She Gave a Kidney, They Took Her Womb

§PROLOGUE

The Pacific was a thief.

It stole the warmth from my skin first.

Then the air from my lungs.

Now, as my heirloom gown—the one I’d spent months lovingly restoring from my grandmother’s collection—dragged me down into the crushing dark, it was stealing the last of my life.

My gaze was fixed upward, at the shimmering surface I was sinking away from.

At the silhouette of the man I loved.

Phineas.

Dr. Phineas Holt. My fiancé. My husband, for all of three hours.

I saw him, a dark shape against the indifferent moon, his arm still outstretched.

Not toward me.

The life ring he’d thrown spun through the air, a perfect, mocking halo, and landed beside her.

Magnolia Dubois.

His childhood friend. The reason for the five-million-dollar “debt of gratitude” that had haunted our engagement. The woman who had, only moments before, tripped and pulled me over the railing of our wedding yacht with her.

One choice.

One life ring.

Wrong woman.

The last bubble of air escaped my lips, a silent scream into the abyss.

All his promises were scalpels, Phineas. You swore it just this afternoon. I see that now.

The cold was absolute.

Then, nothing.

§01

Consciousness returned as a brutal assault.

The stench of salt and decay.

The grit of sand scraping my cheek.

The raw, burning agony in my lungs.

I coughed, a wet, ragged sound that tore through my chest, and a torrent of seawater spilled from my mouth.

For three days and three nights, I had been the ocean’s plaything. A piece of driftwood in a wedding dress.

Now, I was washed ashore, a survivor spat out by the tide.

"Addie! My God, Addie!"

A voice, familiar and laced with panic.

My brother, Nathaniel.

Strong hands lifted me from the sand. His face, usually so composed, was a mask of terror and relief.

"I found her! Over here!" he yelled.

I sagged against him, my body a dead weight of exhaustion and pain. A sharp, cramping sensation seized my lower abdomen, a cruel reminder.

The baby.

My hand fluttered to my belly. A three-month secret. A life I had been waiting for the perfect moment to share with Phineas.

Was it still there?

Nathaniel wrapped me in a hotel blanket, his touch surprisingly gentle. "It's okay, Addie. I've got you. We're taking you back to the hotel. Phin is on his way."

Phineas.

His name was a shard of ice in my heart.

He’d left me to die.

I tried to speak, to warn Nathaniel, but my throat was raw, my voice a useless rasp.

He carried me into a lavish suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the opulence a sick joke against the backdrop of my near-death. He laid me on a king-sized bed with sheets so white they hurt my eyes.

"Phin's bringing his medical kit," Nathaniel said, pacing the room like a caged animal. "He said calling an ambulance would attract the press. We need to handle this quietly."

Quietly.

They wanted to bury their crime quietly.

The hotel room door burst open, and Phineas stood there, looking every bit the heroic doctor. His face was etched with worry, his eyes scanning my broken form.

For a terrifying moment, my traitorous heart leaped.

He came for me. He does love me.

Then I saw the look he exchanged with my brother. It wasn't love. It was something colder. Complicated.

"She’s hemorrhaging," Phineas said, his voice clipped and professional as he saw the blood staining the white sheets beneath me. He snapped open a black leather bag.

The glint of steel.

Nathaniel’s voice was a low murmur from the corner. "You went through all this trouble, faking this accident, just to end things so he can marry Magnolia without a scandal?"

"You think I wanted this?" Phineas shot back, his hands moving with practiced efficiency. "She's pregnant, Nate. If I just broke it off, I'm the monster. This way… this way, she’ll see herself as tainted. She’ll leave me. Magnolia will be spared the accusations."

My brother sighed, a sound of weary resignation. "That car crash years ago… Magnolia losing a kidney to save you. You owe her a life, Phin. I get it. Just… be good to her. My sister… she doesn't deserve this."

Sacrificing my innocence, my life… for Magnolia’s comfort.

My own brother.

"Just be a little kinder to Addie after this," Nathaniel added, a pathetic afterthought.

"I love Adelaide more than anything," Phineas insisted, his voice thick with a nauseating sincerity. "This is just to repay the debt. Once Magnolia and I have a child, I’ll divorce her. I’ll come back to Addie. The five-million-dollar trust is already in her name."

They spoke of my life as if it were a business transaction.

My pain was the price of Magnolia’s smile.

Tears I didn’t know I had left streamed from my eyes, hot against my cold skin.

This twisted love, this counterfeit family… I wanted no part of it.

§02

The cramping in my abdomen intensified into a searing, white-hot agony.

A scream built in my throat, but it died as a pathetic whimper.

I felt a cold, metallic pressure against my inner thigh.

My eyes fluttered open.

Phineas was there, between my legs, his expression a chilling mask of clinical detachment. In his hand, he held a long, gleaming instrument.

"Hold her down," he commanded my brother.

Nathaniel hesitated for a split second, his face a mess of conflict. But then he moved, his hands clamping onto my shoulders, pinning me to the blood-soaked sheets.

"No…" I choked out, the word swallowed by a wave of pain.

"I have to get the placenta out, Addie," Phineas said, his voice a low, soothing poison. "It's a medical necessity. To prevent infection."

He spoke of necessity while his eyes betrayed a flicker of something else. A grim determination.

The instrument slid inside me.

The tearing, splitting pain was beyond anything I had ever imagined. It wasn't healing. It was butchery.

I fought, thrashing against my brother’s grip, my nails digging into his arms.

"I'm sorry, Addie," Nathaniel grunted, his face turned away, unable to watch.

But Phineas watched. His gaze was locked on his work, his brow furrowed in concentration, as if he were solving a complex surgical problem.

As if the flesh he was carving was not his wife’s.

As if the life he was scraping out was not his child’s.

A keening sound escaped my lips, the sound of an animal caught in a trap.

The world began to gray at the edges.

Through the haze of pain, I heard their voices again, discussing my fate.

"Is this really necessary, Phin? Destroying her like this just so you can marry Magnolia?"

"Magnolia deserves a clean start. And I deserve to repay my debt to her without the world judging me. Once Adelaide believes she is… broken… she will let me go. It’s a kindness, really."

A kindness.

He called this a kindness.

The instrument withdrew, and with it came a wet, sickening rush.

I felt a profound emptiness, a void where life had been only moments before.

He had taken it.

He had taken my baby.

My world dissolved into blackness, their hollow words echoing in the void.

§03

The stark white of a hospital ceiling greeted me when I woke.

The smell of antiseptic was sharp, clean. A stark contrast to the filth of what had been done to me.

I was in a private VIP room at Cedars-Sinai.

Phineas and Nathaniel were on either side of my bed, their faces drawn and shadowed with what looked, to a stranger’s eye, like profound concern.

They were holding my hands.

"Addie, you're awake," Phineas said, his voice a soft caress. "How do you feel?"

"Is there any discomfort?" Nathaniel added, his brow furrowed.

I felt like a science experiment they were observing for side effects.

Then, a phone buzzed on the nightstand. The screen lit up with a single name: Magnolia.

Their grips on my hands loosened instantly.

Phineas answered, putting it on speaker. Magnolia’s voice, sweet as honeyed poison, filled the silent room.

"I'm trying on the wedding dress! Are Phin and Nate coming to see?"

A wedding dress.

My wedding dress was at the bottom of the ocean.

"I can't, my love," Phineas said, his tone dripping with adoration. "That gown… I designed every stitch myself. Every diamond on it was hand-selected. I want to save the sight of you in it for the ceremony."

Nathaniel leaned in. "I can't make it either, Magnolia. The jewelry is all being flown in from Paris. Custom-made. Your favorite shade of sapphire."

"And I've already scouted the perfect venue," Phineas added. "You don't have to worry about a thing."

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