Chapter 1

Dante Moretti and I had been together for ten years.

Eight of those years were spent breaking up and making up — yet neither of us ever had the nerve to walk away for good.

Until he gave my donor heart to a woman who was faking her illness.

A heart I'd waited a decade for.

That was when something inside me finally broke.

When I told him it was over, he didn't ask me to stay. He just laughed — cold, mocking — and threw Serena Vale's words back in my face:

"Serena was right about you. You were using me as a stand-in for your precious ex all along. The moment he came back to the city, you couldn't wait to dump me."

"Good thing I gave that heart to Serena. Wasting it on a liar like you would've been a crime."

He slammed the door and walked out, fully expecting me to chase after him, to beg forgiveness the way I always did.

But this time, I didn't follow.

I picked up my phone and dialed the Federal Medical Fraud Division.

He'd been watching too many soap operas if he thought the law didn't apply to him.

……

After I hung up, my chest seized — that familiar, suffocating ache ripping through my ribs. I fumbled for my medication and made my way to Dr. Sullivan's office for my scheduled checkup.

Dr. Sullivan looked at me with something close to pity as he wrote out another prescription for painkillers.

"Miss Ashford, I know you've been waiting for this donor match for ten years. And I know your condition is getting worse."

"But try not to blame Mr. Moretti too harshly. He only went into medicine because of his girlfriend's heart disease. Now that a compatible donor finally turned up, of course he'd pull strings to secure it. It's understandable."

I blinked.

Then it hit me.

Dr. Sullivan thought Serena Vale was Dante's girlfriend.

Dante and I had been together ten years, but we'd been locked in cold war for eight of them. In all that time, he treated me worse than a stranger — while doting on Serena like she was made of glass.

No wonder the doctor got confused.

I didn't correct him. But his words — he went into medicine because of his girlfriend's heart disease — carved a bitter smile across my face.

I was eighteen when they found the defect in my heart.

Dante had dreamed of becoming an architect. But the day he learned about my diagnosis, he threw away every application and switched to pre-med without a second thought.

He'd held my face in his hands, eyes red, voice cracking:

"I want to design buildings. But I want you alive more."

For me, he abandoned everything he loved. He buried himself in textbooks that made his head spin, survived a decade of brutal residencies, and clawed his way into becoming one of the top cardiothoracic surgeons on the East Coast.

But somewhere along the way, as his reputation grew and his skill sharpened, he forgot why he'd picked up a scalpel in the first place.

The day he reassigned my donor heart to Serena, I told him the truth — eyes burning, voice raw:

"Dante, my condition is critical. Without this transplant, I could die."

He didn't even flinch.

"Arabella, don't try to guilt-trip me. My surgical skills are better than anyone's in this hospital. You think I can't tell who needs that heart more?"

I held out my medical file. My latest scans. The numbers that should have terrified him.

He didn't look at a single page.

He signed Serena's name on the transplant order and walked away.

Maybe, in his mind, my life simply didn't matter anymore.

I knew the root of it — the misunderstanding that had poisoned everything between us. For eight years, he'd been convinced I was in love with my ex-classmate, that he was nothing but a replacement, a consolation prize. That suspicion made him cold. Made him cruel. Made him cling to Serena just to punish me.

And for eight years, I refused to let go — because I believed that one day, he'd see the truth. That he'd finally understand my heart had only ever belonged to him.

But watching him write another woman's name where mine should have been — watching him hand away the thing that was supposed to save my life — I felt the last thread of hope snap clean.

I could accept dying.

I could accept waiting forever.

What I could not accept was betrayal.

I was the one with the failing heart. I was the reason he'd become a doctor. And he'd turned that against me — for a woman whose illness existed only on paper.

Why should I be the one to pay for his jealousy and her lies?

No.

The people who should answer for this crime were not going to be me.

Back in the examination room, Dr. Sullivan was still rambling — half-apologizing on Dante's behalf — when I cut him off. My voice came out flat. Dead calm.

"Dr. Sullivan. Enough."

"Just tell me — is there any other option besides the transplant?"

He paused, startled by the ice in my tone. For a moment, he looked at me as though I were someone else entirely — not a patient, but something far more dangerous.

After a long silence, he spoke carefully.

"There is one alternative. A bypass procedure — experimental, modeled on a European case study."

"But given your current condition, the risk of complications during surgery is extreme. If anything goes wrong, there's virtually no chance of survival. We're talking about a one percent success rate."

"I'll do it."

I answered before he finished the sentence.

Dr. Sullivan stared. "You don't want to think it over? Another donor match could come through —"

"No." I shook my head. "I waited ten years for this one. The next could take another ten — or never come at all."

"I'm done waiting. I'd rather take a one percent chance than sit here watching the people who were supposed to love me hand my hope to someone else."

He exhaled slowly and agreed to start drawing up the surgical plan.

I thanked him and rose to leave. I was halfway to the door when my phone buzzed — sharp, insistent.

I unlocked the screen.

My stomach turned to stone.

It was a message from Serena Vale.

"Arabella, I hear you're still playing hard to get. Cute."

"Your heart belongs to me now, so instead of sitting around waiting to die, why don't you make yourself useful? Dante and I can't decide on an engagement ring — pick one for us, would you?"

"Don't worry. After you're gone, I'll take VERY good care of him. I'm generous like that."

Below the text: a cascade of photos. Serena and Dante at a jeweler's counter downtown, trying on matching rings, her head tilted against his shoulder.

The provocation was so transparent it was almost artless.

Before, I might have lost my mind. Might have stormed out to confront them, heart pounding, vision blurring.

But now I simply saved every screenshot and forwarded them to the fraud investigator's encrypted line — evidence of Dante's complicity in medical corruption.

Let her gloat a little longer.

Soon enough, both of them would pay for their stupidity.