Taken to the Station

A trace of unease crept into Belinda's voice as she continued, "By the way, let me ask you something—has there been anything wrong with my husband's health lately?"

There was a brief silence on the other end before the woman replied, "Mr. Coleman is in good health. His meeting is about to start, and I need to prepare the materials. Goodbye."

Belinda rolled her eyes in exasperation. "She hung up on me before I was even done talking. I'll have George fire her later!"

Karen chimed in from the side, "Exactly. Keeping someone like that around him is just asking for trouble sooner or later."

Belinda turned back to me. "Well? What else do you have to say now? Come on. You're going to the police station with me."

I almost laughed out of sheer disbelief.

This woman was a bimbo through and through, just without the beauty. That secretary clearly knew the truth; she just didn't want to spell it out for her.

The crowd began buzzing again.

"So it was fake? That certificate was probably printed at home."

"I knew it. What are the chances a volunteer just happens to run into the patient's family?"

"She looks so honest, too. I didn't expect her to be so calculating."

Belinda and her mother violently manhandled me into a taxi.

"Driver, take us to the nearest police station. I'm turning this rumor-spreading mistress over to the police."

The driver silently glanced at us through the rearview mirror and pressed the gas.

The moment we arrived and saw the police, Belinda grabbed my sleeve with one hand and pointed at my nose with the other. "Officer! This shameless woman seduced my husband. I caught her red-handed, and now she's even spreading rumors that my husband has leukemia!

"I want her arrested!"

Karen stood beside her, arms akimbo as she screeched loudly, "That's right! Homewreckers like her should be locked up for years! Officer, you have to stand up for us!"

The officer on duty was a young man in his early 30s, wearing glasses, still carrying a hint of the naivety of someone not long out of the academy.

He looked at me and saw the swollen bruise on my forehead, the red handprints across my cheek, and the smear of blood at the corner of my lips. I looked like a complete mess.

"Miss, are you alright?"

I took a deep breath and enunciated slowly. "Officer, I request that you retrieve the hospital's surveillance footage. I'm a registered volunteer with the National Marrow Donor Registry. I'm not a mistress. The footage will show me going in for compatibility testing."

I turned to Belinda. "You keep insisting I'm a mistress and that I seduced your husband. Fine. Let's pull the footage and see what really happened. I'll admit to whatever nonsense you spew at me if I am. But if I'm not…"

I trailed off before continuing darkly, "I will be holding you accountable for everything you did to me today."

Belinda's expression shifted for a moment, but she quickly forced it back into a sneer. "Fine. Show us the footage. I'd like to see what kind of excuse you come up with next."

The officer nodded, picked up the desk phone, and made a call. He spoke briefly into the receiver, gave the hospital's address, and the time frame for the footage. Once he hung up, he leaned back in his chair to wait.

Karen kept muttering under her breath during the wait. She was just loud enough for everyone in the reception hall to hear. Meanwhile, Belinda sat on a plastic chair with one leg crossed over the other, occasionally shooting me sharp looks.

Her eyes were filled with absolute confidence, as if she had already won. I didn't know what she thought she was winning, but it was like watching a strutting peacock without the feathers.

I leaned against the wall, my head throbbing where she'd hit me earlier. The dizziness from having eight tubes of blood drawn lingered. The ground beneath my feet felt wobbly, as though I were standing on cotton.

About 20 minutes later, a notification popped up on the officer's computer. The video file had been transferred.

Evidence Without Truth

He opened the player and turned the screen toward the three of us. "The hospital's surveillance system broke down two months ago. This is the most recent footage we could retrieve. Come take a look."

The footage showed the hematology department corridor on the third floor. The camera angle was high, looking down over most of the hallway. People moved in and out of frame. Then, I appeared, holding a document. I was walking while reading it.

I remembered that day. I had gone in to do compatibility testing with another patient. We hadn't matched, but I ended up matching with Belinda's husband instead.

A man approached from the other end of the corridor—it was her husband. This had been two months ago, just after his diagnosis. He still looked like a healthy man on the surface. When he saw me, he quickened his pace and stepped directly into my path.

There was no audio, only visuals. In the footage, he stood in front of me, his head slightly lowered as his lips flapped urgently. His brows were tightly furrowed, his lips moving rapidly, his hands gesturing again and again. Then, he suddenly stepped forward.

From the camera's angle, it certainly looked like he had pulled me into his arms.

"There! Look! All of you, look!" Belinda slammed her hand on the desk, making the monitor shake. "Is she not a mistress? He's hugging her! They're practically pressed together! If that's not an affair, what is?"

Her voice trembled with glee, her eyes gleaming as if she had just uncovered undeniable proof.

Karen immediately leaned closer, squinting as she pressed her face near the screen.

After getting a clear look, she whipped her head around and nearly spat at me. "You shameless wench! You're already hugging each other in a hospital corridor! Who knows what other filthy things you've been doing behind closed doors!"

I shot to my feet. "That's enough! Your husband was begging me to donate bone marrow to him that day! I didn't even know him before that, let alone interfere in your marriage!"

The officer frowned slightly, tapped a key, paused the footage, and zoomed in. We looked as though we were locked in an intimate embrace in the footage. Anyone without context would assume it was a pair of lovers.

Belinda said, turning around and bracing both her hands on the desk, "Officer, the evidence is right there. What are you waiting for? Arrest her! Homewreckers like her should be punished by law!"

The officer glanced at her and then at me, his tone cautious. "Ma'am, we can't determine that she has an improper relationship with your husband based on this silent footage alone. Even if that were the case, this would be considered a domestic dispute. We can't make an arrest."

Belinda immediately flew into a rage. "What do you mean you can't? I know what you're doing. You just won't arrest that slut. What are you, useless? Oh, I see what's happening!"

Her gaze darted between the officer and me, her expression shifting into sudden realization. "You're protecting her because she's pretty, aren't you?"

The officer clearly wasn't used to such confrontation and looked flustered. "Ma'am, you can't make accusations like that. We're handling this according to the law."

Belinda refused to back down. "Accusations? I'm telling you to lock this mistress up now, or I'll file a complaint against you!"

My phone rang right in the middle of her crazed tirade.

"Hello, is this Ms. Travers?" a voice said urgently on the other end. "You came in this afternoon for compatibility confirmation, yes? Mr. George Coleman's condition suddenly deteriorated. He's experiencing an acute hemolytic reaction and is currently being resuscitated.

"The attending physician asked me to notify you to please return to the hospital immediately if possible. We may need to proceed with emergency stem cell collection—"

Too Late to Turn Back

"Hello? Hello? Are you still there?"

I parted my lips and was about to respond when a hand suddenly shot over and snatched my phone away.

Belinda didn't even glance at the caller ID. She raised her arm and smashed the phone hard against the concrete floor of the station. The screen shattered into a spiderweb. The back cover flew off, and the battery rolled into a corner.

The caller ID flickered one last time before going dark.

"Trying to collude with your accomplices to trick me?" Belinda sneered, grinding her heel into the broken screen. My cracked phone screen crunched beneath her shoe as she spat, "You're not going anywhere today. You'll be sitting in a holding cell if you don't confess!"

I looked at her and then at the ruined phone on the floor. I felt oddly calm.

I turned, found a chair, and sat down. "Fine. I'll do as you say. I won't go anywhere."

After all, I wasn't the one desperately trying to live. No, the one fighting for his life was her husband.

Belinda eyed me suspiciously, clearly wondering why I had stopped arguing.

Just then, her phone rang.

She eyed me with her beady eyes. Then, she smirked, thinking she had me pegged. "So that's why you suddenly calmed down. Your accomplice has been waiting for this, huh?"

She declined the call without hesitation. "I'm telling you right now. You're not fooling me."

However, a text message popped up on her screen the moment she hung up.

'Ms. Belinda Kingsley, this is the Hematology Department of Northcrest Medical Center. Your husband, Mr. George Coleman, is currently in critical condition in the ICU. A critical illness notice has been issued. Please come immediately.'

"That's right," I taunted icily. "I hired people just to trick you. Doctors, nurses—every single one of them is a paid actor. Don't believe a word of it. Your husband must be perfectly healthy. He's probably in a meeting at the company right now."

Her hand holding the phone trembled slightly, panic flashing across her face. Nevertheless, she doubled down after my taunting, as if to prove she hadn't been deceived.

So, she tossed the phone onto the desk. "Not bad. You almost convinced me. A critical illness notice, huh? You've got quite the imagination."

Karen nodded vigorously beside her. "Exactly! Belinda, don't fall for it. This must be that tramp's accomplices. They must be nervous since we've gone to the precinct. They're probably trying to lure you away so she can escape!"

The phone rang again.

This time, it wasn't a call. Instead, it was a WhatsApp video request.

The alert chimed several times before Belinda, visibly irritated, picked it up. When she saw that it was coming from her husband's WhatsApp account, she visibly brightened with smug satisfaction. "My husband's calling me on video. Let's see how you keep lying now."

She accepted the call, only for a doctor in a white coat to appear on the screen.

"Are you Ms. Belinda Kingsley, Mr. George Coleman's wife?" the doctor asked quickly. "I'm his attending physician, Dr. Calvin Jeffries."

Belinda stared at the screen, her smile slowly stiffening.

"You… you really went all out, didn't you?" Her voice had lost its earlier confidence, replaced by an awkward, forced laugh. "Even got a white coat? A badge, too? Scammers these days are getting pretty professional."

Calvin turned the camera. The image shook for a moment before settling on the entrance of a hospital room. Belinda recognized it instantly—it was her husband.

"George?"

She snapped her head toward me the next second. I gave her a small, mirthless smile. That was when everything went black. I'd fainted.

I'd be an idiot if I ever donated bone marrow to her husband after all this.