I’d just taken a bullet for my husband. Before I could even hit the ground, my adopted sister Sienna rammed her Ferrari into me at sixty miles per hour. Blood filled my mouth. Through the haze, I heard the doctor: “Her baby’s dead. Her uterus… ovaries… shredded and need to be removed.” “Elena, hold on! Please!” My mom was sobbing, but then she was whispering excitedly:”Elena’s a perfect match. Finally, we can give Sienna her heart transplant. Finally!” My husband Julian’s voice followed, calm now. “I’ll sign the consent forms. Sienna needs a strong heart to live her fast life. ” I couldn’t believe my ears. It was the very man I’d taken a bullet for. Seconds ago, he was roaring at the doctors: “Save my wife! I don’t give a damn about an heir!” Now, he was donated my heart without blinking. And my brother and dad? They were already discussing how to dump the accident footage into the Hudson. “Sienna is still young. We can’t let her go to prison, and we certainly can’t let her live as a criminal.” “Yes, Sienna is innocent. It’s Elena’s own fault for not being careful.” Something inside me went still. And just then, a cold, flat voice rang in my head— [Host. Mission ‘Sacrificial Lamb’ complete. Heartbreak Value: 100%. Return to real world?] I laughed, a bloody, wheezing sound. Their fake love? Their “protection”? They could keep it. I was done. … I tried to roll off the gurney. I wanted to smash my head against the floor, to die on my own terms before they could strip me for parts. But the nurses pinned me down like a stray dog in a kill shelter. They shoved the intubation tube down my throat, and a massive hit of propofol flooded my veins. Right before the world went black, the OR doors swung open. Sienna, the brat who’d just mowed me down in her red Ferrari, was being wheeled in on the next table. Isabella—my mother—was already holding the scalpel. She didn’t even look at me as she gave the order. “Forget the internal bleeding in Elana’s uterus. We don’t have time. Open her chest. Get that heart out and prep Sienna for the transplant.” I felt the cold bite of the steel sliding through my skin. I felt my ribs being pried apart. The last thing I heard before the darkness took me was Isabella whispering to the girl who’d tried to kill me. “Just a little longer, princess. When you wake up, you’ll be able to run as far as you want.” … When I finally opened my eyes again, I was back in a private suite at the Moretti clinic. No one was there. Dead silence. Of course it was. I let out a bitter sigh, the I asked, “System. I want to confirm the terms. ” “If this body dies, I’ll be back home, right? My heart will be fixed, and that hundred-mil bonus will hit my account?” [Confirmed, Host.] [Once you leave, you will be completely severed from this world. No return. No recall.] “Good.” The word hung in the air, barely a whisper. I let it settle. This was what I wanted… Say goodbye to the Moretti family. To Julian. To the life. I pulled the oxygen tube out without a second thought. And suddenly—nothing. No air. Just… collapsing. My throat squeezed shut like a fist, tighter, tighter, until I felt it—my own body turning against me, crushing me from the inside. And then, through the suffocation, something else broke through—memories I’d buried long ago, clawing their way up through the fading light. I remembered the day my parents and my big brother Dominic came for me, pulling me out of that dingy apartment. I could still feel the warmth of Dominic’s hand in mine—how he squeezed it. “Elena, we finally found you. From today on, you’re back to being the Moretti family’s little princess, and we’ll protect you forever. Nobody in this city touches you. Not ever.” The words blurred, faded—and in their place, another voice rose. “Elena, I’ll give you all of me—my heart, my future, everything I am and everything I’ll ever be. I don’t want to be anyone else’s—only yours.” Julian—the heir to this city’s biggest criminal throne—down on one knee in the rain, telling me I was the only light in his dark, blood-soaked world. Such pretty words. I’d been fool enough to believe once—grateful the mission failed, thinking I’d found a perfect family, a loyal husband, a loving home. All lies. Every bit of it. There was almost no air left in my lungs. They felt like they were collapsing into a vacuum—empty, shrinking, giving up. But I was smiling. Just let go. Let it end. I didn’t want to spend another second looking at all this fake love. The heart monitor flatlined, and the alarm shrieked like a banshee. My mom came charging in with a team of residents. “Elena! Damm it, what are you doing!”
Then she started pumping my chest, shocking me. I could feel her hands pressing down on my ribs, hear her ragged breath above me, feel the sweat dripping from her face onto my skin. Almost like she actually cared. Then, air was back into my lungs. I was shivering and alive again. And there was screaming. Her screaming. “Are you insane? Are you seriously that pathetic? You’d really throw your whole life away for a womb that doesn’t even work?” I stared at her, the pain in my chest was tearing through. “Is that all I lost, Mom?” I rasped. “Just my womb?” The room went tomb-quiet. Then the door exploded open— Julian burst in and dropped to his knees by the bed—then slapped himself, hard, across the face. “I’m sorry, El. It’s my fault. I didn’t protect you when that car came out of nowhere… you were hurt so bad, your heart just… it couldn’t take the trauma.” He was crying now, crawling to the edge of the bed to grab my hand. “The driver is gone. I handled it. I promise, I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you. Your mom is the best doctor in the world. She’ll fix you.” My father leaned in, stroking my hair like I was some prized poodle. “He’s right, baby. Dominic is already working on a new treatment just for you. You’re still our princess. You’re a Moretti.” I looked at this pack of Oscar-winning liars and felt a chill settle into my marrow. In just two sentences, they’d turned Sienna’s attempted murder and their organ theft into a tragic accident. I let out a sharp, dry laugh. “Where’s Sienna? I saw her face behind the wheel. I want to ask her why she did it.” A beat of dead silence. Just the IV dripping. Steady. Relentless. Mom’s face hardened. “Are you insane? Sienna was with me at the club—she collapsed the second she heard. If a heart donor hadn’t shown up right when it happened, we’d have lost her.” I laughed. A small, hollow sound. She flinched. Turned her head away. Her voice trailed off. “I’ll let this slide. Once. I’ll put it down to trauma—to shock. But don’t you ever talk about your sister like that again.” There it was. The same old move. Shut me up before I get too close. Not this time. “What a coincidence. ” I looked at her. “My heart was damaged—and she gets a healthy heart at the exact same time.” Silence. The dead silence in that VIP suite was so heavy it was hard to breathe. Just then, a nurse stepped in. “Don Moretti. La principessa is awake. She wants to see all of you.” Silence, again. None of them moved. But I knew exactly how this would end. Three… Two… I started counting — the same way I always did. Then they scurried out like rats. Only Julian stayed. He looked at me with that nauseating guilt. “Go to her, Julian,” I said, voice flat. “Then come back and tell me how her new heart is beating.” “Fine. “He didn’t even argue. He turned and walked out. Click. The door closed. The room fell back into that cold, dead silence. Empty. Just me. I pulled out the phone I’d hidden under the mattress. Before I went under the knife, I’d used a System Wish to secure two video. Videos of them planning how to sacrifice me. I hit play. I watched, in that dark office, as Julian calmly signed the donation consent form. “It’s all for Sienna. Elena would want this.” “She doesn’t need to understand. “My brother chimed in. “I’ll cook up a cocktail. Then Elana won’t feel a thing, and she’ll never know about her damaged heart.” “Good. “My dad nodded, slow and deliberate. “The transplant is scheduled for tomorrow. I’ll have the legal team ready—death certificate, cremation, the works. By the time anyone asks, Elena Moretti never existed.” Then I played the second video. There it was. My own mother—slicing through my vessels, handing my heart over like a piece of meat—the same hands that held mine when I was a child. For Sienna. My blood was ice. And for the first time—I was glad I hadn’t died. If I left now, these bastards would go on living—perfect, bloody, untouched—with my heart as their trophy. Too easy. I wasn’t about to let that happen.
I was stuck in that sterilized hellhole for two weeks. They took turns “watching” me. Mom would swing by in her white coat, checking my vitals with those cold, surgeon’s eyes before rushing off to a “surgical emergency.” Julian would stay for ten minutes, staring at his watch until a “urgent business” call saved him. Even Lorenzo, the great Don Moretti, would just pat my hand, tell me I was a “brave girl,” and disappear to his office. I thought they were actually busy running an empire. Until I shuffled out of the room at that afternoon. Through the glass of the private recovery garden, I saw them. The whole “busy” Moretti clan. Lorenzo, the man who hadn’t stepped into a kitchen in twenty years, was sitting on a bench, laughing as he carefully shelled clams and fed them to Sienna. Isabella was fussing over a blanket, tucking it around Sienna’s legs. With a look of pure, maternal adoration—a look I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. Dominic was holding a glass of Sienna’s favorite juice like it was a holy relic. And there was Julian. My husband. He was leaning over the wheelchair, whispering something into Sienna’s ear that made her giggle. She looked radiant. My heart—my actual heart—was pumping life into her cheeks, making her glow while I looked like a corpse dragged out of a basement. “Careful, princess,” Isabella whispered, her voice soft enough to break my heart all over again. “Don’t eat too fast. Your new heart needs time to settle.” “But pop’s cooking is so good,” Sienna chirped, looking radiant. “I missed this so much while I was ‘sick’.” I just stood there. Clutching my cold IV pole, my stomach growling. For the last days, I’d been eating lukewarm delivery soup I ordered myself on my phone. Not once had any of them offered me a bite of “Pop’s cooking.” A surge of nausea hit me. I gripped my IV pole, steadying myself. For a second, I thought about walking in—sitting down at that table, making them see me. But what was the point? They’d already shown me exactly where I stood— I was nothing to them. I turned to shuffle back. But as I passed the nurse’s station, I heard a low whisper. “Is that the sister? The one in 402?” “Yeah. Dr. Isabella gave me strict orders. Keep her on a heavy regimen of iron and vitamin B12. We’re ‘fattening her up’.” “Why? She actually looks like a ghost.” “It’s the Don’s orders. If Sienna has a rejection crisis, they aren’t waiting for a donor. They’re going to use the sister as a living blood bank. Total transfusion if necessary. ” “That’s so cruel…” “I know.” The other nurse’s voice dropped even lower. “But Dr. Isabella said she’s just a ‘vessel’ now anyway—since she can’t carry an heir. And Sienna? Dr. Isabella called her ‘the precious little girl’. ” A metallic taste of blood surged up my throat. And the old memories came back—not gently, not asked for. Just hit me like a wall. I was ten, scraping my knee on the pavement. Isabella didn’t call for a nurse. She knelt down, sterilized it herself, and cried over it. She also called me her “precious little girl.” Before all of this, all I’d ever heard was: trash, beggar, unwanted orphan. I’d never had love like that before. And it hit me—so hard that I threw away the System’s mission just to stay with them forever—my chance to return to my original world, gone. For a long time, I thought it was a fair trade. Because my family loved me back just as much. Or so I told myself. Back then, Dad was just a small-time soldier—but he built the Moretti Syndicate from nothing. Every rival he took down, every dock he seized—it was all for my medical bills. And Dominic? My big brother used to spend his nights in the lab trying to synthesize “sweet medicine” for me because I hated the bitter taste of the standard stuff. He never complained. Never asked for thanks. Just brought me bottle after bottle, asking, “Is this one better?” They even saved Julian for me. Plucked him from a rival’s hit when we were kids — just so I’d have my “perfect prince”. The whole Syndicate knew: I was the untouchable princess. Loved like something sacred. But destiny is a bitch. I was snatched away. Trafficked by a rival crew. Seven years in the dark.
No one knew if I was alive. When Lorenzo finally burned half the city to bring me back, they all held me and wept. And Sienna—this stranger—stood not far away. “Don’t worry about Sienna,” Isabella had whispered, clutching my hand. “She’s just a girl we took in for ‘good luck’ while you were gone. She has a heart condition, and she looks like you, but you’re our only girl, Elena. You’re our soul.” I bought it. God help me, I’d believed their every word. From that, I treated Sienna like a sister. But slowly, the air in the house changed. If Sienna tripped, Isabella would scream at me, “Did you push her, Elena?” If Lorenzo cooked a rare family dinner, it was always the spicy Calabrian dishes Sienna loved, even though they tore my stomach apart. Dominic’s lab work shifted from my health to Sienna’s “miracle cure.” Even Julian, during our few fights, would snap, “Why can’t you be more like your sister? She’s sweet. She actually knows how to talk to a man without looking like she’s judging him.” A wave of suffocation hit me. I blinked. The memory faded. But the Heartbreak Value was ticking closer to the end. It hurts…so hurts. My stitches are coming undone, I can feel them ripping through me, one after another. I grab for the wall. Miss. My legs give out. I’m on the floor and I don’t even remember falling. The room spun—everything tilted. I curled into a ball on the cold floor, gasping, choking, air wouldn’t come. The pain—so white, so bright—I could feel myself slipping. Flickering. Like a dying bulb. “Mom…” I whispered into the dark. “Mom, please… it hurts…” Footsteps. From down the hall. Getting closer. Just as I was about to black out— I saw mom, dad, and Julian rushed toward me. I thought, for a second, they were coming to save me. Mom reached me first. She looked down at the blood soaking through my nightgown, at the way I was trembling in the middle of my own mess. Then her face twisted in a sneer of pure disappointment. “For God’s sake, Elena!” she barked, her voice like a whip. “I am so sick of this! Do you really have to go this far? Just because we were in Sienna’s room helping her with a panic attack, you have to tear your own stitches out?” I looked up at her, hardly. My mouth filling with blood. “Mom… I fell…” “You ‘fell’?” Lorenzo spat, standing behind her with his arms crossed. “You’ve been in this life your whole life. You don’t just fall. This — this is self-harm for attention.“ “It’s pathetic. You’re trying to guilt-trip us for saving your sister’s life.” Julian looked at the blood on the floor and then looked away, as if the sight of me was an inconvenience. “Get it together, Elena. You’re making Sienna feel guilty, and she’s the one with the weak heart. You’re being a monster.” Isabella grabbed my arm and yanked me up, ignoring the way I gasped as my wounds tore further. “I’m sedating you properly this time,” she hissed, shoving me back onto the mattress. “I won’t have you ruining your recovery—and our peace—with these little ‘accidents’ just to spite Sienna.” I lay there, staring at the ceiling as she prepped another needle. I stopped whispering “Mom.” I stopped feeling the pain. I looked at Isabella as the needle went in, and for the first time, I didn’t see my mom. I saw a dead woman walking. “That’s right,” I whispered as my eyes started to close. “Keep her safe. Keep my heart beating in her chest… because when I leave, I’m taking everything with me.”
A week later, they brought me “home.” If you call a fortress guarded by men with submachine guns home. I was confined to a wheelchair, my body still refusing to heal. They put me in the sunroom, supposedly for the “fresh air,” but it was really just a front-row seat to the Sienna Show. Sienna was out on the lawn, wearing a sundress, tossing a ball for the family’s Dobermans. She was running. Running with my heart, with my strength. Lorenzo stood on the patio, cigar in hand, watching her with a pride he’d never shown me. “Look at her,” he muttered to Dominic. “A true Moretti. Strength, fire, life. It was worth every cent.” Dominic nodded, tapping his tablet. “The rejection suppressants I made are holding. She’s a miracle, Pop.” I sat in the shadows, a ghost in a blanket. Suddenly, Sienna “tripped.” She went down on the grass with a sharp cry. In a heartbeat, the entire family scrambled. Lorenzo dropped his cigar. Isabella sprinted from the house. Julian was the first to reach her, scooping her into his arms like she was made of glass. “My chest!” Sienna sobbed, clutching at the spot where my heart lived. “It hurts! It’s Elena… I saw her looking at me from the window… her eyes were so mean… I got scared and lost my balance…” Julian’s head snapped toward the sunroom. The look he gave me was pure, unadulterated loathing. He carried her inside, the whole parade following him. A few minutes later, Lorenzo walked into the sunroom. He didn’t say a word. He just backhanded me across the face. Bang! The force threw my head back, the wheelchair skidding on the marble floor. My lip split, the copper taste of blood filling my mouth. “You ungrateful little bitch,” the Don hissed. “We saved your life. We gave you the best care money can buy. And you’re going to sit here and hex your little sister with your jealousy?” “I didn’t do anything,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “You exist. That’s doing enough.” He spat. “If I hear one more word about you upsetting Sienna, I’ll put you back in the basement where we found you. Got it?” I looked at my father—the man I’d once thought was a god—and I nodded. “Good.” He left. I sat there in the dark, my face throbbing, the internal stitches in my chest pulling with every ragged breath. I don’t know how long I lay there. Then—a soft voice sounded. Julian’s voice. From Sienna’s room. Just next door. “Miss me?” “Jules… stop,” Sienna whispered, though she was giggling. “My heart is racing. Mom said I shouldn’t get too excited.” “I can’t help it,” Julian’s voice was low, hungry. “I’ve been stuck playing ‘devoted husband’ to that corpse in the other room all day. I need to feel something real.” “You still love her, don’t you? The little princess?” “Love her?” Julian smirked, and the sound cut deeper than Lorenzo’s slap. “I married her because your father told me to. She was the backup. Now that you’re healthy… she’s useless.” “What about the fact that she can’t have kids now?” Sienna purred. “You’re the heir to the syndicate. You need a son.” “Then you’ll give me one,” Julian whispered. Then came their muffled moans—Her breathy gasps. His eager growls. And…the wet slick sounds of him pushing into her… I leaned my head against the cold wood of the doorframe. I didn’t cry. I just held the phone up, the camera lens peeking through the crack. I recorded every word. Every wet kiss. Every promise of my death. Then the “Heartbreak Value” in my head dinged. I was almost there.
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