Chapter 2

The door to the basement opened again.

The heavy hydraulic seal let out a grinding shriek.

Two familiar figures walked in.

My adoptive parents. Arthur and Helena Hargrove.

If Liam was the butcher holding the knife, they were the ones who handed it to him.

In my past life, lying here half-dead, I had imagined them bursting through that door to save me.

After all, I had called them Mom and Dad for twenty-two years.

Even a dog, after twenty-two years, earns some loyalty.

But as it turned out, when blood and money were on the table, twenty-two years of living together didn't amount to a damn thing.

"Liam, how's it going?"

Helena walked in and her gaze slid right past me, locked onto Violet across the room.

Her eyes were full of fear and desperate love. Pure mother's instinct.

Just not for me. It had never been for me.

"Everything's on track." Liam's voice carried no emotion. "As long as the procedure completes tonight, Violet will wake up tomorrow."

"Thank God, thank God!"

Arthur pressed his hands together, tears running down his face. "My baby girl is finally going to be okay."

They crowded around Violet's bed, speaking softly to her, fussing over a woman who hadn't responded to anything in three years.

As for me?

I was a used-up trash bag, discarded a few feet away on a cold metal slab.

"Oh — and, um…"

Helena seemed to suddenly remember there was another person in the room. She glanced back at me, her expression slightly uncomfortable.

"Vivian didn't… suffer, did she?"

Liam glanced at me. "She's under sedation. She can't feel anything."

"Oh, that's a relief. That's good."

Helena patted her chest, wearing the expression of a woman who considered herself compassionate.

"She may not be my biological daughter, but we raised her all these years. It's only right she goes peacefully. We owe her that much, at least."

Owe her that much.

I almost laughed out loud.

You're feeding me alive to your real daughter, and you're framing it as honoring our bond.

That's old money for you. Devour people whole and arrange the bones into something that looks like virtue.

"Enough sentiment." Arthur made a dismissive sound and stepped in front of me, hands clasped behind his back.

He looked down at me — unable to move, unable to speak — with no trace of pity. Only revulsion.

"She took Violet's place and let Violet suffer out there for years. And then she caused the accident that put Violet in that bed. She's owed Violet her life from the start."

"She's only giving back what was never hers."

The accident.

That accident again.

Three years ago, Violet and I were in a car crash together. I walked away with minor injuries. Violet was left in a coma.

Everyone said I had done it out of jealousy. That I had deliberately caused the crash to kill the real daughter.

No security footage. No witnesses.

Only the words Violet had spoken as she lost consciousness: "Why are you trying to kill me?"

That one sentence was my death sentence.

No matter how I explained myself. No matter how I cried and begged. No one believed me.

Not Liam. Not my parents. Not anyone.

I lay there and listened to Arthur list my crimes.

Stealing Violet's doll in elementary school. Stealing her spotlight in middle school. Stealing her man in college.

As if I had ever stolen anything.

The doll was something Violet had thrown away and didn't want anymore.

The grades I earned were mine because I worked for them.

And as for the man —

Liam had never been Violet's to begin with.

Our engagement was arranged by our families before Violet was even found. But the way they told it, I was the thief. The villain. The one who took everything.

"That's enough."

Liam cut Arthur off, something impatient in his voice.

"Please, both of you — go wait outside the marked area. Don't disturb the doctors."

Arthur and Helena nodded and stepped back behind the line.

They watched me. Their eyes were hungry.

Not for me. For what was about to flow out of me — whatever force they believed could pull their precious daughter back to life.

The surgical lights were turned up.

The white glare cut straight into my eyes.

The doctor lifted a scalpel, its edge catching the light, and began moving toward me.

Liam stood to the side, hands behind his back. Cold. Judicial.

"Proceed."

The word barely left his lips.

The doctor nodded. The blade hovered above my chest.

One inch.

Half an inch.

Just as the cold edge was about to touch my skin —

I opened my eyes.

No confusion. No fear.

Just a deep, absolute darkness — the same kind that had settled into every corner of this basement.

I turned my head. I looked at Arthur and Helena, who were bracing themselves to watch the sacrifice.

And I smiled at them. Bright and open and deeply wrong.

"Mom, Dad — so eager to send me off?"