The Don Drained Our Children's Marrow for His Sister-in-Law, I Left

Vivian was wheeled out of the delivery room for the third time after a massive hemorrhage. The baby was stillborn.

The doctor told her that her womb had been damaged by too many pregnancies. She would never carry another child.

Numb and hollowed out, Vivian dragged herself toward the morgue to see her baby one last time, and that was when she saw her husband Ethan standing in the corridor, talking quietly to one of his men.

"Don, your wife's baby was a perfect marrow match again. One more extraction and Claire's son will be cured."

Vivian froze mid-step, every nerve in her body going still.

Then came Ethan's voice, light and almost amused, and it shattered something she didn't know was still whole.

His man hesitated, something pained moving across his face,"If Claire's boy pulls through, then losing those three kids was worth it."

"Don, if the Donna ever finds out what really happened to those babies…"

A cold shudder ran through Vivian, and her eyes locked on Ethan.

But the curve of his mouth turned sharp, almost cruel.

"She won't. I'll make it up to her, get her pregnant again with a healthy one this time. She'll be too busy with the baby to go digging."

"And if she does find out, then what?"

"Her mother gave her life for mine. That debt has chained me to her for ten years, and I can barely breathe under it. But now there's someone I actually want to protect. She has no right to stand in the way."

Something softened in Ethan's face then, something Vivian had never seen turned toward her.

"Claire was my brother's wife, and I'll never forget that he died protecting this family. So protecting his widow and his blood are our family’s and my duty."

"She's the only person who's ever made me feel like a husband. Like a father."

"I have to take care of her."

Vivian didn't hear the rest, as she had started to laugh and lose her mind.

She laughed, and somewhere between the laughter, tears began streaming down her face.

So that was it. Her three children hadn't died by chance. Her husband had taken them, one by one, because Claire's boy needed bone marrow.

And all these years she'd lied to herself, telling herself her marriage was steady. Happy, even.

When the truth was that even her babies' lives had been disposable. Just spare parts.

She walked back through the empty corridor in a daze. A nurse at the station took one look at her and asked if she needed help.

Vivian shook her head. Her voice was barely there when she asked the nurse to print her a divorce petition.

She folded it carefully into her pocket, then made a phone call to the organization which handled vanishing acts for the families' traitors and runaways.

"I need a favor. I want everyone to think I'm dead."

She hung up, wiped her face hard, and walked back to her hospital room.

She couldn't let Ethan see anything was different. She had made her decision to get out of this marriage, out of all the lies.

Inside the room, Ethan was pacing, his tall frame moving back and forth, jaw tight. He looked up and his shoulders dropped the second he saw her, then his face shifted into something like scolding.

"Where the hell did you go? You don't just walk off without telling me. I was about to tear this hospital apart."

Vivian looked at the panic in his face and almost laughed at herself. Even now, some stupid part of her had hoped, for one second, that he actually cared.

Then his next words came down like cold water.

"Your mother died making me promise to take care of you. If something happened to you, what was I supposed to tell her?"

A dull pain spread through Vivian's chest, and her voice came out flat.

"So that's it. You married me because of a promise to my mother."

Ethan blinked. He'd never heard her speak to him like that, and his brow drew tighter.

"What else would it be?"

Vivian felt the floor drop out from under her.

After her mother died, Ethan had pushed past every objection and broken his own family's arranged engagement to marry her, to put a ring on her finger.

For ten years she'd believed they had chosen each other, that it had been love.

It had only ever been a debt.

She swallowed hard, pulled the folded paper from her pocket, kept her thumb over the words Petition for Divorce, and held it out to him.

"Post-op paperwork. The doctor needs a family signature."

Ethan glanced down, frowning.

"I just came from the doctor. He didn't mention anything. Let me look at it carefully."

Vivian's heart skipped, and her grip tightened on the paper.

Ethan saw it, and his eyes narrowed.

Then one of his men came rushing down the hall.

"Don! Bad News! Miss Claire ..."

The man caught sight of Vivian and bit off the rest.

Ethan stiffened. He let go of her arm and was moving toward the door before he'd even finished turning, not bothering to hide the urgency.

Vivian's hand shot out and caught his sleeve.

"Ethan. Sign it."

He was forced to stop. The softness in his face was gone.

"Don't be like this. This is family business. You should wait."

She shoved the pen at him.

"Just this once. Sign it and I'll never get in your way again."

Ethan stared at her, impatience already breaking through.

After a beat, he exhaled, took the pen, scrawled his name across the bottom, and was out the door without looking back.

Vivian sank slowly to the floor, picked up the signed paper, and held it.

So that was the truth. He wouldn't even give her five seconds before running to Claire.

It didn't matter. She was getting out.

She stayed there a long time. The chatter of nurses drifted in from the corridor.

"Did you hear? The kid who Don has been looking after have performed a marrow transplant and no is suffering losing blood."

"Yeah, and he's RH negative. The hospital ran out of that type ages ago. The Don would definitely go crazy."

Vivian's head snapped up.

A marrow transplant.

That marrow belonged to her child.

Her chest was rising and falling fast. She didn't have time to scream, because the door slammed open.

Ethan walked in, his face set hard.

"Vivian. If I remember correctly, you're RH negative too."

The room tilted.

She knew exactly what he was going to ask. He was hunting blood for Claire's son.

Before she could even shake her head, Ethan was across the room, taking her hand in both of his.

"Vivian, someone important to the family needs your blood. Just once."

Her face went white, and she stared at him like he was a stranger.

"Ethan, I just hemorrhaged. If I give blood now it could kill me."

He frowned, and his voice cooled.

"Just 200cc . That’s nothing dangerous. Your own mother gave her life for someone. You can't give a little blood for the family?"

She couldn't breathe.

He was using her mother's death to shame her.

Ethan didn't wait. He waved in a doctor with a cart.

Vivian started shaking. She tried to push herself up, tried to fight, but Ethan's men pinned her down without effort.

The needle was already prepped, and she watched it come closer, inch by inch.

Ethan's eyes were fixed on it.

"Start with 200 cc. We'll see."