Chapter 4 The Trap Closes

I had barely managed to hide inside my car when Sylvester's call came right on schedule.

"Not a pleasant feeling, being hated by everyone, is it? Are you ready to admit defeat… my daughter?"

"Shut up!" I cut him off immediately. "Hearing you call me that makes me sick."

"Does it? That's a shame. But whether you admit it or not, I'm still your father." Sylvester laughed, then sighed. "I'm telling you, you'd better agree while you still can. After all, there's another way to save her besides an artificial heart."

"Find someone else then."

I hung up without hesitation and drove home.

However, in my rearview mirror, I saw cars surrounding me from every direction. Less than a minute later, I was forced to a stop.

The door of the black Mercedes in front of me opened, and Sylvester stepped out. He leaned against the car and said, "If you won't listen to reason, I guess I'll have to do this the hard way."

His bodyguards grabbed me from both sides, restrained me, and threw me into his car beside him.

"Who'd have thought, Lucielle? I really didn't want you to die—genuinely. All you had to do was agree. But you refused. Without the artificial heart, we'll have to use your heart to replace your mother's."

I was held down and could do nothing but glare at him with murderous hatred. "My mother died this way ten years ago too, didn't she?"

Sylvester lit a cigar, took a drag, and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"You're clever, but you're just as stubborn as your mother." He gave me a sidelong glance. "I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn't listen. She said she'd promised you a graduation trip. She wanted to keep that promise before giving Ivy her heart. Did she really think I was stupid enough not to see that she was trying to buy time? She wanted to stall until Ivy died so she could stay alive. How could I possibly let her have her way?"

My temper flared instantly. "So, you had her kidnapped that day and forcibly took her heart, just to keep my aunt alive?"

"That's right. I just didn't expect her heart to be as useless as she was. It only lasted ten years." He looked at me, his eyes as cold as if he were staring at a corpse. "Fortunately, once I discovered that she could be used as a heart donor, I persuaded her to have you. Her heart was useless once it failed, but yours could still be used. If you hadn't run away from home ten years ago, I wouldn't have lost my source of replacement hearts, and I wouldn't have needed to consider an artificial heart in the first place."

I stared straight at Sylvester, my eyes burning with hatred. "So, the embezzlement, the online smear campaign, the doxxing… All of it was your setup."

He smiled. "Haven't you already figured that out?"

The car headed toward a private hospital, the very one where Ivy was being treated.

Sylvester dragged me out of the car and looked earnestly into my eyes. "Don't worry. You'll end up just like your mother. You'll sign a voluntary organ donation agreement and give Ivy another chance at life. Whenever people talk about you afterward, they'll say you did it to atone for your sins. Everything will be perfectly legitimate."

I gritted my teeth and shouted my final words at him. "Sylvester Walsh, you'll regret this. You'll pay for everything you've done!"

He looked away and shoved me toward the doctors.

"I'll be waiting."

…

The moment Sylvester's back was turned to me, I finally smiled.

Inside my pocket, my phone screen blinked with the live-streaming indicator. Everything Sylvester had said and done became evidence in that moment, including the truth behind my mother's death ten years ago.

I was finally brought into the operating room, where I saw Ivy lying on the bed.

She was crying as she said to Sylvester, "Thank goodness we found her. We're finally going to be together again."

That was right. Ivy had never been innocent. She was in on it the entire time and even took part in it.

I gave her one last long look.

I was strapped to the operating table, the cold needle of the anesthetic pressing against the back of my hand. Just as they were about to inject the liquid into my skin, I finally heard a commotion outside the operating room.

The people I had been waiting for had arrived.

The operating room doors were kicked open and slammed against the wall with a deafening bang.

"Freeze! Nobody move!"