All Chapters of He Took My Liver, Now He Wants Me Back: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

I signed the discharge-against-medical-advice paperwork alone.I paid the hospital bill with my own bank card.I pressed one hand against my right side. The incision beneath the gauze was still seeping blood. Every step felt like the freshly sutured muscle was being torn open again.The nurse at St. John's Private Medical Center chased me to the elevator, urging me to stay at least another forty-eight hours for observation. I didn't look back. I just handed her the risk-acknowledgment form I'd already signed.When the elevator doors opened, Adrian's executive assistant, Matthew Reed, hurried over, carrying a bouquet of white roses and an expensive get-well basket."Mrs. Bennett, these are from Mr. Grant."He held the basket out to me, his tone careful yet carrying the practiced confidence of a man used to handling problems on his boss's behalf."Miss Moore has developed acute rejection after the transplant, so Mr. Grant can't leave her side right now. It's pouring outside. He said once

Chapter 2

The heart monitor beeped through the night.When I woke again, there was a transfusion line in my arm, and my abdominal wound had been treated again to stop the bleeding.The attending doctor handed the test results to Leon, his expression grave. "Acute postoperative liver insufficiency, compounded by a ruptured wound and hypothermia. A few more hours and she might not have made it to the operating room."Leon signed the financial-responsibility forms and waited until the doctor left before pulling a chair to my bedside.He didn't ask me why I had agreed to donate my liver to Celia. Instead, he placed a stack of architectural drawings in front of me.It was the cultural center project that had won Grant Architecture the National Architecture Award the year before.Adrian's name was printed on the cover.Leon flipped to one of the hand-drawn sketches and traced the daylight study through the atrium, then tapped the detail preserving the original walls."I saw the original drafts at the

Chapter 3

Adrian bent down and picked up the emergency report.The blood on the paper had long dried, but the edges were still stiff from the soaking."That's impossible."He stared at the diagnosis on the report, his voice still straining to hold steady."The transplant team told me that a healthy adult can regenerate after donating the right liver lobe. Elena can't die from this."Leon looked at him. "The doctors were talking about full monitoring, no postoperative hemorrhaging, and no severe emotional stress."Adrian's fingers began to tremble."She's terrified of pain. Even as a kid, a little cut on her finger meant I had to comfort her for ages. There's no way she left on her own."By the end, it sounded like he was trying to convince himself."She's putting on an act for me. She wants me to regret not going to pick her up."Leon didn't explain further. He simply said, "The coast guard will be contacting you soon."Adrian's head snapped up.After leaving the firm, he pulled every road recor

Chapter 4

Grant Architecture's tenth-anniversary gala was held in an arts center converted from the old General Post Office.Beneath the glass dome stood architects, real estate investors, city planning officials, and magazine journalists.Celia wore a silver-gray gown, deliberately staying close to Adrian's side."Everyone is watching us," she said softly. "I love the dress you had Matthew send over. If Elena were still here and saw how well the firm is doing, she'd be so proud of you."Adrian held his glass and shifted half a step away from her.Three years had taken their toll. He was much thinner, and the gentle composure that once defined his features had given way to something darker.A thin black leather cord circled his left wrist, with the charred remnant of the necklace dangling from it.Celia reached out to touch it. He shook her off coldly."Don't touch it.""I was just worried about you drinking on an empty stomach.""You have no right to mention her name, and you don't get to care

Chapter 5

Adrian quickly collected himself and caught up to me."Elena, stop punishing yourself like this."His voice was so gentle it almost cracked, the same tender act he had always performed so well."You can hate me or take revenge on me, whatever you want. But don't throw yourself at Leon just to make me jealous. Come home with me. We can start over."He hadn't even asked what I'd been through these past three years.He simply assumed that every change in me still revolved around him.I gave a soft laugh and tightened my hold on Leon's arm."Mr. Grant, if your mental health is suffering, see a doctor. Mistaking a stranger for your dead wife isn't romantic."Leon stepped in front of me."Adrian, stop creeping out my fiancee."Now she'll have to wash her hands again when we get home because you touched her."Suppressed laughter rippled through the crowd.Adrian's jaw clenched, but he didn't argue. He had his seat moved so he was directly across from me, ate nothing all evening, and watched m

Chapter 6

Adrian recoiled as if he'd been struck. His lips moved several times before any sound came out."My blood type and markers weren't compatible. There was nothing I could do.""Nothing you could do?"I smiled."So your kindness amounted to pushing your wife into the operating room, using sixty percent of her liver to fulfill your promise, and calling all the risks 'manageable'?""I didn't know there would be complications.""You knew."I looked at him and stripped away his last excuse, one word at a time."The independent evaluation physician called you three times and told you not to pressure me. You had Matthew answer for you and tell them I was determined to go through with it. The night before surgery, I had a high fever, and you still told me Celia couldn't wait."You never once seriously asked me if I was scared, and you never considered what would happen if I died."Adrian's face went ashen. "Elena...""Don't call me that."I drove my knee hard into his abdomen.He let out a choke

Chapter 7

After the conference, Adrian conducted his first real investigation into the transplant surgery from three years earlier.He didn't send Matthew to make private inquiries. Instead, he hired an attorney to seek a court order preserving the evidence and filed a formal complaint with the hospital's ethics committee.When the sealed medical records were retrieved, the truth was uglier than he could have imagined.Celia's acute liver failure was not an unforeseeable illness.She had long been misusing a weight-loss drug known to damage the liver. Even after symptoms appeared, she deliberately concealed them until her condition deteriorated to the point where a transplant was the only option.More critically, in the week before the surgery, the organ-allocation system had produced two suitable deceased-donor liver matches for her.She had bribed the transplant coordinator, used "infection risk" and "family refusal" as pretexts to reject both matches, and destroyed some of the communications.

Chapter 8

When Adrian arrived at the apartment where Celia was staying, she had just been released on bail pending trial.She was wearing an ankle monitor and still living in the upscale residence funded by the Grant family trust.Celia clutched her abdomen as she rushed toward him. "The hospital says my anti-rejection treatment needs to be reassessed. The money for my legal fees and bail has been frozen. Have Matthew—"Adrian threw the investigation report down in front of her."You had other liver options all along."Celia went pale."I don't know what you're talking about.""You bribed the coordinator and deleted the records of two matches."Adrian advanced on her step by step. There was no trace of the old sympathy in his eyes, only a bleak emptiness."You used her body to prove to yourself that I'd choose you."Celia backed up against the wall and burst into tears. "But she was the one who signed in the end. She agreed to it. And so did you, didn't you?"That sentence was a blade, driven pr

Chapter 9

The metal blade clattered to the floor.Adrian's hand hung in the air.He stared at me, his chest heaving from the blood loss."Say something. Yell at me. Anything."His voice bubbled with blood, so broken it was barely audible."You can hate me. You can stab me again. Just don't look at me like that. Are you really not going to give me any chance at all?"I stood a few steps away from him."Mr. Grant, don't use self-harm to hold me hostage."I spoke in the same gentle tone he had used so often three years earlier:"I didn't ask you to stab yourself."Adrian's body jolted violently."You're a grown man. Why are you still throwing a tantrum like this?"I gave his words back to him, the very ones he had spoken to me over the phone in the rainstorm, word for word."If you want to hurt yourself, that's your choice. Don't make a mess at my engagement party."I tilted my head slightly, glancing at the spreading bloodstain on the carpet."You know I'm afraid of blood."The last trace of light

Chapter 10

Six months later.Winter rain drummed against the single-pane windows of a cheap apartment in Queens.Celia was curled on the concrete floor, both hands pressed hard against her right side.After being charged with medical fraud, bribery, and aggravated assault, she had cut off her ankle monitor to dodge the next hearing and hidden in this apartment, rented with cash.Without proper follow-up care, she was barely getting by on what was left of her anti-rejection medication.The medication had run out three days ago.Her phone screen was cracked, the contact list still frozen on Adrian's number.She dialed it again and again.All she got was the automated disconnection message."Adrian... save me."Pain radiated from the transplanted liver, spreading through her entire body. She crawled toward the door, hoping to beg a neighbor to call an ambulance, but she couldn't even reach the lock.Rain blew in through the damaged window frame.Three years earlier, right after my donation, I had be

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