Chapter 3

Kortney's words didn't hurt. They were just confirmation of a truth I had already accepted. My love for Cedric was a corpse, and she was just kicking it.

"Let go of me, Kortney," I said, my voice flat.

I tried to pull my arm away. She held on tighter, her face contorted with a desperate, ugly rage.

"You have everything that should be mine!" she shrieked.

In the struggle, she lost her balance. She stumbled backwards, her high heel catching on the plush carpet. She went down hard, her arm hitting the sharp corner of a console table.

There was a sickening crack.

Kortney's face went white. Then she let out a piercing scream that echoed down the empty hallway.

The door to the guest suite flew open. Cedric stood there, the drunken haze gone from his eyes, replaced by sharp alarm.

"What happened?" he demanded.

Kortney was already crying, clutching her arm. "She pushed me! Cedric, she pushed me!"

She pointed a trembling finger at me.

"She said she was going to ruin my face because I look like Fallon! She's jealous!"

I just stood there, silent. What was the point of denying it? He would believe what he wanted to believe. He would believe the woman who looked like his dead love.

Cedric's eyes moved from Kortney's tear-streaked face to my calm one. His gaze hardened, his expression turning to ice.

Without another word, he strode over to Kortney, scooped her into his arms, and started walking down the hall.

He paused as he passed me.

"Bring her," he snapped at the bodyguard who had appeared at his side.

The man took my arm in a firm grip. I didn't resist. I was a prisoner being escorted back to my cell.

The hospital corridor was white and sterile. I sat on a hard plastic chair while Cedric paced outside the emergency room.

A doctor came out, his face grim.

"It's a bad fracture," he told Cedric. "A compound fracture of the ulna. There's significant tissue damage. She'll need surgery to set the bone, and likely a skin graft to repair the wound."

Cedric's face was a thundercloud. He looked at the doctor, but his next question was not about Kortney.

"The skin graft," he said, his voice dangerously low. "Where would you get the skin?"

"We'd typically take it from the patient's own thigh or..."

Cedric cut him off. His cold eyes landed on me.

"Take it from her," he said.

The doctor looked confused. "Mr. Burke, that's highly unusual..."

"She caused the injury," Cedric stated, as if it were an undeniable fact. "She will provide the means to fix it. It's her responsibility."

I shot to my feet. A tremor ran through me. "No. I didn't do it. It was an accident."

Cedric walked towards me, his tall frame blocking out the harsh fluorescent light. He loomed over me, a terrifying figure of judgment.

"You have caused enough trouble tonight, Keena," he said, his voice a low growl. "You will do this. You will take responsibility for your actions."

He nodded at his bodyguard. The man grabbed my arms.

"No!" I struggled, but it was useless. He was immensely strong.

"Cedric, please! I swear I didn't push her!" I was begging, my voice cracking.

His eyes flickered with something-doubt? hesitation?-but it was gone in an instant.

"I only believe what I see," he said, his voice flat and cold.

They dragged me into a treatment room and forced me onto a gurney.

The doctor, looking deeply uncomfortable, approached. "Mr. Burke, we'll need to administer anesthesia for this procedure..."

"We don't have enough for two full procedures on hand," another nurse interjected. "We can sedate Miss Bates for her surgery, or we can use it for the graft extraction."

Kortney, who had been brought into the room, started to cry. "Cedric, it hurts so much. Please, I need it."

Cedric didn't even look at her. His eyes were on the doctor, his face cold and clinical.

"Will performing the extraction on my wife without anesthesia pose any risk to her heart?"

The doctor hesitated. "The pain will be extreme, which could cause a spike in blood pressure, but... no. It shouldn't pose a direct, long-term risk to the transplant itself."

"Then give the anesthetic to Miss Bates," Cedric commanded.

The world seemed to tilt. The air left my lungs. I looked at the man I had once loved, the man who was my husband, and I saw a monster.

A bitter, hysterical laugh escaped my lips.

He was going to let them cut a piece of my body off, without anything for the pain, all to fix an injury I didn't cause. All because he was more concerned about the organ in my chest than the person it belonged to.

The surgeon approached with a scalpel. I saw the flash of steel.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

The blade sliced into the skin of my thigh. The pain was sharp, electric, a white-hot agony that stole my breath. I felt the world go dark at the edges.

But the physical pain was nothing. It was a dull echo of the agony that had been carved into my soul for the last five years.

This marriage wasn't a gilded cage. It was a slow, meticulous torture.

And tonight, it had reached its peak.