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."

The needle went into her vein and Vivian clenched her teeth shut, eyes closed.

The warmth drained out of her with every drop.

Her vision swam and her face went bloodless. She was almost at the end of what they'd taken when one of Ethan's men burst in.

"Don,Claire says it's not enough."

A chill ran through her.

The attending doctor's voice was small.

"Don, your wife is already pale. Her lips are turning blue. Any more and she could die."

Ethan was silent for a long moment.

Then he spoke. "Vivian. Don't worry. I remember what your mother asked of me. I won't let you die."

"Doctor. Take the maximum she can offer. But she has to survive. Do it."

Vivian's face went gray.

The needle slid in again, but she didn't feel it this time.

Probably because something inside her had already died.

She woke up alone in the hospital room.

Forcing herself upright with her head still foggy, she looked around. No one. Empty water glass and the dust on the bedside table suggested no one had been here in days.

She was thirsty. She pulled herself to her feet and went looking for a nurse.

She glanced up out of habit, and her blood went cold.

Across the hall, in the room opposite hers, Claire was propped up in bed, holding a child in her arms.

And Ethan was standing beside her with a bowl of porridge, smiling, feeding the boy spoon by spoon.

Like a family. Mother, father and the baby.

And Vivian, the one across the hall, could have died in that bed and no one would have noticed for days.

Her phone buzzed. She picked up without expression.

"Mrs. Voss. In three days, your death certificate will be processed."

Vivian smiled.

"Good."

She walked back into her room and let herself collapse onto the bed.

She didn't know how long she lay there. The nurses' chatter outside drifted in clearly.

"Honestly, it's absurd. The Don is such a steady, decent man. How did he end up with her?"

"Right? She loses one baby after another. Who knows what she did to deserve that. She can't even give the man a family and she still has the nerve to sit in the Donna's seat"

"If only Claire's son were the Don's. He's so good with that kid. The three of them are the real family."

Each word pushed in like a needle.

She gave a tired, bitter little smile, and old memories rose without permission.

Years ago. The war inside the family. A traitor's gun pointed at Ethan's chest.

She had thrown herself in front of him and taken the bullet for him.

But there had been too many men coming, and they couldn't shake them.

Her mother had come out of nowhere, a plain woman in a plain car, white at the temples, a housewife who had never known anything about gangsters or guns. But the moment she heard her daughter was being hunted, she came.

The car shot like an arrow onto the mountain road and rammed itself sideways across the lane, blocking the cars chasing them.

The crash was loud enough to split the air.

Her mother died right there.

Ethan, holding her bloodied body, had sworn through red eyes that Vivian would be his only wife. The only one. Ever.

Now that promise, the one her mother bought with her life, was worth less than weeds at the side of the road.

The door pushed open.

Claire walked in, dressed soft and pretty, and waved a calm hand to silence the nurses outside.

"All right, enough. The poor thing's not well. Let her rest."

Then she turned and looked down at Vivian, pale as paper on the bed. Her voice was gentle, almost sorry.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. They're young. Don't take it personally what they talk about."

"Although they're not entirely wrong, are they? Feelings are feelings. The one a man doesn't keep in his heart is always the outsider. No matter what title she's wearing."

She paused and let out a soft little laugh.

"If your mother hadn't died, would Ethan have made you his wife? It was the debt, sweetheart. It was always the debt."

Vivian's body went rigid as something black and hot rose in her eyes.

She could swallow anything else, but she would not let this woman drag her mother through the mud.

Claire bent low, lips near Vivian's ear, her voice was cruel enough.

"And, sweetheart, did you really think that car crash was an accident? Silly girl. I just didn't like the way you clung to Ethan. I wanted to teach you a lesson. I didn't know your mother would be too fragile to die. Such a pity."

It hit like a thunderclap, and Vivian's mind went blank.

Every piece of swallowed grief, every drop of patience, every locked-down scream broke open at once. She didn't think. Her hand flew up and cracked across Claire's face.

At that exact moment, Ethan came through the door.

He saw it, and his face went dark with rage.

He was across the room in two steps. He shoved Vivian, weak and barely upright, away from Claire, hard.

"Vivian. Have you lost your mind?"

He had never used that voice on her, not once in ten years.

She'd just had blood drawn and was already shaking. The shove sent her into the bed frame, ribs slamming on metal, and pain bloomed across her chest.

She forced the tears back and looked up at him.

"Ethan, the car crash that killed my mother wasn't an accident. Claire planned it herself."

Ethan didn't hesitate even for a second.

"Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows what happened that night. The whole family wanted me dead. I tried to send you ahead and you wouldn't leave. You stayed with me."

"If you'd just listened to me to leave before, your mother would still be alive."

"Don't put this on Claire to wriggle out of your own guilt."

Vivian's blood turned to ice.

Claire, meanwhile, was clinging to Ethan's arm, eyes shining with tears.

"No, Ethan, please don't be angry. She just can't stand that you are considerate to me like this. She wanted to scare me a little. That's all."

The disgust in Ethan's eyes deepened.

"Apologize. Now. To Claire."

Vivian's pupils shrank. She stared at Ethan as if she had never seen his face before in her life.

"You're saying—I killed my own mother?"

His jaw was set.

"Didn't you?"

"And don't forget. Her death is the only reason you got to marry me."

Right. She'd been sleepwalking through a fantasy for ten years. Time to wake up.

Her eyes were burning red, but her mouth pulled into a small, twitching smile, and her voice came out soft.

"Claire. I'm sorry I hit you."

Claire's mouth curled just slightly, then she put on a sad, sweet face.

"It's all right, sweetheart. I know you've been through a lot. Losing your mother, losing those three babies. It's just been one cruel thing after another. Maybe it's fate."

Vivian's heart felt like it was being ground into dust.

The wound that had just been inflicted by Ethan was suddenly ruptured at this moment, and blood started to seep through her gown.

She closed her eyes and swayed.

Ethan saw it. Something flickered across his face, and he almost stepped forward.

Then Claire pressed a delicate hand to her own forehead and let out a small whimper.

"Ethan, I feel so dizzy all of a sudden. I've been nauseous lately. Could it be…"

His full attention swung to her, and he caught her around the waist.

"What's wrong? Let me get you back to your room."

Claire leaned into him. Her eyes slid sideways toward Vivian on the floor.

"I don't know, maybe it was that glass of water Vivian gave me earlier. My head hasn't felt right since."

Ethan's brow tightened, and his hold on Claire turned firmer. He didn't look at Vivian once. He turned with Claire in his arms and walked out.

The room was huge and empty around her. Blood spread slowly through the fabric of her gown, and she stayed where she'd fallen.

She didn't know how long it was before she opened her eyes again.

A doctor came in, looking uncomfortable, and held out a piece of paper.

"Mrs. Voss. We can't delay any longer. If you sign this confirmation, we can release the child for cremation."

The instant her fingertips touched the page, pain rolled up her throat in a hot wave.

That was her third baby. Her child. Who hadn't even gotten a chance to open his eyes. Reduced to a part for someone else's body.

She sat there a long time, then made herself stand.

She wanted to find Ethan one last time.

She wanted to see what his face would do when she handed him a death certificate for his own son.

She walked the corridor. As she passed a supply closet, she heard sounds from behind the cracked door.

Her feet locked.

She looked through the gap, and cold cut through her like a knife.

Ethan had Claire pressed against the wall. They were tangled together.

The sounds were unmistakable.

The image burned through her eyes, but her face stayed empty.

So she had been a fool to hope for even a flicker of guilt from him.

She turned around without a sound, gripped the death certificate, and walked out alone.

She went to the funeral home herself. She buried her three babies herself. She was the only one there.

It was late by the time Ethan came back to the room, with the strong smell of Claire’s perfume.

She watched him from the bed. Her voice was flat.

"Yesterday was our son's cremation. Did you sleep well with Claire?"

Ethan's face stiffened, and something uncomfortable passed across it.

"Don't be paranoid. Claire wasn't feeling well. It looked like she'd been drugged."

"She's my brother's widow. She's important to this family. Of course I have a duty to protect her."

Vivian let out a soft, dry laugh.

"This is a hospital. If she'd actually been drugged, you'd better call a doctor, rather than sleep with her."

Her words left Ethan speechless for a moment.

His face darkened and his tone turned icy.

"Enough, Vivian. Don't push it."

"Do I have to spell it out? Claire drank from a glass you gave her. That's why she's sick."

"I'm warning you. If I catch you pulling something like that again, I will not let it slide."

He turned and walked out.

She lay there alone, staring at the white ceiling.

She was so tired in her whole body. She closed her eyes.

It was almost over. Just a little longer.

She had barely drifted off when a bucket of ice water crashed down on her.

She bolted upright, soaked and shaking.

Ethan stood at the foot of her bed, his face black with rage.

"You thought drugging her was the end of it. But no, you actually went to the Reeds. You sold her out to my enemies. They took her."

"Vivian, I underestimated you!"