Chapter 1

For six years, I sold my body to underground clinics as a human lab rat to cure my son's heart failure and pay off my husband's debts. 

Today, my biological brother kicked away the medicine I bought with half my life.

"Lucas was never sick. We faked the medical records to teach you a lesson for upsetting Virginia."

My husband coldly chimed in:

"I never went bankrupt either."

Even the son I bled to birth stabbed my arm, screaming, "A bloody monster like you doesn't deserve to be my mom!"

I finally realized my entire life was a meticulously crafted scam. 

With my organs rapidly failing and only ten days left to live, I stepped onto the edge of the balcony. 

"You're right," I smiled at my husband and brother, watching the color completely drain from their faces. "Six years of my life isn't enough to apologize to her."

"So I'll pay you with my corpse."

......

Today, I finally secured the miracle drug and the last bit of funding needed for my son's heart failure surgery.

But my brother, Roman, ruthlessly kicked away the drug I was protecting with my life.

"Lucas doesn't have heart failure. Those medical records were faked from the start. Sending you to that clinic was just to teach you a lesson. That's what you get for constantly making Virginia cry."

My husband, Killian, chimed in:

"Of course, my bankruptcy was a sham as well. Every time I claimed I was hiding from debt collectors these past six years, it was really just because I couldn't stomach the stench of cheap medicine and dried blood on you."

I stood rooted to the spot, suffocating under a crushing wave of humiliation and shattered reality.

Roman picked up the $200,000 cashier's check—the money I had traded half my life for—and tore it to shreds right in front of my eyes.

"As for this money...It reeks of chemical waste and sewage. Spending it would just be bad luck. We wouldn't dare touch it."

A viper of ice coiled tightly around my heart, squeezing until I couldn't breathe. My mind was a roaring blank. Why? What did I do to deserve this?

Just hours ago, a doctor had looked at my lab results and delivered my death sentence. Six years of serving as a human petri dish had caused irreversible, end-stage multiple organ failure.

I had ten days left. The countdown had already begun.

My sick son, Lucas, was the only thing keeping me breathing.

Seeing me bite my cracked lip in stony, bleeding silence, Killian stepped closer. He reached out and brushed a strand of filthy hair from my forehead.

"Have you learned your lesson after six years? As long as you behave, you might still get a chance to see Lucas."

I violently slapped his hand away. "Where is Lucas?!"

Killian brushed off his suit cuff, his eyes dead and cold.

"I had him legally adopted by Virginia."

My throat felt like it was plugged with wet cement. "What... what are you talking about?"

"Lucas is my heir. Virginia is gentle and elegant. It's only fitting that he grows up with her. She is far more capable of being a real mother than some filthy, erratic woman covered in track marks. Wouldn't you agree?"

My breath caught in my lungs.

Six years ago, I barely survived a horrific car crash, left with multiple shattered bones.

Killian had stood by my hospital bed with red-rimmed eyes, blaming my reckless driving for the accident.

He claimed it resulted in massive debts from the ruined cars, and worst of all, left newborn Lucas with incurable trauma.

For the sake of my dying son and my seemingly devastated husband, I suppressed every survival instinct I had. I walked into those hellish clinics to become a lab rat, enduring over two thousand agonizing days and nights.

But it was all a lie.

Pushed past the brink of utter absurdity, I actually started to laugh. "If I repulsed you both so much—why didn't you just let me die on the operating table back then?"

"Because Virginia always wanted a baby," Roman replied.

"But she's delicate. She can't tolerate an ounce of pain, let alone ruining her figure. You, on the other hand, grew up in the slums. You have thick skin. A miserable chore like childbirth was only fit for you."

"Virginia has suffered enough. We are simply trying to make it up to her."

My eyes went wide. I was looking at two monsters dressed in bespoke suits.

Virginia? Suffered?

My mind violently flashed back to the basement in the slums where I grew up—a dark hole reeking of mildew and rusted iron.

I remembered my adoptive mother kicking my ribs until they snapped, pouring boiling water directly down my bare back.

Every time I sobbed and begged for mercy, I was met with more vicious curses. She told me I deserved to suffer in place of her biological daughter, who was out there living like royalty in a wealthy mansion.

A grotesque, tragic smile stretched across my face. I ripped my shirt open, exposing a torso disfigured by years of abuse and malformed healing.

"Who the hell suffered?!" I spat. "You swore up and down that you would never let anyone abuse me again! Is this how you keep your promise?!"

"Shut up!" Roman roared, delivering a brutal backhand to my face.

My decaying body lost its balance instantly. I crashed backward, violently slamming into the sharp corner of a desk.

"Virginia's biological mother confessed everything on her deathbed. You were never abused for a single day," Roman snarled, his eyes filled with venomous disgust. "Those hideous scars are from you whoring yourself out to scumbags for spare change!"

My biological parents, who had just arrived at the doorway, watched with icy detachment.

"Growing up in that low-class trash heap clearly made her a compulsive liar. Lucas would be cursed for eight lifetimes if he stayed with her. Taking him away was the right decision. A defective, pathological liar like you has no right to raise a child," my mother said, shaking her head in revulsion.

Blood rushed to my head, pounding against my skull. I glared murderously at the people who were supposed to be my family.

"I have no right?! He is my own flesh and blood! The daughter of human traffickers stole my life, and now she wants to steal my son?! Aren't you afraid that vicious bitch will burn in hell?!"

"I told you to shut your mouth!"

Roman's eyes darkened to a terrifying pitch.

"How dare you say that? Do you have any idea how much it would break Virginia's heart to hear such filth?"

He closed the distance in two massive strides, grabbing me and hauling me up like a broken ragdoll.

"It seems six years in the gutter still wasn't enough to teach you how to behave."