“Did you honestly believe a few drops of marrow could make you his real wife?”

Beatrice’s voice was a sickly sweet whisper, meant only for my ears.

I had turned away from the grand hall, leaving my faded coat on the marble floor, but Beatrice had followed me into the quiet, dimly lit corridor. She blocked my path, swirling a glass of red wine, her eyes gleaming with a vicious sort of triumph.

“Oliver only keeps you around because Julian’s body is failing,” she sneered, stepping closer. “To him, you aren’t a person. You’re just a medical supply.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the energy to fight her. I just wanted to walk out the door and never look back.

But as she leaned in, the dim light caught the silver necklace resting against her collarbone.

My breath stopped.

It was a silver locket. The metal was slightly warped, the intricate floral engraving blackened at the edges.

It was my locket.

Ten years ago, I had dragged a teenage Oliver out of a burning warehouse. The smoke had scorched my lungs, and the falling debris had left a permanent scar on my shoulder. I had lost my locket in the ashes that night.

When Oliver woke up in the hospital, Beatrice was the one sitting by his bed. She had found my locket, claimed it as her own, and took all the credit for saving his life. That was why Oliver loved her. That was why she was his untouchable "White Moonlight," while I was just the greedy opportunist who forced him into marriage.

I stared at the warped silver. “You stole that.”

Beatrice noticed my gaze. Her hand flew to the locket, her smirk widening into a wicked grin.

“So what if I did?” she whispered. “He believes me. He will always believe me. You could scream the truth until your throat bleeds, Carmella, and he would still look at you with nothing but disgust.”

She was right. I had tried to tell him once, early in our marriage. Oliver had looked at me with such profound revulsion, accusing me of trying to steal Beatrice’s heroism, that I never brought it up again.

“Keep it,” I said, my voice dead and flat. “You two deserve each other.”

I stepped around her to leave.

But Beatrice wasn’t finished.

Her eyes flashed with sudden malice. She raised her crystal wine glass and slammed it hard against the marble pillar beside us. The glass shattered into jagged shards.

Without a second of hesitation, she dragged a sharp piece across her own forearm, slicing the skin.

Blood welled up instantly, spilling bright red over her custom gown.

Then, she threw herself to the floor and let out a blood-curdling scream.

“Ah! Carmella, please! Why would you do this?!”

The music in the grand hall stopped abruptly. Footsteps echoed like thunder as the party guests rushed into the corridor.

Oliver was the first to arrive.

When he saw Beatrice on the floor, bleeding and crying, all the color drained from his face. He dropped to his knees, pulling her into his arms with a frantic, desperate panic I had never once seen him display.

“Beatrice! What happened?” he demanded, his hands trembling as he pressed his handkerchief to her bleeding arm.

“I… I just wanted to talk to her,” Beatrice sobbed, burying her face in his chest. “She was so angry, Oliver. She pushed me into the glass. She said I didn't deserve to be here.”

Oliver’s head snapped up. His eyes locked onto me, burning with a hatred so intense it felt physical.

“You vicious, jealous bitch,” he spat.

“I didn’t touch her,” I said calmly. My voice didn’t shake. I was too tired to panic. “She cut herself.”

“Shut up!” Oliver roared. He scooped Beatrice up in his arms. “Doctor! Get the estate doctor right now! Beatrice has a delicate constitution. She loses blood too quickly!”

The medical team, always on standby for Julian, rushed into the corridor.

Oliver turned his furious glare back to me. “Take her to the clinic room immediately. Draw her blood for Beatrice. As much as she needs.”

The guests gasped, but no one intervened.

I stared at the man I had called my husband for three years.

“No,” I said, my voice steady. “I just had a marrow extraction two hours ago. My red blood cell count is critically low. If you take my blood now, I will die.”

Oliver’s expression didn’t soften. There was no hesitation, no flicker of concern for my life.

“Then die making yourself useful,” he said coldly. “Take her.”

Two burly security guards stepped forward to grab my arms. I struggled, my weakened body screaming in pain, but I was no match for them.

“Stop! Let her go!”

A rough, panicked voice broke through the crowd.

I looked up and saw my father. Arthur Vance.

He was wearing a stained, gray janitor’s uniform, holding a heavy wooden mop cane. He had taken a job at Oliver’s estate to keep up his "destitute" act, pretending to scrub floors while secretly buying fifty-million-dollar yachts.

For a split second, a foolish, desperate hope flared in my chest. My father is here. He’s going to stop them. He’s going to save me.

Arthur pushed through the crowd. He looked at Beatrice, bleeding in Oliver’s arms, and his face twisted in horror.

Then, he turned to me.

There was no love in his eyes. Only sheer panic that his precious adopted daughter was hurt, and absolute terror that Oliver might blame their family.

To appease the billionaire, and to protect Beatrice, my father raised his heavy wooden cane.

He didn't aim for the guards. He aimed for me.

Crack.

The thick wood slammed into the back of my knees. My legs gave out instantly, and I crashed hard onto the marble floor.

Before I could even process the pain, the cane came down again, striking my back with brutal, sickening force.

“You ungrateful monster!” my father screamed, his face red with performative rage. “How dare you hurt your sister! We raised you to be humble, and you turn into this jealous, vicious snake!”

Crack.

Another blow hit my ribs. The air was knocked from my lungs.

“Mr. Sterling, please forgive her!” my father begged Oliver, panting as he stood over my broken body. “She has always been a bad seed! Take whatever blood you need from her to save my Beatrice!”

The crowd watched in silence. Oliver looked down at me with cold satisfaction. Beatrice hid a smirk against his chest.

I lay on the cold marble floor, my vision swimming. A sharp, metallic taste filled my mouth. I coughed, and bright red blood splattered across the pristine white stone.

The physical pain was agonizing, but it was nothing compared to the absolute, hollow silence in my chest.

My husband wanted me dead to save his fake savior. My father beat me to protect the daughter he actually loved.

My entire life was a cruel, elaborate joke.

I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I just closed my eyes, letting the darkness pull me under, knowing that the Carmella who loved them had just died on this floor.

My ribs were tightly wrapped beneath the stiff, suffocating fabric of the black chauffeur’s uniform.

Every breath I took was a sharp, jagged stab of agony. It had been exactly one week since my father broke his wooden cane across my back on the marble floor of the estate.

I hadn’t fully healed. I was still severely anemic, still coughing up blood into the bathroom sink, still struggling to stand upright.

But Oliver didn’t care. He had deemed me "unfit" to attend the Greenville Charity Gala by his side. Instead, he had tossed the keys to the extended Maybach at my feet.

"You want to act like a vicious, low-class servant?" he had sneered, his eyes filled with contempt. "Then do a servant's job. Drive us."

So, I drove.

The rain was a solid, unrelenting wall of water, hammering against the windshield.

The wipers slashed back and forth frantically, but the road ahead was barely visible.

In the rearview mirror, the scene was entirely different. The back of the Maybach was a warm, luxurious cocoon. Beatrice was draped in a glittering silver gown, her head resting gently on Oliver’s shoulder.

He was whispering something to her, his hand softly stroking her hair. They looked like a magazine cover. They looked like soulmates.

I kept my eyes on the slick, dark road. My hands gripped the leather steering wheel, my knuckles white.

I felt nothing looking at them. The beating last week had shattered my ribs, but it had also shattered the pathetic, lingering illusion that Oliver would ever look at me with anything other than disgust. I was numb. I was just waiting for the right moment to disappear completely.

We approached the main intersection at the edge of the city. The traffic light above us glowed a steady, bright green.

I pressed the accelerator to pass through.

Then, the blaring horn ripped through the sound of the rain.

A massive, eighteen-wheel freight truck came barreling out of the darkness from the intersecting street. It was moving too fast, completely ignoring the red light. The driver was drunk, asleep, or both.

The blinding glare of the truck’s headlights flooded the cabin of the Maybach.

Time slowed down to a crawl.

I saw the trajectory of the massive steel grille. It wasn't aiming for the front of the car. It was hurtling directly toward the rear passenger door.

Straight for Oliver.

I had spent the last week realizing I meant absolutely nothing to him. I knew he would gladly watch me die if it meant saving Beatrice a drop of blood. I knew he hated me.

But ten years of ingrained muscle memory—the exact same instinct that had made me drag his unconscious body from a burning warehouse when we were teenagers—hijacked my brain.

I didn't think. I didn't weigh the pros and cons.

I just reacted.

I yanked the steering wheel violently to the right, slamming my foot on the gas.

The heavy luxury car swerved sharply, the tires screeching against the wet asphalt. I threw my side of the car directly into the path of the speeding truck, using the driver's seat as a steel shield.

The impact was apocalyptic.

The sound of tearing metal and exploding glass was deafening. The airbag deployed, punching me in the face, but it wasn't enough to stop the crushing force of the truck.

The driver's side door caved inward like a crushed tin can.

The steering column snapped and pinned my chest, driving my already fractured ribs deep into my lungs.

The Maybach spun wildly across the wet intersection, metal sparking against the pavement, before finally slamming into a concrete traffic pillar and coming to a violent halt.

Darkness flickered at the edges of my vision.

The pain was absolute. It was a blinding, suffocating agony that radiated from my crushed chest down to my trapped legs. A warm, thick liquid poured down my forehead, blinding my left eye.

The engine hissed, smoking in the heavy rain.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of the storm.

Then, a groan from the back seat.

"Beatrice?"

Oliver's voice. It was frantic. Terrified.

"Beatrice, are you okay? Talk to me!"

"Oliver... my arm," Beatrice whimpered, her voice trembling. "It hurts. I'm scared."

I tried to speak. I tried to make a sound, to let them know I was crushed, that I was bleeding out in the front seat. But when I opened my mouth, a thick wave of blood bubbled up my throat, choking me.

I heard the heavy, desperate thud of Oliver kicking his jammed door open. The hinges screamed, and the door gave way. The freezing rain poured into the ruined cabin.

Through the shattered remnants of the rearview mirror, I watched him.

He unbuckled Beatrice with shaking hands. He carefully, gently lifted her into his arms, wrapping his expensive suit jacket around her shoulders to shield her from the rain.

"I've got you," he whispered to her. "The ambulance is already pulling up. You're going to be fine."

He stepped out into the storm.

I lay pinned against the steering wheel, my blood soaking into the leather seat. My right hand twitched, reaching slightly toward the back.

Look at me, I thought. Just look at me once.

Oliver didn't look forward. He didn't check the front seat. He didn't ask if the driver—his wife—was alive.

He didn't even glance at the crushed, mangled metal that was currently suffocating me to death.

He turned his back to the wreckage and walked away, carrying Beatrice toward the flashing red and blue lights of the arriving paramedics.

I watched his broad shoulders disappear into the rain through the shattered windshield.

The cold seeped into my bones, replacing the pain. My breathing grew shallow, the blood filling my lungs.

As my eyes slowly fluttered shut, a strange, profound sense of peace washed over me.

I had saved his life ten years ago, and I had just saved it again tonight. My debt to him, my foolish, unrequited love, was finally paid in full.

The Carmella who loved Oliver Sterling died in that crushed driver's seat.

When I woke up, I would never look back.

“Your body is completely shutting down. At best, you have three months to live.”

I woke up to the steady, hollow beep of a heart monitor. I wasn’t in the VIP wing of Greenville General, where Julian was kept in a state-of-the-art suite.

I was in a cheap, unheated trauma ward on the outskirts of the city. The paramedics who pried me from the crushed metal of the Maybach had dropped me at the nearest public clinic.

Oliver hadn't bothered to arrange a transfer. He hadn't even called.

The doctor stood at the foot of my thin, stiff bed, holding a clipboard. His eyes were full of a heavy, uncomfortable pity.

"Late-stage leukemia," he said, his voice quiet.

The irony was almost suffocating. The woman who had been kept as a human blood bag, whose bone marrow was endlessly harvested to keep a billionaire alive, was dying of poisoned blood.

"Your system is entirely depleted," the doctor explained, flipping through my charts. "Years of severe malnutrition. Unhealed physical trauma. And the excessive, unregulated marrow extractions... they destroyed your body's ability to regenerate. There is nothing we can do."

Three months.

I didn't cry. I didn't ask for a second opinion. I just nodded, pulled the IV needle out of the back of my hand, and swung my bruised legs over the side of the bed.

"You can't leave," the doctor protested, stepping forward. "You have fractured ribs, internal bleeding—"

"I have to go get my dog," I interrupted, my voice flat and hollow.

I walked out of the hospital in the thin, paper-like scrubs they had put me in. The storm from the night of the crash hadn't stopped. The freezing rain plastered the thin fabric to my skin, but I didn't feel the cold. I didn't feel the agonizing pain in my chest. I felt absolutely nothing.

I walked for three miles in the pouring rain.

My only thought was Barnaby. He was a stray golden retriever I had found shivering in an alley two years ago. I had smuggled him into the servant's quarters of Oliver's estate.

He was the only living creature in that massive, sprawling mansion who was happy to see me. He was the only one who didn't look at me with absolute disgust.

When I finally reached the towering iron gates of the Sterling estate, my bare feet were bleeding.

The head of security stepped out of the guardhouse, holding a large black umbrella. He looked at my soaked, battered state with a familiar sneer.

"Where is Barnaby?" I asked, my voice raspy.

The guard crossed his arms. "The mutt? Mr. Sterling ordered us to throw it out last night."

My breath hitched. "Out? Where?"

"Out on the street," the guard replied carelessly. "Miss Beatrice was startled when she came home from the hospital. The dog barked at her. She said it gave her a fright. Mr. Sterling was furious. He told us to kick it out the gates and make sure it didn't come back."

Thrown out. Into a freezing, blinding storm.

I didn't argue. I didn't scream at the guard. I turned around and began to walk down the winding, unlit mountain road that led away from the estate.

I searched the dark, wet ditches. I called his name, my voice cracking and fading into the heavy rain.

"Barnaby."

I walked for another mile.

Then, I saw a patch of gold resting against the cold, gray asphalt.

He was lying on the side of the road, just past a sharp curve. The rain was washing over his matted fur. A passing car had hit him and didn't even bother to stop.

I slowly walked over to him. My knees finally gave out.

I collapsed into the thick, freezing mud beside his body. I reached out with a trembling hand and touched his head. He was completely cold. The soft, warm eyes that used to watch me with such pure, unconditional love were closed forever.

Because he barked at Beatrice.

Because my husband wanted to comfort the woman who stole my locket.

I knelt in the mud, the freezing rain beating down on my back, my hands buried in Barnaby's wet fur.

In the past, I would have broken down. I would have screamed at the sky, sobbing until my throat bled, asking God why I was being punished. I would have run back to the mansion, demanding an explanation from Oliver, begging him to show just an ounce of humanity.

But as I knelt there, staring at the only thing I had left in the world, something inside me quietly snapped.

It wasn't a loud, dramatic break. It was a silent, absolute death.

I didn't shed a single tear. I didn't scream.

The obsessive, desperate love I had harbored for Oliver Sterling for ten long years—the love that made me endure the marrow extractions, the abuse, the humiliation, the crushed ribs—evaporated into thin air. It was gone. Erased.

I looked down at my hands, stained with mud and Barnaby's cold blood.

I had three months left to live.

I wasn't going to spend them crying over a man who treated me worse than dirt. I wasn't going to spend them being a blood bag for a family of parasites.

I gently picked up Barnaby's heavy, lifeless body. I held him close to my chest, ignoring the sharp agony of my fractured ribs.