is the other woman in this situation, it's you," he muttered, too guilty to meet my eyes.

My fingers tightened around the phone as I zoomed in on the photograph again and again, desperately searching for some mistake that would make it impossible. But every detail remained clear.

I slowly sank back against the hospital bed. Tears soaked through the pillow as the hollow laugh that escaped me dissolved into uncontrollable sobs.

"Carter Reynolds, you're going to regret this! One day, you're going to pay for everything you've done!"

With my fingernails digging into my palms until they drew blood, I called out to the system in my mind. "Can I choose how I die?"

Once I received confirmation, I raised my eyes to Carter.

"Fine. I'll donate."

"Audrey, I knew you still loved me." He seized my hand, his eyes already rimmed with red. "Don't worry. This will be the last time we do anything for Vanessa. Once the procedure is over, I'll cut ties with her completely, and it will just be the two of us from then on."

"On one condition," I met his gaze without blinking. "You will publicly admit that you switched our baby at birth, cheated on me, and ruined our marriage. Do that, and I'll save her."

I expected him to hesitate, or perhaps refuse outright.

Instead, he nodded without a second thought. "Done. As long as you save her, I'll agree to anything."

I gritted my teeth and pointed toward the door, telling him to leave. Once he was gone, I spoke to the system.

"I want to die on the operating table during the donation. I want Carter Reynolds to live with the knowledge that his own choices drove me to my death."

...

The night before the procedure, I lay awake listening to the laughter drifting through the wall.

Carter was entertaining Leo in the next room, while Vanessa's laughter rang out between his gentle coaxing and their cheerful conversation.

My parents were there too.

"It's a miracle Audrey is a match," Ida said cheerfully. "Think of this as her repaying what she owes you, Vanessa."

I lowered my eyes to the silver bracelet wrapped around my wrist. It was a small blessing I'd received from a church when I was pregnant with Leo.

Now it meant nothing, so I simply removed it and dropped it into the trash.

Not long afterward, my phone buzzed repeatedly with new notifications. I opened social media and saw that Carter had published the confession he had promised me, cross-posting it to Instagram and X.

[Everything was my fault. I destroyed this family, and I betrayed Audrey...]

Overnight, messages from concerned friends poured in, yet I felt no sense of victory or thrill of revenge—only unbearable numbness.

A knock sounded at the door, and Ida came in carrying a thermos of soup. She placed it on the nightstand and said, "I made you some soup. Drink it while it's warm."

I stared at the woman who had once fought tooth and nail with my teachers whenever she thought I was being treated unfairly, and bitterness rose in my chest.

"Mom, if I don't survive this..." I started.

"Don't talk like that." Ida cut me off sharply. "Stop playing the martyr. You're just looking for an excuse to back out of the donation. You agreed to it, so don't change your mind now."

She sighed before adding, "Fine. After this is over, your dad and I will keep our distance from Vanessa. Is that what you want?"

Soren let out a heavy sigh from the doorway. He said, "Just make things work with Carter from now on."

The system interface flickered before my eyes: [Extraction countdown: 12 hours remaining.]

...

At ten the next morning, the nurses arrived to take me to the operating room.

As they wheeled me down the corridor, Carter walked beside the bed and squeezed my hand. He promised, "When you come out, we'll start over. We'll fix everything."

The surgical lights blared overhead. Staring up at the harsh white glow, I drifted into unconsciousness.

Moments later, chaos erupted.

"Doctor, her blood pressure is crashing! She's suffering a massive hemorrhage!"

"She's going into shock! Start epinephrine! We're losing her!"

...

Their voices faded in and out as I drifted somewhere between consciousness and darkness. Then the system spoke inside my mind, cold and mechanical.

"Extraction sequence initiating in five... four... three... two... one."

The EKG monitor erupted into a continuous flatline. My soul lifted free of my body, drifting upward into a vast, empty darkness.

...

The operating-room doors burst open.

A nurse hurried into the hallway and looked around. She called out frantically, "Family of Audrey Wilkinson?"

Carter rushed forward, asking, "How is she?"

"The patient went into severe hemorrhagic shock and is in critical condition," the nurse said with a grim expression. "We're doing everything we can, but you need to prepare yourselves for the worst."