After twenty years of being the dirty little secret, the billionaire finally decided he wanted to be a father. He stood there, clutching a black card linked to a billion-dollar trust, tears streaming down his face as he lamented the “lost years.” He’d even brought the press, spinning a narrative that the last two decades were merely a “test of character” and that I was destined to be the sole heir to the Bennett empire. My mother, draped in brand-new designer silk, sobbed as she shoved me toward the cameras, desperate to get her own face into the frame. In my previous life, I was blinded. I was a girl starved for affection, and I ran into his arms, thinking I had finally found a home. I didn’t realize until I was strapped to a cold surgical table that I wasn’t a daughter. I was a “bio-tank”—a walking pharmacy of matching blood and organs, kept on ice to ensure my father’s immortality. This time, as I opened my eyes to the flashes of the cameras, I knew one thing: blood is thicker than water, but it’s a hell of a lot harder to clean off the floor. 1 “Jade, honey, get home right now! Your father is finally coming for you!” My mother’s voice, shrill with a manic sort of joy, jolted me awake. The physical sensation of the phone pressed against my ear felt impossibly real. I had been reborn into this exact moment. In my last life, I had dropped everything and sprinted home. I had spent twenty years yearning for the man who shared my DNA. Arthur Bennett was a titan of industry, a man with more wealth than some small nations. My mother, Cynthia, was just one of his many “distractions”—a fact I’d known since I was old enough to speak. Arthur was notorious. He had dozens of illegitimate children scattered across the coast, but he only ever acknowledged the two sons born to his late socialite wife. For him to publicly claim me was supposed to be the ultimate coronation. But the memory of the needles made my skin crawl. My first instinct was a cold, hard rejection. “Mom, I’ve been a ‘secret’ for twenty years. I’m used to it. I don’t want to meet him.” “Are you insane?” she hissed, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper. “You’re a data entry clerk making peanuts, Jade! You could be a princess. He has fifty other kids—if you don’t take this spot, someone else will!” She was right about the competition, but she didn’t mention the cost. I looked at my modest cubicle, my lukewarm coffee, and my boring, safe life. It was heaven compared to what came next. I wondered then—did she know? Did she know I was being sold as a literal life-support system? “Then you go be a ‘princess,’ Mom. You’ve wanted to be Mrs. Bennett since the nineties anyway.” I hung up and went back to my spreadsheet. I knew they wouldn’t stop, but I didn’t expect the circus to arrive within the hour. Thirty minutes later, the office was buzzing. My coworkers were crowding around my desk, eyes wide. “Jade, are you freaking kidding me? You’re the Jade Bennett?” “What are you talking about?” I asked, though my stomach was already turning. “Go look outside! There’s a fleet of black SUVs and a Rolls Royce blocking the street!” I walked out the front doors of the office building and walked straight into a trap. There stood Arthur Bennett and Cynthia, framed by a dozen suited security guards. “Jade,” Arthur said, his voice rich and fatherly. He looked at me with a practiced expression of regret. “I’ve spent far too long away from you. Come home, sweetheart.” The crowd gasped. Arthur looked incredible for a man in his mid-fifties—he had the tanned, taut skin of a man thirty years younger, thick dark hair, and the physique of an athlete. I looked at his radiant health and felt sick. I knew exactly whose vitality he had stolen to look that way. “Jade, say something! It’s your father!” my mother urged, dabbing at her dry eyes. “I don’t have a father,” I said, my voice steady. “I have a biological donor I’ve never met. Please leave.” I wasn’t the naive girl I used to be. 2 “The car is ready, Miss Bennett!” the guards shouted in unison, pulling open the heavy door of the Rolls. I turned my back on them and headed back toward the building. “You are not walking away from this!” My mother grabbed my arm, her manicured nails digging into my skin as she tried to haul me toward the car. “Jade, use your brain! Look at him! He’s a billionaire!” The coworkers I’d known for years were watching, some filming on their phones. Some were laughing, assuming I was just a rebellious daughter playing hard to get. “I loved your mother for years,” Arthur said, loud enough for the reporters to hear. He let two perfect tears roll down his cheeks. “Circumstance kept us apart. Please, Jade. Let me make it up to you.” The cameras clicked frantically. It was the perfect American melodrama. Arthur signaled to an assistant, who stepped forward holding an oversized prop check. It was a grotesque display—a symbolic gesture of a hundred-million-dollar trust fund. “This is yours, Jade. Whether you call me father or not. It’s for the years I missed.” The crowd erupted. “It’s like a movie!” someone yelled. My mother slapped the back of my head. “Take it! Don’t be a fool!” I looked at Arthur’s “loving” face and felt a chill. The mask was so perfect. “Mom, if you want the life, take the check and go,” I said. “Besides, I remember you mentioned once that you hadn’t broken up with your ex when you got pregnant. Are we even sure he’s the one?” My mother’s face turned a violent shade of red. She twisted my arm harder. “You shut your mouth! How dare you!” I was lying, mostly. But I needed to sow doubt. I needed him to think I was a liability, a scandal waiting to happen, so he would go find some other “blood bag” among his many bastards. “Jade, don’t be cruel to your mother. She’s a saint,” Arthur said, his voice smooth as silk. The crowd hummed with sympathy. They were already writing the headlines: The Long-Lost Heir and the Star-Crossed Lovers. “We’ve already run the DNA, Jade,” Arthur said, pulling a folded lab report from his jacket and showing it to the live-stream camera. “You’re mine. And I’m not letting you waste your life in a cubicle. It’s for your own good.” My mother’s grip became iron. I couldn’t break free. Just as the guards moved in to “assist” me, my boyfriend, Noah, appeared. He came charging through the crowd, his work boots heavy on the pavement. “Get your hands off her!” he roared, prying my mother’s fingers away from my arm. He stepped in front of me, his broad shoulders forming a shield. “She said no. Can’t you people hear?” “Get lost, you grease monkey!” my mother screamed. “You were fine for her when she was a nobody, but you’re a nobody now!” I grabbed Noah’s hand, trying to pull him toward the safety of the office. “Ten thousand dollars to whoever helps get my daughter into that car!” my mother yelled to the crowd. Greed is a powerful motivator. My coworkers—people I’d shared lunch with—suddenly blocked my path. They swarmed us, pulling Noah away and shoving me toward the open door of the Rolls Royce. I was hoisted up and thrown onto the leather seat. “See you tomorrow for the reward!” my mother shouted to the office staff as the door slammed shut and the car sped away. 3 In my last life, I thought I had gone from Cinderella to a Princess. I didn’t realize I was actually being moved into a high-tech slaughterhouse. I remembered waking up in that “bedroom” for the first time—a room filled with more medical monitors than furniture. “Dad? Why is there a dialysis machine in here?” I had asked, so innocently. Who expects their father to be a predator? He had looked at me with pure contempt. “Did you really think a gutter-rat like you could just walk into the Bennett family? You have my blood, yes. But you have your mother’s soul. You aren’t a daughter, Jade. You’re an insurance policy.” He didn’t need to explain further. The doctors moved in. Strapped to that bed, I learned the truth. Arthur was obsessed with “The Singularity.” He believed that the blood of his own offspring, harvested under specific conditions, was the key to reversing his cellular aging. I became his private tap. Every two weeks, they took 500cc. He grew younger, his skin glowing with my stolen life, while I became a ghost—pale, brittle, and exhausted. When I begged for mercy, he just laughed. “I have dozens of kids, Jade. But your markers are the only ones that don’t trigger my immune system. You should feel honored. You’re making history.” I spent twenty years as a human battery. When my blood finally slowed and my marrow gave up, he didn’t even bury me. He had the doctors harvest my organs to give to his “real” sons, who were just as obsessed with longevity as he was. The memory of the cold steel scalpel made my entire body vibrate with terror. I wouldn’t let it happen again. 4 The car pulled up to a sprawling estate in the Hamptons. It was a fortress of glass and limestone. “Arthur, is this for us?” my mother cooed, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. Arthur gave her a look of mild amusement. “It’s a start. A little something to make up for the lost years.” My mother practically swooned into his arms. I watched her, wondering if she knew the price. The house was beautiful, but the security was terrifying. There were guards every ten feet. Not even a fly could leave without a clearance code. Arthur left us there, retreating to his “private wing.” “Mom,” I said, my voice dead serious. “Do you really want me here? Do you know what he is?” “I know he’s a billionaire, Jade! I’ve spent twenty years dragging you through cheap apartments and dating losers. It’s my turn to be taken care of.” My mother was beautiful, in a sharp, desperate way. She had caught Arthur’s eye decades ago, but the moment I was born a girl, he had vanished. He had cut her off, even getting me kicked out of a private preschool when I was three because he didn’t want to pay the tuition. I still remember that day. The headmistress had literally picked me up mid-nap and put me on the sidewalk in the snow. I didn’t even have shoes on. I had cried for my teddy bear, but the gates stayed locked. My mother had tried to use me as leverage for years, and when it failed, she had vented her frustration on me. She’d had a string of “boyfriends”—middle-management types who treated her like a toy and me like a nuisance. “Mom, I’m scared. I want to leave. Help me,” I pleaded, watching her face for a glimmer of real maternal love. “What do you want to do?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. “I have a plan. The guards change shifts every six hours. There’s a blind spot near the service gate. If you distract them, I can get out.” She paused, then nodded. “Okay. If you’re that miserable, I’ll help you.” I felt a spark of hope. Maybe I was wrong about her. At midnight, the plan went into motion. My mother stormed out the front door, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Arthur, you coward! Come out here! You think you can lock me in this gilded cage without a dime to my name?” She started smashing expensive vases against the limestone pillars. The guards rushed toward her, trying to restrain the screaming woman. I slipped out through the side garden, staying low, moving toward the gate. I climbed the fence, my heart hammering against my ribs. I dropped down onto the grass on the other side, ready to run into the woods. Suddenly, floodlights blinded me. “Honey, your ‘blood bag’ almost got away! What’s my bonus for this one?” It was my mother’s voice. She was standing next to Arthur, a smug, cruel smile on her face. She knew. She had always known. “Get her,” Arthur commanded. “Take her to the lab. We’re starting the cycle tonight.” “Mom! Why?” I screamed as the guards pinned me to the dirt. “I’m your daughter!” “You’ve been a burden for twenty years, Jade. It’s time you paid me back,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Arthur says as long as I keep you ‘compliant,’ he’ll keep me young too. Why should your organs go to waste inside you when they could do some real good for your father?” She sounded so casual, as if she were talking about donating old clothes to Goodwill. I felt a surge of pure, acidic grief, and then I vomited blood onto the grass. 5 The “escape” had failed, but that was fine. I knew a frontal escape was impossible in a fortress like this. The whole thing had been a test—a final confirmation of my mother’s soul. Now, I had no debts. No guilt. The next morning, I was moved to the medical wing. It was exactly as I remembered it. Sterile, cold, and smelling of ozone and death. “Jade, if you cooperate, this will be painless,” Arthur said, standing over my bed. “But make no mistake—you aren’t leaving.” “Arthur, darling, you should take an extra dose today,” my mother chirped, leaning against the doorframe. “After that little stunt she pulled, she deserves to feel a bit lightheaded.” She turned to him, her eyes sparkling with greed. “And since I’m her mother, our blood is similar, right? You should give me a little bit of whatever you’re having. I want to look twenty again.” Arthur smiled at her—a shark’s smile. “Of course, Cynthia. I’ll make sure you get exactly what’s coming to you.” “Father,” I said. It was the first time I’d used the word. He didn’t look happy; he looked bored. “If I’m going to be your ‘life source,’ I have conditions,” I said, staring him down. “If you want my blood to stay ‘pure,’ you need to keep me happy. Stress affects the cortisol levels, you know. It ruins the ‘product.’” He paused, intrigued. “Go on.” “I want the run of this floor. No locks on the inside. I want the finest food, the best clothes. If I’m going to die slowly, I want to live like a Bennett while I do it.” “You want freedom?” he sneered. “Within these walls. I’m not stupid. Just let me have the life you promised the press. And one more thing.” “What?” “I want you to kill her,” I said, nodding toward my mother. “Right here. In front of me.” The room went silent. “Jade! You bitch!” my mother screamed, lunging forward. A guard caught her by the hair. “She sold me out,” I said calmly. “I can’t produce ‘happy’ blood while I’m looking at the woman who traded my life for a Botox treatment. Kill her, and I’ll be your perfect little battery.” Cynthia turned to Arthur, her face pale. “Arthur, tell her she’s crazy! We’re a team!” Arthur looked at me, then at the aging woman screaming in his ear. He saw a daughter who was as cold-blooded as himself. He liked it. “Well,” Arthur whispered. “You always were a bit of a loudmouth, Cynthia.”
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