Chapter One (Nora)

When I crossed into this world, I was given a husband, a childhood sweetheart, and a brother.

I thought I would be happy for the rest of my life.

Then one day a woman caught their eye, and they were willing to hurt me for her.

I stopped hoping.

And the system asked whether I wanted to take back everything I had given them.

My CEO husband's brilliance and vision.

My superstar childhood friend's voice.

My painter brother's hands and inspiration.

Exhausted, I said: Yes. Take it all back.

——

Chapter One (Nora)

The lights in the delivery room were a harsh, blinding white.

I lay on the operating table. The sheet beneath me was soaked through with blood, clinging cold against my back.

Half an hour earlier, Adrian had held my hand and spoken as gently as if he were soothing a child. "It's just an early induction, Nora. Don't be scared. Lacey can't wait any longer. The doctor says cord blood is her only chance."

Caleb stood at the foot of the bed. Julian leaned against the doorframe. My husband, my childhood sweetheart, my brother. All three of them were there.

The doctor said he was going to get a suture kit. He never came back.

They took the baby, too.

I was still bleeding.

I tried to press the call button, but I didn't have the strength to lift a finger.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Then a familiar voice, sweet enough to make my teeth ache:

"Thank you, Doctor. The money's already been transferred."

Lacey.

The footsteps faded.

So no one was coming back to stitch me up.

I stared at the ceiling as my vision dimmed, little by little.

And then a voice spoke inside my head. A voice that had been silent for three years.

[Host vital signs critical. Termination imminent.]

[Does the host wish to take back everything she gave them?]

[Adrian Cole's brilliance and vision.]

[Caleb Hayes's voice.]

[Julian Sinclair's hands and inspiration.]

The tears came all at once.

Five years ago, Adrian had suffered a brain injury in a car crash. He couldn't read a single financial report. He spent night after night smashing things. I traded ten years of my life to give him back his mind, along with eyes that could see the market ten years ahead.

Three years ago, Caleb was diagnosed with throat cancer. They removed half his vocal cords, and he stood on the hospital roof all night. I traded another ten years to give him back his voice.

Two years ago, Julian lost both hands in an accident at his studio, and every scrap of his inspiration went with them. He shut himself in his studio and stared at blank canvases. I traded my last ten years to give him back his hands and his art.

Thirty years.

I had given thirty years of my life to buy back the lives of these three men.

And they had used everything I gave them to win another woman's heart.

With the last of my strength, I nodded.

The pain vanished in an instant. The wound on my abdomen smoothed over as though an invisible hand had passed across it, leaving only a long, winding scar.

[Retrieval confirmed.]

[Before the bond can be released, the host must sever all legal ties with the bound targets.]

[Countdown: seventy-two hours. When time expires, the host will exit this world, and retrieval will execute simultaneously.]

I'd had my lawyer draw up divorce papers for Adrian six months ago.

They had been sitting at the bottom of a drawer ever since. I could never bring myself to take them out.

The party celebrating Cole Technologies' IPO was on the top floor of the Plaza Hotel.

When I pushed open the doors of the ballroom, I was still wearing a hospital gown and a pair of slippers.

The glittering crowd fell silent.

Adrian stood beside the champagne tower, glass raised, laughing with a cluster of Wall Street men. He turned his head, and the moment he saw me, his brow furrowed.

Lacey was on his arm, wearing a white gown I had ordered in Paris last year and never had the heart to wear.

I walked over and set the divorce papers on the buffet table in front of him.

"Sign."

He glanced at the title, and his face changed.

"Nora, all this over that?" He lowered his voice and reached for me. "There'll be other babies. You're fine now, aren't you?"

I stepped back so he couldn't touch me.

The guests began to whisper. Appearances were everything to him, and his expression darkened by degrees.

His gaze fell on the champagne tower beside him, one corner of it shattered. He paused.

Then he smiled.

"You want a divorce? Fine."

"Have them cover this hallway with broken glass. You crawl from that end to this one on your knees. Ninety-nine steps, and I'll sign on the spot."

The butler went white. "Sir! Madam just came out of the delivery room! This could kill her!"

"Fine."

I agreed so quickly that even Adrian looked taken aback.

I didn't have time to waste on him. Seventy-two hours. I didn't want to spend a single minute of it on this man.

The waiters poured basket after basket of broken glass onto the marble floor. It glittered beneath the crystal chandeliers.

Adrian leaned against the table, his tone careless. "Nora, it's not too late to back out. Just say you were wrong, and this whole thing—"

Before he could finish, I knelt.

The glass pierced the thin hospital gown and bit into my knees.

I clenched my teeth and moved forward one step.

Then another.

With every movement, new shards drove in deeper. Blood ran down my calves and left a long red smear across the white marble.

The ballroom was deathly silent. The only sound was glass grinding under me.

"Nora!" For the first time, Adrian's voice cracked. "Have you lost your mind?!"

I didn't look up.

I was counting in my head.

Seventeen.

The first time he took me to watch the sunrise, on the Brooklyn Bridge. He said he would never let me suffer a day in my life.

Forty-two.

The day he woke up in his hospital bed and the first person he recognized was me. He gripped my hand and cried like a child.

Seventy-six.

The day he proposed. He knelt in front of me and said I was his eyes.

Ninety-nine.

I reached his feet.

My knees and palms were a bloody mess. My hospital gown was so red you could no longer tell what color it had been. I braced myself on the floor, lifted my head, and looked at him.

"Sign."

He stared at me, lips pressed white, the fountain pen clenched in his fist.

It was a long time before he bent down and signed his name on the last page, pressing so hard he nearly tore the paper.

"Don't you dare regret this, Nora." His voice was ice. "When you come crying and begging me to take you back, I won't want you."

I didn't answer.

Because the voice in my head had spoken again.

[Legal ties severed.]

[Retrieval countdown: seventy-one hours, forty minutes.]

I pulled myself up by the edge of the table, inch by inch.

As I turned to go, I heard a faint chime from Lacey's direction. A tone that didn't belong to me.

Ding.

I spun around.

She was nestled against Adrian, blinking at me with wide, innocent eyes.