Cathy, my fiancé Ethan’s true love, saved his father with a bone marrow donation. The Northwood family didn’t just thank her—they worshipped her. She became their saint; I became the stain on their perfect story. While she was celebrated as the "Angel of Ashton City," showered with mansions and luxury cars, I lay in my room, coughing blood, my back covered in deep purple wounds. While she glowed with health, I could barely stand. When I needed medical care, our joint account had been emptied—to buy Cathy designer handbags. When I showed them my donation certificate, their gratitude turned to rage. "Cathy risked her life," Ethan’s mother snarled, slapping me. "You’re a disgrace." I died on their engagement day, hearing the celebration through hospital walls, my heart full of hate. Then I woke up—reborn—on the day the hospital called to say I was a match for Ethan’s father. This time, I’d choose differently. This time, I’d marry the one man the Northwoods feared most: their sworn enemy, the blind CEO they’d ruined. 1 The sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital corridor filled my lungs. The single sheet of paper in my hand, the report confirming the "successful bone marrow match," felt as heavy as a tombstone. The memory of that thick needle piercing my spine, again and again, sent a phantom shock of pain through my nerves. I smiled. Then, before the doctor's astonished eyes, I tore that single sheet of paper—the one that held the Northwood dynasty's fate—into a shower of confetti and tossed it into the trash. I swiped open my phone, blocked the hospital's number, and deleted it. My fingers flew across the screen, dialing a number I had only ever seen in headlines of the financial news. A name I had admired from afar but never dared to approach. Edward Howell. The heir to Howell Industries, the man whose empire and eyesight had been destroyed by the Northwoods' machinations. The line connected almost instantly, met with a wall of dead silence. I didn't waste time on pleasantries. "Mr. Howell," I began, my voice steady, "my name is Sophia Hayes. I'm Ethan Northwood's fiancée. I have the core project data and fatal security vulnerabilities for Northwood Industries for the next three quarters. I want to make a trade." His breathing on the other end remained calm, as if I’d just offered him the weather report. "What kind of trade?" "Marry me," I said, each word a deliberate, sharp-edged stone. "I'll be your wife, and this corporate intelligence will be my dowry. I have only one condition: give me your protection and your resources. I want to see the House of Northwood burn to the ground." The silence on the other end stretched for a full thirty seconds. I thought he was going to hang up, dismissing me as a lunatic. Finally, he spoke. His voice was a low, resonant baritone. "City Hall. Thirty minutes." The line went dead. It was all business, cold and efficient, without a single wasted word. Holding the freshly printed marriage certificate—the paper a startling, almost violent shade of red—was the first moment this new life felt real. That afternoon, my phone rang. It was Ethan, his voice crackling with an unfamiliar fury. "Sophia! Where the hell have you been? We found a match for my father, but the hospital said they can't reach you!" "Oh," I replied, my tone placid. "I was busy. I got married." "What?!" His roar nearly shattered my eardrum. "Are you insane, Sophia? What kind of game are you playing at a time like this? Get your ass back here, right now! Don't you forget who pays your bills and gives you the life you have!" A small, cold laugh escaped my lips. "I'm afraid you're mistaken, Ethan. My name is Sophia Hayes. And as of this morning, the name next to mine on a marriage certificate is Edward Howell." The other end of the line fell dead silent. Then, his mother snatched the phone, her voice a shrill shriek. "You venomous bitch, Sophia! Are you trying to kill us all? How could you marry that blind cripple? You ungrateful viper!" I hung up. I'd heard enough. Less than an hour later, Ethan's retaliation came. He called an emergency press conference. In front of the cameras, he looked haggard, his face a mask of profound sorrow. "My fiancée, Sophia Hayes," he began, his voice breaking, "in a fit of pique, has chosen this moment—the moment she learned my father's life was in her hands—to not only refuse to donate her bone marrow, but to spitefully run off and marry my greatest business rival." He paused, letting the tragedy sink in, his eyes pleading with the cameras. "I cannot fathom how a person can be so cold, so heartless. To put a petty grudge before a human life... I stand before you today to apologize. To apologize for my father's fate, and for ever loving such a treacherous woman." It was a masterful performance. The narrative of the devoted son, betrayed by a cruel fiancée, exploded across the internet. I became the villain: cold-blooded, vindictive, monstrous. I stared at the news on my phone, calmly adding this new, public hatred to the very top of my revenge list. The Howell estate was as dark and imposing as a fortress. The moment I stepped through the gates, I felt the suffocating weight of its history. A butler, a man well past fifty, intercepted me. His demeanor was polite, but his eyes were filled with undisguised suspicion. "Miss Hayes," he said stiffly. "Mr. Howell is waiting for you in his study. Your luggage will be brought to the guest room after it has been... sanitized." I nodded, saying nothing, and walked toward the study. Edward Howell sat behind a massive oak desk. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses that obscured the upper half of his face, yet I could feel his gaze on me, sharp and analytical. The silence in the room was a physical presence. My ex-fiancé, Ethan, had never commanded this kind of intimidating power. After a long moment, he finally spoke. "The Northwood project vulnerabilities. I want the details." I didn't answer immediately. Instead, I walked closer, stopping just before his desk. "Mr. Howell, have you been experiencing increased pressure behind your eyes recently? Accompanied by intermittent migraines and nausea?" His head tilted toward me. I couldn't see his expression, but I knew his guard was now fully raised. "What are you trying to say?" "They're classic side effects of the kind of nerve damage you sustained. Medication only offers temporary relief," I said, weaving my own past agony into a plausible fiction. "A... friend of mine went through a similar ordeal after a bone marrow transplant. She discovered that applying gentle pressure to specific acupressure points around the orbital bone, combined with a warm compress, can significantly alleviate the nerve pain. Would you like to try?" Edward remained silent. The butler, however, stepped forward. "Miss Hayes! Mr. Howell's health is managed by a team of the world's leading specialists. Your input is not required!" I ignored the butler, my focus entirely on Edward. "And yet, those leading specialists haven't cured your blindness, have they? My method is risk-free. It will only take five minutes." Another long, tense silence stretched between us. Finally, he gave a subtle, almost imperceptible nod. I moved around the desk to stand behind him. Drawing on the muscle memory of a thousand nights spent soothing my own pain, I found the pressure points with practiced ease. The moment my fingertips touched his temples, his entire body went rigid. I paid it no mind, applying a steady, gentle pressure. Five minutes later, I withdrew my hands. "How do you feel?" He didn't answer. He simply waved a hand, and the butler, understanding the silent command, bowed and exited the room, closing the heavy doors behind him. We were alone. "The resources you asked for, you'll have them," he said, his voice a low rumble. "The study downstairs is yours to use. What you can unearth is up to you." It was the first seed of trust. That night, using the limited access he'd granted me, I anonymously packaged the core code vulnerabilities of "Starlight Innovations," a key subsidiary of Northwood Industries, and sent it to a handful of the most aggressive financial news outlets. In my past life, that same vulnerability had cost the Northwoods nearly a billion dollars. The next morning, the news broke. Starlight's stock plummeted the second the market opened, triggering a massive panic sell-off. Ethan's first call was to Cathy. He had no idea his phone was now bugged, courtesy of my new husband's resources. "Cathy, baby, don't worry," he said, trying to sound confident. "This is nothing. It's obviously that blind bastard Edward Howell, trying to play dirty. Does he really think these cheap shots can take me down? He's pathetic!" On the other end, Cathy's signature sweet, innocent voice was a balm to his ego. "Ethan, please don't be angry. I know you can handle this. But... about Sophia... now that she's married to him, do you think she'll tell him things? About our family?" "Her? What does she know?" Ethan scoffed, his voice dripping with contempt. "She's a brainless socialite who only knows how to shop. I'm just using her to piss off Howell. She's a useless pawn in his house now, nobody cares about her. You're the one that matters, Cathy. You just focus on getting strong. Dad needs you." I listened to their conversation, a cold smile touching my lips as I switched off the recording. A useless pawn? Excellent. A hunter's greatest advantage is prey that feels perfectly safe. As I had predicted, Ethan's father's condition took a sharp turn for the worse a few days later. The Northwood family was thrown into chaos. I "helpfully" arranged for an anonymous tip to be sent to them, along with a forged lab report suggesting that Cathy was, in fact, a potential match. Instantly, all their hopes, all their pressure, landed squarely on Cathy's slender shoulders. Soon, the news was all over the society pages: The Northwoods were hosting a grand charity gala to thank the community for its support, and to publicly honor the "great sacrifice" of their savior, Miss Cathy. I saw the announcement and knew their plan immediately. They were building a public altar, a stage of moral high ground from which Cathy could not possibly descend. They would force her hand in front of the entire city. It was a magnificent play, a drama of "selfless love." I contacted the team Edward had assigned to me. "I want you to fan the flames. Make the story go viral. The headline should be: '#Angelic Beauty to Donate Again for Love; Northwood Heir Pledges His Life in Gratitude#'" "I want every person in this city talking about it. I want every camera, every microphone, pointed directly at Cathy's innocent, perfect face." Edward's resources were formidable. Overnight, Cathy became a legend. A living saint, willing to risk her own health for the man she loved. On the night of the gala, I arrived on Edward's arm, dressed to kill. My appearance silenced the room. Ethan and his mother stared at me, their eyes like daggers. "You have the audacity to show your face here?" his mother hissed, her voice a low, vicious snarl. "You've shamed our entire family! Look at Cathy, and then look at yourself. You're not fit to even breathe the same air as her!" I ignored her, gliding directly toward a pale, visibly anxious Cathy, who was clinging to Ethan's arm. "Cathy, congratulations," I said, raising my champagne flute with a brilliant smile. "Soon to be the next Mrs. Northwood. The whole city is calling you an angel. It's all so moving. It makes a selfish, ordinary person like me feel quite inadequate." The color drained completely from Cathy's face. Her knuckles were white where she gripped Ethan's jacket. "Sophia... please don't say that... I... I'm just doing what I have to do." Ethan pulled her protectively behind him, glaring at me. "That's enough, Sophia! Cathy is still recovering. Stop tormenting her and get out!" The show was about to begin. Ethan took the stage, delivering a heart-wrenching speech about Cathy's "noble sacrifice." The spotlight found her, and a hundred cameras zoomed in. She was trapped. To refuse now would be to admit she was a fraud, a heartless performer who would let a man die. With tears in her eyes, she nodded meekly amidst a thunderous, adoring applause. "I... I'll do it." The room erupted. But the climax came during the "formality" of the pre-donation physical. To demonstrate the authenticity of the event, the Northwoods had brought in notaries and a medical team to perform a preliminary screening on stage. The result came quickly. The doctor, holding the report, looked deeply uncomfortable. "Mr. Northwood... I'm sorry," he announced to the silent, expectant crowd. "But according to this preliminary screening, Miss Cathy's physiological markers, especially her hematopoietic stem cell activity, are completely unsuitable for donation. A forced donation would not only be useless to the patient, it would pose a grave danger to Miss Cathy's own life." The ballroom fell into a stunned, absolute silence. The collective gaze of the city's elite shifted from adoration to confusion, then from confusion to suspicion. A woman who wasn't even a viable donor had put on a city-wide spectacle of self-sacrifice? The Northwood family's grand gesture had just become a city-wide joke. Their reputation was in tatters. Later that night, I saw them in the parking garage. For the first time, I saw Ethan shove Cathy's hand away from him. "Why didn't you say anything?!" he raged. "Why let it get this far if you knew your body couldn't handle it? Now my entire family is a laughingstock because of you!" "I... I thought I could... Ethan, I really wanted to save your father..." she sobbed, her tears flowing freely. But the damage was done. Once a crack appears in a perfect facade, it can never be truly repaired. The Northwoods' public humiliation was a delightful overture to my symphony of revenge. But they weren't finished. Desperation turns men into beasts. A week later, I was reading in the garden of the Howell estate when a sharp pain exploded at the back of my neck. My world went black. I don't know how long I was out. When I woke, the acrid smell of disinfectant filled my nose, making me gag. I was lying on a cold, metal table. My wrists and ankles were bound tightly with thick leather straps. The blinding, shadowless lamp of an operating room glared down at me. Several figures in surgical masks and white coats surrounded me, their eyes cold and clinical, as if looking at an object, not a person. The door to the room opened. Ethan and his mother walked in. The charming, grief-stricken mask Ethan wore for the public was gone, replaced by a look of crazed, venomous hatred. His mother, the once-immaculate socialite, looked utterly deranged. "You're awake, you worthless bitch," she sneered, stepping forward and striking me hard across the face. "Did you think marrying that blind man would save you? You were born because of us, and you'll die for us! Your life belongs to the Northwoods!" I didn't struggle. I just stared at Ethan. He walked slowly to my side, a file in his hand. He slapped it onto my chest. It was my original, authentic bone marrow match report. They had found out. "Sophia," he said, his voice dangerously soft, a stark contrast to his mother's shrieking. "I never imagined. You've been playing us from the very beginning." There was no guilt in his eyes, only pure fury at my deception. "The one person who could have saved my father... it was you all along." He leaned in, his face inches from mine. "You had a good laugh, didn't you? Watching us beg Cathy, watching my family become a joke. You must have enjoyed that." I stared back at him, my silence fueling his rage. He bent closer, his lips brushing my ear, his whisper a venomous secret. "You wanted revenge, didn't you? Well, now you've got it." He straightened up and addressed the surgeon. "Prepare for live extraction." The doctors moved without hesitation, picking up the long, brutally thick aspiration needles that had been laid out in preparation. My heart seized. The memory of that agony, of being pierced over and over, flooded my senses, and I began to struggle violently, the leather straps cutting into my wrists. "No... you can't..." Ethan slammed his hands down on my shoulders, his grip like steel, threatening to crush my bones. His face was twisted into a mask of cruel, ecstatic triumph. "Oh, we can," he said. "This is how you will atone, Sophia. As the former daughter-in-law of this family, this is your penance." He pointed at me, a grand gesture to his mother, to the doctors, as if presenting a holy sacrifice to a dark god. "Her purpose, her entire value from this day forward, is to be my father's medicine. We will use her marrow to save his life. It is her sacred duty. Her redemption." One of the doctors approached, the needle glinting under the surgical lamp. He lowered it toward my back. The cold tip of the needle pressed against the skin of my lower back. I could feel its sharp point seeking the gap between my vertebrae. Despair, thick and suffocating, wrapped around me. My life’s only purpose, it seemed, was to be a medicine.
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