Chapter 2

Ethan led me to my parents' memorial plaques, mounted on a cold marble wall in a quiet, unused wing of the house. He made me kneel.

"Think about what they did, Sarah," he said, his voice a low hiss beside my ear. "Think about the suffering they caused. My suffering. Chloe' s suffering."

The polished stone reflected my gaunt face, a ghost of the girl I once was.

My knees ached on the hard floor. The cramping in my belly was becoming more insistent.

"They wouldn' t have wanted this," I whispered, more to the images of my smiling parents than to him.

"They didn't want my family to thrive either," Ethan countered, his hand gripping my shoulder, tight and painful. "They reaped what they sowed. And now, you will pay their dues."

He forced my head up, making me look at their names.

"Chloe' s birthday gala is tonight. You will be there. You will be gracious. You will show everyone how devoted you are to making amends."

Gracious. Devoted. Words that tasted like ash in my mouth.

The gala. A public display of his power, of my submission.

And Chloe. She' d be there, sweet, innocent Chloe, her eyes full of a suffering that I knew, deep down, she relished.

She was as much my jailer as Ethan was.

The pain in my abdomen clenched, sharp and sudden. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

Ethan didn' t notice, or didn' t care. He was lost in his own narrative of victimhood and revenge.

"You understand, don't you, Sarah? This kidney is the only way."

I nodded slowly, my gaze fixed on my mother' s name.

She had a kind face. I wondered if she knew, somehow, the monster her charity had nurtured.

The pills were working. A grim satisfaction mixed with the fear.

He would get nothing from me.

Not the child he didn't even know existed.

Not the kidney he craved for his precious Chloe.

He thought he was in control. But my body, this broken, abused body, was staging its own silent coup.

The secret was my only weapon, my only shield.