“Xander… how could you do this? Are you really going to trade your son’s life for Anais?”

“What kind of debt is worth that price?”

His movements paused.

He had not expected me to know.

Before the drugs dragged my consciousness into the abyss, he spoke softly.

“I will make it up to you later. Anais does not have much time left.”

In my haze, their voices drifted in and out.

“Why are you so anxious about her? It is just medication to keep her from standing up. The side effects are not unbearable.”

“It was my oversight. She almost entered the operating room today. That could have affected you. Do not worry. I will not let her get close to you again.”

“Xander, thank you for everything. With you here, I can hold on until now.”

At that moment, I finally understood.

My legs had healed long ago.

I had never suffered from delusions.

My child should have woken up long ago.

And he… had already decided to sacrifice both my son and me a year earlier.

When I woke up, the sky was dim and the surgery was long over.

The words I heard before losing consciousness stabbed into my mind again and again like blades. Even the smell of disinfectant carried a rotting, bloody stench.

My tears had dried.

At this moment, there was only one thing I regretted.

Not discovering the truth sooner.

Not seeing Jasper one last time.

Click.

The ward door was pushed open.

Xander walked in wearing casual clothes, holding a thermal lunch container. His movements were cautious and restrained, careful in a way that did not resemble his usual self.

Perhaps out of guilt, he avoided my gaze the entire time.

“Isadora, you are awake,” he said softly. “I made some medicinal soup for you.”

“Do not be too sad. The dead cannot come back to life. Besides… Jasper had agreed to donate his heart.”

I let out a cold laugh.

“Agreed? You told me his brain was damaged and that he would never wake up.”

The spoon in his hand trembled slightly, then quickly steadied.

“He woke up briefly some time ago. I was afraid it would upset you, so I did not tell you.”

“You do not believe me? I have a video of him agreeing to donate.”

Eagerly, he pulled out his phone and played the video without waiting for my response.

In that instant, my heart was nearly torn apart.

A year.

After an entire year, I finally heard Jasper’s voice again.

He sounded weak, but his tone was firm.

“Mom, I agree to donate my heart… as long as Dad…”

Before he could finish, the video was abruptly cut off.

“You saw it yourself,” Xander said expressionlessly. “He did it voluntarily. Rather than suffering, it is better to help someone else.”

He spoke with such confidence, as if he had truly done something noble.

If I had not already known the truth,

if I had not known that Jasper’s coma was something he personally engineered,

I might really have been deceived by him.

Bang.

I swept the thermal container off the table.

The thick soup spilled across the floor. In the scalding liquid, unmistakably, were white granules that had not fully dissolved.

In that moment, my whole body turned cold, as if I had been thrown into an abyss.

Slowly, I lifted my head and looked at Xander.

“You should go,” I said, my voice so low it felt forced out of my throat. “I want to be alone for a while.”

He seemed to sigh in relief, nodded lightly, and left.

As soon as the door closed, I pushed my wheelchair out of the ward.

The hospital morgue was cold to the bone. I searched for a long time.

Finally, in the most inconspicuous corner, I found Jasper.

My son’s body was icy and rigid. His small chest had been carved open, leaving a horrifying hollow.

That heart.

It was already beating inside Anais’s chest.

I collapsed to my knees, my hands trembling as I gathered his broken body into my arms.

“Jasper… Mom is here… I am sorry… I am so sorry…”

I cried until my voice tore apart, as if my soul had been split open.

Again and again, I swore it.

“I will make them pay. I swear I will.”

The medication seemed to have lost its effect on me.

I was actually able to brace myself against the wheelchair and slowly stand.

I lifted Jasper onto the wheelchair and covered the horrifying wound in his chest with a burial shroud.

Step by step.

I pushed him all the way to the entrance of the police station.

I refused to believe this world truly had no justice for me.

“I want to file a report,” my voice was shockingly steady. “Xander and Anais are suspected of intentional homicide and deliberate leakage of classified information.”

I pulled back the shroud.

Jasper’s wound was exposed under the harsh white light, grotesque and terrifying.

“My son was murdered,” I said coldly. “You can perform an autopsy. You will find out exactly what drugs were used on him.”

The officer’s expression shifted from shock to grim.

Then he slammed the desk and pointed at me, shouting.

“Mr. Xander has long stated that you suffer from delusions. Nothing you say can be trusted!”

“And besides, he already signed a donation agreement on behalf of the child. That was legal!”

My heart felt as if it were being crushed alive.

I had never imagined this.

That for Anais, Xander could set such a flawless trap.

I stepped back, only to bump into someone.

I turned around.

It was him.

Xander stood there.

He still carried the scent of hospital disinfectant, his expression colder than the first time I ever met him.

The moment he saw that I had brought Jasper out, his face changed drastically.

“Isadora, are you insane? Stealing a body is a serious crime!”

When he noticed the bloody hollow in Jasper’s chest, his anger slowly faded, replaced by a display of false grief.

“I already chose a burial site for him. Dragging him around like this, are you trying to make sure he never rests in peace?”

The last thread of my reason snapped.

“This is my son!” I roared. “Of course I will demand justice for him!”

“Have you forgotten how my legs were broken? Have you forgotten who fired three shots at him?”

Xander did not answer.

Instead, a weak and familiar figure appeared at the end of the corridor.

It was Anais.

She was wearing a hospital gown, her face pale, her steps unsteady. Yet she walked straight up to me and dropped to her knees.

She actually knelt.

“Isadora…”

Her voice trembled with sobs. “Back then, I was blinded by obsession. I was wrong.”

She pulled out her surgical scalpel and pressed it against her chest.

“If you hate me… I am willing to die right now to atone.”

The blade rested against her chest. One slight push and it would pierce her heart, blood splattering everywhere.

Everyone held their breath.

And for the first time,

I saw real fear in her eyes.

“Anais, you just had surgery. Do not get agitated!”

Seeing the bandages still wrapped around her chest as she held the scalpel to her heart, Xander completely lost control.

He rushed over almost frantically and snatched the blade away.

When he looked back at me again, his eyes were already stained with barely restrained hatred.

It was the first time I had ever seen him panic this much for a woman.

“Isadora, how far are you planning to take this?”

His voice trembled, though he forced himself to sound calm. “Do you only feel satisfied when you push Anais to her death?”

“She did make mistakes back then, but she has already paid the price. She barely survived. Is that still not enough?”

I stood there in silence.

All the rage, grief, and confusion churned violently in my chest, until in the end, only exhaustion remained.

He helped the frail Anais away.

I watched the uneven figures retreat, my nose burning, my vision blurring into mist.

He said Anais had already paid the price.

But the one who paid the most was me.

What I lost was my child.

Jasper’s body was sent for cremation.

And only after settling Anais and making sure she was safely resting did Xander finally remember that I was still sitting alone in the police station, helpless and abandoned.

On the way home, neither of us mentioned the fact that I had stood up.

It became the last unspoken agreement between us.

Xander looked exhausted, his voice hoarse, sounding like a plea and a warning at the same time.

“Isadora, if Anais’s parents had not sponsored me back then, I would never have made it through the police academy. I might have been forced by my family into a different life altogether.”

“They gave me a new future. Now they sacrificed themselves and became martyrs. I cannot let their only child come to harm.”

His voice caught in his throat, as if he were begging forgiveness for himself.

I turned my head to look out the window and calmly finished the words he could not bring himself to say.

“So you deliberately leaked my undercover identity and staged a so called revenge car crash.”

“So you could send Jasper to the hospital and make him Anais’s backup heart.”

The car fell into dead silence.

A very long time passed before his voice finally drifted out, broken and barely audible.

“I truly had no choice. I begged every doctor and specialist. Her life could not hold on until a suitable donor appeared.”

“Isadora, we can still have children in the future. I am willing to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

His apology was like a blade, carving into my heart again and again.

I thought of the photograph my parents entrusted to me as they lay dying.

The boy in the photo looked clear eyed and stubborn, his gaze clean and resolute.

It was him.

My parents praised him endlessly, saying he was responsible and principled, and asked me to continue supporting him.

From the first moment I saw him, I fell deeply in love with him.

Afraid of hurting his pride, I never told him I was his sponsor.

I believed in love, and I believed in him.

But I never imagined this.

Someone had stolen my kindness and claimed my grace.

And he, without hesitation, repaid the wrong person.

In the end, the one who died was our child.

To keep me from disturbing Anais while she recovered, Xander locked me in the house for seven full days.

He came back every day, cooked as usual, told me little stories about his day, pretending this family had not been shattered.

And I did not say a single word for seven days.

Until the seventh day after Jasper’s death, when I saw Anais again.

Her complexion was rosy, her health astonishingly good.

She stepped over my son’s remains and lived more vibrantly than ever.

Anais did not bother to hide her contempt, the corner of her mouth lifting into a cruel curve.

“Isadora, I never thought that the pride of the police academy back then would end up like this.”

Her gaze fell on my slightly trembling legs, her mockery deepening.

“My fault. I forgot you are disabled now. Of course you cannot do anything.”

She lowered her head, as if savoring a pleasant memory.

“Do you know? When I cut him open, I did not use any anesthesia on your son. Before the pain knocked him unconscious, he kept calling your name.”

She spread her hands, as if showing off a trophy.

“No choice. The more pain he felt, the more active his heart stayed.”

I felt my reason.

Cracking apart, inch by inch.