Chapter 1

The antiseptic burned my nose when I woke for the third time.

Dr. Brown stood at the foot of my bed, face set in stone. “Miss Smith, the dialysis is failing. Without a transplant, you don’t have much time.”

“How much?” My voice cracked.

He hesitated, the kind of silence that tastes like metal. “Three days. Maybe shorter.”

I nodded, numb, and reached for my phone. I called Henry Colombo once. Twice. Three times. Voicemail.

A notification lit my screen. Instagram.

Susan’s story blinked up at me: two hands intertwined, her glossy nails resting on the watch I’d given Henry for his birthday. The caption read:

After years of waiting, my dream finally came true.

My chest twisted. My thumb slipped. I double-tapped. Liked.

Almost instantly, my phone buzzed.

“Olivia—listen,” Henry’s voice was raw. “It’s not what you think. She said if I stay with her for a month, she’ll donate. I’m doing this to save you. Just… hold on.”

Everyone knew our story.

Henry Colombo—the heir to one of the city’s most feared Mafia syndicates, a man who ruled with blood and iron—had once been gentle only with me.

He remembered the smallest cravings, drove across states for my favorite sweets, knelt beneath fireworks on my twentieth birthday and whispered, “After you graduate, you’ll be my wife.”

They all said Henry adored me beyond reason.

Until my kidneys failed.

He tore through favors and money like he was burning a city to the ground. He leaned on hospital directors, bribed coordinators, even tapped the kind of brokers you only call at midnight. When he finally found a match—Susan Miller—he wired half a million up front. She smiled and said yes.

Then came the delays.

First, a convenient fainting spell—low blood sugar. He sat by her bed for three days while I lay under fluorescent lights, a needle in my arm.

Then pre-op nightmares. He booked a therapist and held her hand until morning.

Then a sudden fever. He left me mid-dialysis to cool her forehead with towels.

When he pressed for a surgery date, she added stipulations: a private suite, a celebrity surgeon, no press, a diamond pendant “for luck.” She took the pendant. She canceled again.

In the end, she named her last price: “Be my boyfriend for a month—publicly. After that, I’ll donate.”

I vehemently rejected the proposal, but to my surprise, Henry agreed; so now she's showing off.

She posted our “trial love” to Instagram before the ink on their agreement was even dry.

It wasn’t charity. It was conquest. I wasn’t a patient to be saved. I was the audience to her victory.

“Cancel any pre-op on my side,” I said. “I won’t beg again.”

Her goal was never to save me. It was to see me break.

And I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. Not anymore.

At sunset, I returned to the penthouse and found the truth waiting in plain sight.

Susan was curled against him on the leather sofa, feeding him fruit like she’d always lived there.

“Olivia!” Henry shot to his feet, desperation flashing through the guilt. “This is for you—everything I’m doing is for you.”

He pressed a velvet box into my hands. “Take it. Accept it. Then let me keep going. Just for a while.”

I didn’t open it. “No need. I’ve already agreed.”

His breath caught. “You… have?”

Susan rose, looping her arm through mine with sugar-sweet intimacy. “Then let’s enjoy this month, the three of us. If you see me close to Henry, don’t be jealous. It means nothing.”

“I won’t be jealous.” My voice didn’t waver.

Whether she really wanted to donate a kidney to me or not, it doesn't matter anymore; I'll die in less than three days.