He held my hand as we walked out of the courthouse.

"Jade, we're husband and wife now."

The warmth in his voice was almost convincing. I pulled my hand free and gave a noncommittal hum.

A sports car pulled up in front of us. The window slid down, revealing a face I knew all too well.

Annette Simmons. The woman Stan had never stopped thinking about.

In my last life, he'd thrown away my life just to keep her happy.

"Stan! Congratulations." Annette stepped out of the car and looked me up and down, a challenge glittering in her eyes. "So this is Miss Kaufman? She really is pretty. No wonder you skipped my birthday party for her."

Stan's shoulders stiffened, barely perceptible.

He turned to Annette, a thread of anxiety woven through his voice. "Annette, what are you doing here?"

She pouted, sauntering over to loop her arm through his. "I just wanted to meet your new bride."

Then she pressed closer, tilting her face up at him. "Stan, my stomach's acting up again. Will you take me to the hospital? Please?"

Right in front of me. His wife of five minutes. She didn't even pretend to care.

Stan glanced back at me. "Jade, Annette's health isn't great. I'll take her to the hospital. The driver will bring you home."

It had been exactly like this the first time around. The day we got our marriage certificate, one phone call from Annette, and he was gone. I'd sat alone in that apartment all night, waiting like a fool. Back then, I'd actually believed he was just looking after her like a sister.

I gave them both a pleasant nod. "Sure. Take your time. I won't see you out."

Stan clearly didn't appreciate my composure. His brow furrowed and he opened his mouth to say something, but Annette was already pulling him into the car.

The sports car shrank into the distance. I took out my phone and called the finance department.

"Has the transfer come through?"

"Yes, Ms. Kaufman."

My lips curved upward.

"Wire everything to the offshore account. Immediately. Then call the police and report the company for suspected illegal fundraising. File for bankruptcy protection."

Back at the apartment, I swept every matching couple's item Stan had so carefully arranged into the trash. Then I booked the earliest flight out of the country.

I was reaching for the door handle when it slammed open from the other side.

Stan stormed in, seized my throat, and pinned me against the wall.

"Jade Kaufman, you played me!"

A vein pulsed at his temple. His eyes were wide, bloodshot. "You moved the money? And filed for bankruptcy yourself?"

My head was forced back against the wall. I stared at him through the suffocating pressure on my windpipe.

"That's right."

"Your money disgusts me, Mr. Delgado."

His grip tightened.

"You have a death wish!"

I managed to drag a smile across my face.

"Then kill me."

"Kill me, and you'll never see a cent of it."

His hand released all at once. I slid down the wall and crumpled to the floor, clutching my throat, coughing so hard my vision blurred.

He crouched down and gripped my jaw, forcing my face toward his.

"Jade. You think you can run?"

"Your father's ashes are still at the cemetery. Try me. I'll have someone scatter them by morning."

I couldn't stop the trembling.

In my last life, that was exactly the threat he'd used. My father's ashes, held hostage, to force me into donating bone marrow to Annette.

I lunged forward and slapped him across the face with everything I had.

"Stan Delgado, you're an animal!"

His head snapped to the side. He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek where I'd struck him.

When he turned back, his face was pure fury.

"Fair enough."

"Since you won't behave, don't blame me for what comes next."

He stood and pulled out his phone.

"Cancel Jade Kaufman's flight. Freeze every bank account under her name."

A pause.

"And send someone to watch the cemetery. Around the clock."

He hung up and looked down at me, towering, absolute.

"Starting today, you don't go anywhere without my permission."

I was placed under complete house arrest. My phone and ID were confiscated, and I was locked inside the villa with no way out.

Stan went to the office during the day. At night, he came home and found new ways to torment me.

At meals, he had the housekeeper prepare dishes he knew made me nauseous. At bedtime, he cranked the air conditioning down to freezing and left me to shiver through the night.

Eventually, he stopped pretending altogether and brought Annette home.

Right in front of me, he held her close, his arms wrapped around her while she nuzzled against him.

"Stan, Miss Kaufman is watching," Annette murmured, nestled in his arms.

Stan spared me a careless glance.

"She's just a disobedient little toy. Ignore her."

I sat on the couch and watched their performance. Not a single ripple disturbed my heart. If anything, I found it laughable.

In my past life, I'd been kept in the dark, drowning in agony. Now all I felt was disgust.

I stood to go back to my room.

Annette called out behind me.

"Miss Kaufman, could you pour me a glass of water?"

I didn't bother acknowledging her and kept walking.

Stan's voice cut through the air like a blade.

"Stop."

"Annette asked you to pour her water. Are you deaf?"

I paused and turned around.

"You married me just to make me your maid?"

Stan closed the distance in two strides, seized a fistful of my hair, and wrenched my head back.

"Wife?" He looked down at me with open contempt. "You think you deserve that title?"

"Jade, I married you for one reason: to make you suffer."

"Your father destroyed Annette's family. Ruined everything she had. That debt falls to you now."

I froze.

My father destroyed Annette's family?

That was absurd. My father ran his business with integrity. He would never have hurt anyone.

"That's a lie!" I thrashed against his grip.

Stan shoved me away.

"Deny it all you want."

"It doesn't matter. You'll spend the rest of your life atoning."

He turned to Annette, and his voice softened instantly, as if he were speaking to a completely different person.

"Annette, how would you like to punish her?"

Annette fixed her gaze on me.

"Stan, I've been so dizzy lately. The doctor says I'm anemic."

She tilted her head, a picture of innocence. "Maybe Miss Kaufman could spare some blood for me?"

Stan agreed without hesitation.

"Done."

He called in a private physician. Several people pinned me to the table while the doctor inserted the needle. They drew a full eight hundred milliliters of blood.

My vision went black. Cold seeped through every inch of my body. I crumpled to the floor, too weak to even lift a finger.

Stan looked down at me. There was nothing in his eyes. No pity. No hesitation. Nothing.

"This is just the beginning."

"Jade, everything you owe Annette, I will take back from you. Piece by piece."

For days after the blood draw, I burned with a fever that wouldn't break.

Stan refused to let anyone call a doctor. The only thing the housekeeper was allowed to give me was a bitter herbal concoction forced down my throat each day.

I was too weak to leave the bed.

Annette, on the other hand, made a point of visiting my room to gloat.

"Jade, you really are pathetic right now."

She dragged a manicured nail down my cheek.

"Stan doesn't love you. He never did. Every time he touches you, it makes his skin crawl."

"Your wedding night, he actually..."

She paused on purpose, pressing her fingers to her lips to stifle a coy little laugh.

"He actually hired some homeless man off the street to keep you company."

"Too bad you ran. You missed the full experience."

My eyes snapped open. I stared at her, unblinking.

Even though I already knew the truth, hearing it spoken aloud still made bile rise in my throat.

I forced my trembling body upright and slapped her across the face with every ounce of strength I had left.

"Get out."

Annette shrieked and tumbled to the floor.

Footsteps pounded outside the door. Stan burst into the room. The moment he saw Annette on the ground, the color drained from his face. He rushed to her side and gathered her up.

"Annette, are you okay?"

Annette clutched her cheek, tears streaming down her face.

"Stan, I just felt sorry for Miss Kaufman. I only came to check on her."

"She hit me..."

Stan turned and glared at me, fury blazing in his eyes.

"Jade, you have a death wish."

He strode over and backhanded me across the face.

I had no strength left. The blow knocked me onto the bed, and blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. All I could hear was a high-pitched ringing in my ears.

"Touch her again, and I'll end you."

I wiped the blood from my lips and lifted my face, laughing.

"Go ahead. Kill me now."

Stan seized my chin in a crushing grip.

"Kill you? That would be letting you off too easy."

"Annette's kidneys are failing. Your tissue was a perfect match."

"Next month, you're going into surgery."

My mind went blank. He was going to cut a kidney out of me while I was still breathing.

"I won't do it!"

"This is a crime!"

Stan's lip curled.

"In this house, I am the law."

The days that followed were a living prison.

Every day they forced needles into my arms, pumping me full of nutritional supplements to keep my organs in peak condition. I tried to escape, but the villa was surrounded by bodyguards. I couldn't even get past the front gate.

Despair swallowed me whole.

Then one day, a maid forgot to lock my door.

I slipped out and crept downstairs to the landline, dialing 911 with shaking hands.

"Hello, I need help. I'm being held against my will. They're planning to harvest my organs—"

The line went dead. Someone had ripped the cord from the wall.

Stan stood behind me, his face dark as a storm.

"Jade. You never learn."

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me all the way back to my room, hurling me onto the bed.

"Since you're so desperate to run, we'll do the surgery today."

He called in the bodyguards. They strapped me to a gurney.

The surgical light was blinding. I thrashed against the restraints until the straps carved raw, bleeding lines into my wrists.

"Stan Delgado, you'll rot in hell for this!"

"Let me go!"

Stan stood beside the operating table, his expression empty.

"Jade, this is what you owe Annette."

He turned to leave. The moment he did, a violent cramp tore through my abdomen.

"It hurts..."

"God, it hurts..."

The doctor rushed over to examine me. The color drained from his face.

"Mr. Delgado, she... she's pregnant!"

"There are signs of a threatened miscarriage. If we proceed with the kidney extraction now, both the mother and the baby could die."

Stan froze mid-step.

He turned slowly and stared at my flat stomach.

"What did you just say?"

The doctor's voice trembled. "She's almost two months along."

Two months. That lined up exactly with the night we signed our marriage certificate. The night he forced himself on me.

The pain was dragging me under, but I clung to the sheets with white-knuckled fists.

"Stan..."

"Please... save the baby..."

This was my flesh and blood. No matter how much I despised Stan, I couldn't let my child die.

Stan's expression shifted, unreadable, warring with itself.

The doors swung open and a nurse wheeled Annette in.

Her face was ashen, her voice a pitiful whimper.

"Stan, I feel so awful..."

"The doctors said my kidneys are already shutting down. If I don't get the surgery soon, I won't make it through the night..."

In my past life, he'd ignored me while I hemorrhaged during a difficult labor. Now, with two lives hanging in the balance, he walked toward Annette all the same.

Stan's voice was ice.

"It's just a bastard. Losing it changes nothing."

"Prep the kidney transplant. Save Annette first."

My whole body shook. He wouldn't even spare his own child.

"Stan Delgado! You'll pay for this!"

The scream ripped from my throat, tears and cold sweat streaming down my face.

Then the explosion hit.