Chapter 1

I’m the only person on Earth with a clinically proven antibody capable of neutralizing this rare deadly virus.

I caught the virus when I was six. Its mortality rate was staggeringly high, and everyone thought I’d never pull through. Against all odds, I recovered entirely on my own. By some strange twist of biology, my body made the world’s sole antibody that could fight this virus off.

Once I turned eighteen, I signed up to donate my serum as a volunteer.

For twenty years straight, rain or shine, I showed up to donate free of charge—107 separate donations in total. Each time, I pulled a gravely ill patient back from death’s brink.

I’m no saint living to save the whole world. Every last donation was done for my mother.

Back when I was six, my father’s infidelity drove my mother to take her own life. What happened was cruel beyond measure, completely unforgivable.

A fortune-teller once told me my mom’s lingering resentment ran far too deep. To free her trapped, wandering soul for good, a blood relative of hers had to finish exactly 108 acts of good deeds.

Twenty years in, only one deed remained. Just one more, and my mother’s spirit could finally rest in peace.

But when the hospital sent out an urgent emergency SOS this time around, I did something I’d never done in two decades.

I turned their request down flat.

Their message stated a six-year-old girl had suddenly developed severe viral complications and was dying fast. The second I pulled up her medical file, I spotted those familiar eyes and brows instantly, even after all these years apart.

Her patient chart read: Father, Neil Pembroke. Mother, Acacia Reed.

This was the illegitimate daughter of my cheating deadbeat dad and his mistress. Their child. Ally.

They expected me to save my sworn enemy’s kid? Not a chance in hell.

I grabbed my phone and fired off a formal refusal without a split second of hesitation, explaining my serum was already reserved for another critically unwell patient.

Thirty seconds hadn’t even ticked by before my phone blew up nonstop. It was Mark Smith, chief of the Infectious Diseases department.

I picked up.

“Miss Sterling, please!” Mark’s voice rang out desperate and frazzled. “She’s only six, and her vitals are crashing. Your serum is the only viable treatment for her across the entire city!”

“Can you bump the other patient’s appointment?” he begged, his pitch climbing close to a shout. “We have an eight-hour treatment window left. Miss it, and we lose her forever!”

I fixed my gaze on the framed black-and-white portrait of my mother resting on my desk, my tone never shifting an inch.

“Mr. Smith, I’ve already made myself clear. My serum is fully booked. First come, first served.”

“Miss Sterling, this is a human life!” Mark sounded on the verge of tears. “How can you stand by and watch this little girl die?”

I let out a cold, bitter chuckle.

“Let me lay this out plainly for you, Mr. Smith.” I spoke in a flat, unyielding tone. “As a voluntary donor, I hold every legal right to turn down requests at any time. I don’t owe any of you anything—and I certainly don’t owe that child a single thing.”

I hung up and powered my phone fully off.

A thick silence swallowed the whole room.

Yet I’d wildly underestimated just how shameless my birth father could be.

Barely ten minutes later, my spare work phone started buzzing relentlessly.

I swiped open the screen and was instantly flooded with dozens of breaking news alerts. Neil had already posted a long, tear-soaked sob story online. He attached Ally’s ER medical records and harrowing photos taken inside the resuscitation room, then twisted every single fact to claim I was hoarding life-saving serum and “holding a dying child’s life hostage for ransom money.”

He’d bought paid trending placements and hired swarms of bot accounts to manipulate public opinion. In under thirty minutes, hashtags including #ColdBloodedVolunteerBlackmailsDyingLittleGirl shot straight to the top of trending rankings.

I’d barely processed the flood of news when an incoming call from a TV reporter popped through directly.

I’d just answered when she hit me with a smug, sanctimonious moralizing tone. “You’re the serum volunteer, aren’t you? The whole internet’s hunting for you. A six-year-old child is dying—why refuse to save her? Do you understand your inaction practically amounts to murder?”

My fingers tightened around the phone, my gaze turning ice cold. “Practically murder?”

I snapped back, every shred of patience gone. “So you’ve already judged me guilty without fact-checking a single detail? Why not first investigate what the girl’s own parents are responsible for?”

I didn’t waste another second listening to her retort, hanging up and blocking her number immediately.

I then grabbed the tablet beside me and pulled up the local news live stream.

On screen, the entryway outside City Central Hospital’s resuscitation ward was crammed wall-to-wall with reporters.

Acacia—the mistress who’d helped push my mother to suicide, the woman who once strutted around acting as if she owned everything—was now a total broken wreck. She knelt on the ER entrance floor, sobbing so violently she could barely draw breath, begging into every rolling camera for my serum as if her own life depended on it.

Neil, sharp in a tailored suit, stepped into frame and hauled her to her feet. Facing the cameras with bloodshot eyes, he raged about my selfishness and cold heart, screaming I possessed “no shred of humanity.” He even issued an open threat, announcing he’d post a cash bounty online to track down “that vicious woman.”

And the livestream viewers ate every lie right up.

The comment section was overflowing with hateful vitriol: “Dox her personal info.” “Pin her down and force blood from her.” “Let her rot.”

I watched this ridiculous public spectacle with an empty, blank expression. Seeing Neil’s fake, nauseating display of grief stirred not one speck of sympathy inside me.

“BANG! BANG! BANG!”

Fists slammed against the door hard enough to rattle its hinges. Next came a brutal twist of the lock—someone had a spare key.

The door flew wide open, and my childhood best friend Herbert stumbled inside, soaked head to toe in sweat.