Chapter 1

"Go ahead."

Liam stood by the operating table, his thin lips parting to utter those two words.

His gaze was tender as the spring breeze, as if the blood-stained wedding dress I wore was a bridal gown for a wedding night, not a burial shroud.

I opened my eyes and looked at the foster parents behind him—they were gathered around Violet's hospital bed, faces full of affection, not even sparing me a glance.

"Mr. Liam," I smiled, shaking the vial in my hand, "this poison—did you prepare it for me, or should I give it to Violet?"

The scalpel froze in mid-air. The doctor turned to stone. Liam's pupils contracted sharply.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Nothing much." I reached into the folds of my wedding dress and pulled out my phone, pressing play—

From the speaker came Violet's icy voice: "Vivian, as long as you die in that car accident, Liam will be mine and mine alone."

When Liam handed me that glass of wine, his eyes were soft enough to drown me in.

Our wedding night. The room warm and intimate.

In my past life, I would have blushed and thought this was the beginning of something beautiful.

But now, all I felt was my stomach turning inside out.

"Vivian," he murmured, "once we drink this together, we'll truly be husband and wife."

His voice was low and smooth, fingers tracing the rim of the glass, knuckles faintly white from the grip.

He was nervous.

The man who ran the entire Hargrove Group — nervous, on a night that was supposed to be something else entirely.

I took the glass from him. Through the amber liquid, I studied that impossibly handsome face.

God, he really was beautiful.

Too bad it was just a mask.

"Alright," I said.

I tilted my head back and drank it all in one go.

The liquor burned down my throat, carrying a faint, almost imperceptible bitterness — like crushed almonds.

Liam watched my throat move as I swallowed. His own throat shifted. Something close to frantic relief flickered in his eyes.

He thought it was almost over.

What he didn't know was that it was only just beginning.

The drug worked fast.

Not even three minutes later, the glass slipped from my fingers and hit the thick carpet with a dull thud. My body went boneless and I fell backward.

Liam caught me before I hit the ground. Reflexes like a predator.

No panic. No calls for help.

He simply gathered me up in his arms, his movements gentle — but carrying the stillness of something already dead.

I lay limp against his chest. My eyelids were heavy, but my mind was terrifyingly clear.

This is exactly how it happened last time. This is how he carried me into hell.

He told me it was for love.

For his "true love" — the woman who had spent three years lying in a hospital bed, brain-dead. My sister, Violet.

He needed my heart as the key. My life in exchange for hers.

"Don't be afraid, Vivian."

He carried me through the lavish bridal suite, walking straight past the bed scattered with rose petals, heading directly to the walk-in closet.

A faint mechanical hum, and the wall behind the full-length mirror slid open, revealing a narrow staircase descending into cold darkness.

Frigid air rushed up to meet us, carrying the smell of antiseptic and something rotting underneath.

"It won't hurt for long."

He whispered it against my ear, the way you'd soothe a child throwing a tantrum.

"Violet has waited too long. She can't wait anymore."

Listen to that. How devoted.

Willing to deliver his new bride to the altar on their wedding night, all for the sake of the woman he actually loved.

I lay there with my eyes shut, and in the dark, the corner of my mouth curled into something sharp.

Liam, you planned everything so carefully. You only missed one thing.

I came back too.

And I didn't crawl back from hell to forgive anyone.

The staircase was long, as if it led somewhere without a bottom. Liam's footsteps echoed through the hollow corridor, each one landing somewhere tender inside me.

Only this time, it wasn't my heart fluttering. It was something closer to a slow, deliberate cut.

Finally, light.

Not warm light. The cold, flat white of surgical lamps.

I was laid flat on a metal table.

The chill seeped through my thin wedding dress and settled in my bones, raising goosebumps across my skin.

But I couldn't move.

Not yet. For now, I still had to play the lamb.

"Mr. Hargrove, the equipment's calibrated."

A man in a white coat approached, his voice as flat as a readout. "Ms. Violet's vitals are stable. Conditions are ideal for… extraction."

Extraction.

Such a clean word for it.

What it actually meant was cutting out my heart while I was still alive and draining me dry.

Liam stood over me, looking down. His hand came up to brush my cheek, and his fingertips were ice cold.

"Don't blame me, Vivian."

"You had twenty-two years of the life that was meant for Violet. You enjoyed everything that should have been hers. Now it's time to pay it back."

Pay it back?

I laughed internally.

The Hargrove family didn't take me in out of charity. They took me in because Violet had been sick since childhood and needed someone on standby — a living spare parts kit, available whenever she needed blood or an organ.

They gave me a comfortable life. They also took my dignity and my freedom.

Now they wanted my life too.

"Begin," Liam said.

He turned away from me and looked toward the sterile bed in the corner, surrounded by a constellation of machines.

A woman lay there.

Violet.

The woman everyone adored, who had a heart full of poison.

She slept peacefully. Like an angel.

If you didn't look too closely at the small mole beneath her eye — the one that had grown sharper and more cruel with years of jealousy.

I felt the cold needle slide into my vein.

My blood began to leave me. My body grew colder by degrees.

Liam, since you want so badly to save her.

Let me give you both a gift.