Chapter 3

I said goodbye to Corsetti and headed downstairs.

I'd barely reached the second-floor landing when Serena stepped out from the shadows, blocking my path.

Her tears were gone. The trembling lip, the wounded-bird act — all of it stripped away like stage makeup. What was left underneath was a smirk.

"Took you long enough," she said softly. "I was starting to think you'd dropped dead up there and saved me the trouble."

"Face it, Arabella. Eight years of playing tug-of-war with Dante, and you still lost. He's mine now."

"Do yourself a favor — pick out a nice cemetery plot. Maybe I'll send flowers once a year. If I remember."

I didn't respond. I moved to step around her.

That was when she screamed.

One second she was standing in front of me — the next she was tumbling down the staircase, arms flailing, shrieking as though someone had shoved her from behind.

I reached out instinctively, but my fingers didn't even graze her sleeve before she landed neatly at the bottom — on her feet, barely winded.

The shock still hit me like a freight train. My heart — the same heart that couldn't handle any sudden stress — clenched violently. Pain ripped through my chest and radiated down my arm. I grabbed the railing, pressing my other hand against my sternum, struggling to breathe.

Before I could reach for my medication, Serena was already performing.

She crumpled to the floor, clutching her ankle, voice pitched high with rehearsed anguish:

"Arabella — you pushed me! Just because you can't stand seeing me with Dante — you actually pushed me?"

Footsteps. Dante rounded the corner at a sprint and dropped to Serena's side.

Then he looked up at me — pale, gasping, clinging to the wall — and his face hardened.

"Arabella, what the hell is wrong with you? You want to break up and run off with Ethan? Fine. But what gives you the right to lay a hand on Serena?"

There it was. That flash of hope in his eyes — the desperate, pathetic wish that I'd say yes, I pushed her because I'm jealous, because I still want you.

"I didn't push her," I managed through the pain. "And I'm not jealous."

His expression went cold.

"So what — she threw herself down a flight of stairs to frame you?"

"Arabella, when are you going to stop lying? If anything happens to Serena, I swear I'll —"

"Wait."

He stopped mid-threat. A flicker of triumph crossed his face, as if he'd finally gotten what he wanted — me, breaking, reaching out, ready to apologize.

I walked down the stairs.

And before Serena could react, I planted my foot against her shoulder and sent her tumbling down the last half-flight for real.

She hit the landing hard. Her eyebrow split against the railing. Blood streaked across her forehead, and this time the scream was genuine.

"See?" I said. "The first time was fake."

Dante stared at me — stunned silent. In ten years, I had never once raised my hand. Never fought back. Never stopped swallowing my anger.

He hadn't expected this.

"Have you lost your mind?" He rushed to Serena, pulling her upright. "She just had surgery! You could've torn her stitches — she could get an infection and die —"

I let out a cold laugh.

"Stitches? What stitches?"

"You're a surgeon, Dante. You know better than anyone — Serena was never sick. There was no transplant. No surgery."

"If I'm wrong, pull up her shirt right now. Show me the scar."

Dante froze.

Serena's face went white — then she yanked herself free of his grip, clutching her collar shut.

"I don't know what she's talking about," she spat. "The transplant was legitimate and fully documented. Stop making baseless accusations!"

She grabbed Dante's arm and dragged him away before he could think too hard about what I'd just said.

I watched them go.

The adrenaline drained out of me all at once. My heart was hammering — erratic, dangerous. I leaned against the wall and tried to breathe through the pain.

I made it to the second-floor landing before my knees buckled.

A hand caught my arm.

"You look terrible. Let me help you to the bench outside."

I squinted through the haze of pain. When I saw who it was, I almost laughed.

Ethan Shaw.

The man Dante had spent eight years accusing me of loving.

Ethan handed me a tissue. I pressed it to my forehead — only then realizing I was drenched in cold sweat.

He didn't ask questions. He just steadied me and walked slowly, matching my pace, until we reached the bench downstairs.

"Corsetti told me you were here," he said. "I wanted to drop something off — that ring commission you asked for. My wife finished the design."

He pulled a velvet box from his jacket.

Inside was a diamond ring. Simple. Elegant. Devastating.

Months ago, I'd commissioned it through Ethan's wife — one of the most sought-after jewelry designers on the East Coast. The plan had been simple: survive the transplant, then propose to Dante. End the cold war. Prove to him, once and for all, that he was never a replacement for anyone.

Instead, Serena had photographed me handing Ethan the design references. She'd cropped his wife out of the frame, twisted the context, and fed the image to Dante like poison.

And that was how my donor heart ended up in the chest of a perfectly healthy woman.

I didn't take the ring.

"Keep it," I said. "I'll wire the remaining balance, but I don't need it anymore."

Ethan sighed. "Eight years, and she still hasn't figured out we're not together? My wife and I have been married for five years. Would it help if I talked to Dante directly?"

I shook my head.

One phone call. That's all it would have taken. One internet search. Dante could have confirmed Ethan's marriage in thirty seconds and unraveled eight years of lies.

But he never did.

Because he was afraid. Afraid he'd been wrong — afraid he'd destroyed us over nothing. So he buried his head in the sand and let the suspicion rot.

"Don't bother," I said. "It's over."

"Whatever her reasons were, whatever she was thinking — none of it changes the fact that she nearly killed me."

Right on cue, Dante's voice echoed from the stairwell above:

"Arabella — you said you had nothing going on with him!"

He stood at the railing, Serena at his side, her eyes locked on the spot where Ethan's hand still rested near my sleeve.

Serena leaned into Dante, voice dripping with feigned sympathy:

"And she wonders why you don't trust her."

Ethan opened his mouth to explain.

I tugged his sleeve. Don't.

I'd spent eight years explaining. Dante hadn't believed me once.

Whatever was left to say, the investigators and the judge could say it for me.