Katerina POV:

The moment I heard his mistress's whisper-"Just a little longer...the fever will do the rest"-my eyes snapped open. The fever still raged, but my mind was a shard of ice-cold clarity. He wasn't just cheating. He wasn't just leaving me.

He was actively trying to kill me.

My fingers, clumsy and weak, fumbled for my phone. I sent a single, urgent text to my aunt, my thumb shaking so badly I could barely hit send.

Secure the organ. Julian will try to interfere. Trust no one.

When Julian returned, the sun was just beginning to streak the sky. He had a fresh cup of coffee in his hand and a well-rehearsed look of weary concern on his face. He sat by my bed, took my hand in his, and squeezed.

"You scared me last night, Kat."

A young nurse bustled in to check my vitals. She smiled brightly at Julian. "You two are couple goals, seriously," she gushed. "It gives the rest of us hope."

I felt a bitter, hollow laugh catch in my throat. I looked past her, to the patient in the room across the hall. An old woman with no family, no visitors. I envied her. At least her solitude was honest. She wasn't choking on a diet of shattered hope and expertly crafted lies.

I turned my head on the pillow to look at Julian. "I want to go to the penthouse," I said, my voice a dry whisper. "I want to see my parents' things."

For a split second, his mask slipped. A flicker of panic crossed his face before it was gone, replaced by that practiced concern. "Of course, baby. As soon as you're stronger. I'll... I'll have it cleaned for you first. Make sure it's perfect."

He meant he'd have the scent of another woman scrubbed from our sheets. He meant he'd erase every last trace of her.

The hours bled together in a feverish haze. Sometime that afternoon, a new patient was admitted to the room next door. Ava's mother.

And then, Ava herself appeared in my doorway.

She was beautiful, in a sharp, hungry way. She leaned against the doorframe, a smug smile playing on her lips as her eyes raked over my frail form in the hospital bed.

"You must be Katerina," she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "Julian has told me so much about you."

Before I could respond, there was a crash. Julian, who had been pouring me a glass of water, had dropped it. The glass shattered on the floor.

"Ava," he hissed, his voice dangerously low. "Get out. Now." He grabbed her arm, his grip tight. "Hold your tongue, or I'll have you thrown out of this hospital myself."

A magnificent performance. The protective husband defending his frail wife from an intruder. He played the part to perfection.

I closed my eyes, feigning a sudden wave of exhaustion. I didn't need to see it. I could feel the heat of his lie, a toxic radiation.

My heart wasn't breaking anymore. It was calcifying.

Live, a voice inside me commanded, cold and clear as a winter dawn. Live and make them pay for every last lie.

Katerina POV:

The next morning, Julian left for his "business," kissing my forehead with the same lips he'd used on his mistress. The moment his car was out of the hospital parking lot, I was in motion.

I ignored the frantic protests of the nurses, signed the discharge papers-AMA, against medical advice-and took a cab straight to my parents' penthouse.

The key slid into the lock. The air inside was cold, sterile, yet it was contaminated. I could still smell her. A faint, cloying floral perfume that clung to the velvet curtains like a foul secret. It was a desecration.

For three years, this place had been a shrine in my mind. Now it was just a crime scene.

Methodically, I moved through the rooms. I packed the few things that were truly sacred-my mother's handwritten recipe book, my father's favorite watch, a faded photograph of the three of us on a boat, laughing. I arranged for them to be shipped to my aunt's home in Jasperton.

Then I called a realtor, a man who owed my family a favor.

"Sell it," I said, my voice devoid of inflection. "I don't care about the price. I just want it gone."

I was locking the heavy oak door for the final time when he appeared. Julian. His face was a mask of worry, his breathing heavy as if he'd run up the stairs.

"Kat! I went back to the hospital and you were gone. I was so worried." He pulled me into a tight embrace, burying his face in my hair.

The scent of his cologne, mingled with the phantom smell of her perfume, made my stomach churn. I shoved him away, hard. My hands were flat against his chest, and he stumbled back-not from the force of the push, but from the raw revulsion in my gaze. He saw it. He finally saw it.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice a careful study in confusion.

I could almost see the ground cracking beneath his feet, and for the first time, he looked genuinely lost. He tried to placate me, his hands reaching for me again. "I have your birthday gift in the car," he said, a desperate edge to his voice. "The necklace. I was going to give it to you tonight."

The lie was so audacious, so shameless, it almost made me laugh.

"I'm not hungry," I said, my voice as cold as the grave he was digging for me. "And your touch... it makes me feel filthy."

He flinched, but recovered quickly. The consummate actor. "Okay," he said, forcing a gentle smile. "We'll go home. I'll cook for you." The arrogance was breathtaking; he was still confident he could win me over, that his performance was enough.

As we stood there on the cold marble landing, a sudden, cruel impulse took me. I looked straight into his eyes.

"Julian," I asked, my voice deceptively soft. "If I don't get the transplant... if I die... would you be sad?"

He stared at me, his handsome face crumbling into a mask of perfect, theatrical grief. Tears welled in his eyes. "Don't say that, Kat. Don't even think it. I wouldn't be able to live without you."

I watched the single, perfect tear trace its path down his cheek and felt nothing but a cold, absolute certainty.

Katerina POV:

Back at our house-a place that no longer felt like mine-Julian bustled around the kitchen, making an elaborate show of preparing my favorite seafood chowder, a meal he knew I would never eat. From the corner of his eye, he watched me where I sat, curled on the living room sofa. A ghost in my own home.

My phone buzzed. A friend request.

Ava Campbell.

I accepted.

Immediately, a deluge of images flooded my screen-a life I never knew existed. Photos of a newborn Sofia, swaddled in a pink blanket. Sofia blowing out candles on her first birthday cake. Sofia on her first day of preschool, holding Julian's hand. A gallery of his secret family, delivered directly to me.

Then came the texts.

He says you're boring in bed. Always were.

Sofia is his. Not yours. You're the third wheel, Katerina.

He only stays with you for the Volkov name. Without it, you're nothing.

But the final blow wasn't a text. It was a video. From the penthouse. Ava, wearing my birthday necklace, laughing as Julian kissed her neck. The text below it was graphic, describing in lurid detail what they did in my parents' bed.

I made sure the camera was angled just right. I wanted you to see.

A raw gasp tore from my throat. My body felt like a fragile, brittle thing, but my will was iron. I refused to give her the satisfaction of my collapse. I would not break.

Julian's phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, his face softening into a look I hadn't seen in years. "Urgent business," he said, already heading for the door. "I have to go. I'll be back as soon as I can."

He was gone before I could even respond.

My phone buzzed again. It was Ava.

His urgent business is me. I bought some new lingerie. He's on his way to see it.

A tremor of pure, unadulterated rage shot through me. My stomach churned, and the phantom smell of seafood chowder rose in my throat, thick and nauseating. I couldn't eat. I wouldn't eat his food.

Julian didn't come home that night.

The silence he left behind was louder than any argument. I sat on the sofa as hours bled one into the next, watching the city lights smear into a watery blur. The rage didn't cool; it hardened, settling deep in my bones like permafrost. By the time the first gray light of dawn crept into the room, my decision was as cold and clear as the morning itself.

The next morning, I walked into the kitchen. The chowder he'd so carefully prepared was still on the counter, cold and congealed. I scraped every last bit of it into the trash can. Then, I emptied the refrigerator, item by item. I purged the pantry, box by box, until the kitchen was bare.

I don't eat leftovers.

I would erase myself from his life so completely, it would be as if I had never existed at all.