Chapter 1
My organs are failing, rotting from years of toxic lab work.
My only life-saving antidote was stolen by my husband and biased parents, given to adopted Ivy who faked sickness to curry favor.
I gave up any chance to live, injecting strong painkillers to endure crippling agony.
The price I paid: only three days until my organs shut down completely, and I’d die.
During those three days, I surrendered everything I owned:
I handed over the Ghost formula that monopolized the black market, and my mafia parents looked utterly relieved;
Marcus laid divorce papers before me. I signed without a second thought, and said I’d finally become sensible;
The day before my death, I spent the whole day out with my son, yet he only wanted Ivy for his mother;
I gifted Aphrodite, the beauty serum, as their wedding present, and every single one praised me for finally being meek and mild.
I keep asking myself this:
When I’m dead, will they feel remorse for the things they’ve done to me?
Coldness seeped straight into my marrow.
I braced `myself against the bathroom sink, staring at the gaunt, haggard woman staring back in the mirror. Sunken eye sockets, skin pale enough to see right through, and a streak of dark red blood crusted stubbornly at the corner of my mouth that I could never wipe clean.
“Ms. Valentina, your multi-organ failure’s hit an irreversible terminal stage.”
Three hours prior, my personal doctor had spoken to me in a shaky voice down in the underground clinic. “If you don’t inject the Eden antidote you formulated yourself right away, your vitals will flatline within seventy-two hours.”
Seventy-two hours. Three whole days.
I tugged my lips into a smile far sadder than any sob I could muster. It wasn’t over yet.
All I had to do was head back to the family compound, unlock the underground vault, and retrieve that antidote I’d spent three years crafting, refined from toxins extracted from an extinct Amazonian poison frog. One dose, and I’d get seven more years of life.
Seven years was enough to watch my son Leo grow into an adult, enough to solidify Marcus’s standing as the underboss of the Thornton mafia family.
I dragged legs heavy as lead, fighting a stabbing agony that pierced my lungs with every breath, and pushed open the heavy oak front doors of the main manor.
Warm, shrill laughter crashed over me instead of the concern I’d craved.
“Marcus, this stuff’s insane. My skin’s already tightening up so nice!”
That was Ivy’s voice—my parents’ adopted orphan, my so-called younger sister. She lounged lazily on the sofa, twisting an empty glass vial between her fingers.
A faint streak of that eerie sapphire-blue liquid still clung to the bottom.
My pupils blew wide, a crushing vice squeezing my heart till it ached. That was Eden. My life-saving cure.
“Course it works wonders,” Marcus said, settling beside her, brushing stray strands of hair from her jaw with fond, adoring eyes. “The docs said your constitution’s been weak lately—this’ll build you right back up.”
“But won’t Valentina get upset over this?” Ivy pressed a hand to her mouth in fake shock, her gaze flicking to me with unmasked taunt. “It’s her lab’s special formula, after all.”
My father Don Carmine huffed from the head of the table, cane tapping sharply against the hardwood floor. “What’s she got to be mad about? This whole family’s supported her all these years. It’s just a little nutrient serum. Ivy’s the frail one, not her, cooped up breathing toxic fumes day in and day out till she’s tough as old leather.”
My mother Isabella chimed in right beside him, equally blind to my agony. “Exactly, Valentina. Ivy’s heading to that big New York gala next month—she needs to look her absolute best. As her older sister, you ought to put her first.”
A metallic, bitter taste flooded my throat. I bit hard into my lip and swallowed the blood rising up inside me.
“That’s not a nutrient shot,” my voice scraped out rough as sandpaper. “It’s an antidote. I needed it to—”
“Needed it for what?” Marcus cut me off, standing with clear irritation etched across his face. “Can you quit being so selfish for once? Ivy’s dizzy nonstop lately. You’ve got hundreds of bottles of weird chemicals down in your lab—just mix another batch. You’re the genius chemist, aren’t you?”
Mix another batch?
I stared at the man I’d loved for a full decade. He had no clue this serum was one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable. No idea I’d poisoned my own insides year after year developing Ghost, the high-grade blue dope that made our mafia family untouchable in the underground trade. Every day inhaling lab poisons had rotted my organs from the inside out.
“Are you really that petty to hold a grudge over this, sis?” Ivy stepped up close, tone syrupy sweet, only loud enough for the two of us to hear. “Marcus says my warm company beats your cold lab any day of the week.”
I stared at her glowing cheeks, flushed bright red from my life-saving antidote, then swept my gaze over my husband and parents—every single one of them standing by, fully complicit in stealing my last shot at survival.
All my grief, rage, and heartache drained away in one single tide. A hollow, eerie calm settled over me instead.
“You’re right. It’s just a vial of serum. If Ivy needs it more, she can have it.” My voice sounded alien, flat, devoid of any emotion even to my own ears.
Marcus froze, totally caught off guard. He’d spent minutes mentally rehearsing a whole lecture calling me jealous and unreasonable, and now all those words died stuck in his throat.
“I’m glad you’re finally seeing sense,” he cleared his throat, masking his awkwardness. “You look worn thin. Go rest upstairs.”
“Alright.” I nodded placidly and turned toward the staircase.
As I walked away, a single cold bead of sweat dripped from my forehead and splattered onto the expensive imported carpet.
Seventy-two hours left.
Upstairs master bedroom.
I stood staring out the floor-to-ceiling bay window, lost in my thoughts.
A sharp slap of paper hitting wood cut through the silence. A divorce contract landed hard on the coffee table.
Marcus stood over me, long finger tapping the signature line, looking down from a superior height. “Sign it, Valentina.”
