The day after my daughter died on the operating table, I went home to pack up her things. Without warning, a wave of nausea surged through me.

I stared at the two lines on the pregnancy test, and the tears I'd been holding back finally broke free.

I had just lost one child. Was this heaven's way of giving me another? Grief and disbelief crashed into each other inside my chest.

Her toys were still scattered around the house, as if they still held the warmth of her little fingers. I wanted to gather them all and bring them to my room, to keep something of her close.

But while I was moving things, I accidentally bumped the smart speaker. It had been her favorite. She used to record messages on it every day, telling me everything she'd done.

I played the last recording. I just wanted to hear her voice.

"Amber Fox is such an idiot. I tricked her into signing the surgical consent form. Once our baby is better, we'll take the money and start a new life together."

That wasn't my daughter's voice. I knew that voice better than almost any other. It was my adopted sister, Mabel Fox.

"Thank God the heart was a match for yours. Otherwise you'd both be dead, and if I lost you two, I wouldn't know how to go on." Then came the ragged breathing of my husband, Guy James.

The color drained from my face. I stood frozen, staring at the speaker on the nightstand, my legs nearly giving out beneath me.

I scraped together every last shred of composure I had and rushed back to the funeral. I was ready to confront them.

But the moment I arrived, Mabel walked in carrying a small bouquet of white chrysanthemums and a paper bag.

"Amber, I brought you a gift. I hope you won't be too sad."

The first item was Guy James's vasectomy certificate.

The second was a prenatal checkup report. Mabel Fox, three months pregnant.

"As for the third," she leaned in close, her lips brushing my ear, "it's the consent form for your daughter's heart transplant. Don't you remember? The contract you signed that night when you were drunk?"

My hands shook violently. I swayed on my feet and raised my hand to slap her across the face.

But before I could, my mother collapsed beside me with a heavy thud. I abandoned everything else and called an ambulance.

Looking at my mother's unconscious face, I couldn't take it anymore. I dialed the number.

"Listen to me. Seven days. I want them destroyed."

……

A pause. Then:

"You should have done this a long time ago. I told you back then that man was no good. I'll help you. Seven days from now, I'll come for you."

I bit down on my lower lip until the taste of blood spread across my tongue. Only then could I force the sob back down my throat.

"Start by drafting a divorce agreement for me."

The voice on the other end agreed. The tears I'd been fighting spilled over, and I hung up.

The phone slipped from my fingers. I buried my face in my hands, my shoulders trembling.

I had been married to Guy James for five years.

Since high school, I'd loved him for a full decade. No one knew how overjoyed I was when he proposed. No one could have.

He was the James family's illegitimate son, raised on cruelty and contempt, and it had forged him into something cold and guarded, armored against the world.

But I threw myself at those walls anyway. I believed love could melt the ice.

Everyone said Guy James was crazy about me. That if I asked for the stars, he'd find a way to pluck them from the sky and lay them at my feet.

Now I knew it was all a lie.

Seven days ago, I watched my beautiful daughter wheeled out of the operating room under a white sheet.

"We're sorry, Mrs. James. There was a complication during surgery. We did everything we could."

In that moment, it felt like a massive hand had reached into my chest and torn my heart clean in half. The pain was so sharp I couldn't breathe.

With trembling hands, I slowly lifted the sheet. I touched her cold little face, and the tears I'd been holding back flooded out.

I pressed my cheek against hers. My eyes went hollow. My arms locked around her thin, small body and would not let go.

My daughter had always been healthy. How could a minor surgery go wrong?

The odds of a complication were almost nonexistent. Why did it have to be my daughter?

The medical staff tried to wheel her away. I threw myself at the gurney like a woman possessed, my voice so raw it barely made a sound. "Don't take her! Give me back my daughter..."

I pulled out my phone to call Guy, who was supposed to be in a meeting. He could fix this. He could bring her back.

I called ninety-nine times. He didn't pick up once.

Finally, on the hundredth call, he answered.

"Amber, I'm in a meeting. I'll call you back." His voice came through hoarse and breathless.

Before I could get a word out, a woman's voice floated through the speaker.

"Come on, let's go get Thai food on the south side. That place is so popular. If we don't hurry, we'll have to wait in line."

I knew that voice. I knew it as well as my own. My adopted sister. The woman who held his heart.

The line went dead.

Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. I stood in that vast, freezing hospital corridor, phone clutched in my hand, and the world went black.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed. My chest felt like someone had pressed a white-hot brand against it, a suffocating, smoldering ache.

Guy's assistant stood at my bedside, his tone careful. "Mrs. James, Mr. James asked me to let you know the funeral will be held this afternoon. He'd like you to get ready."

My pupils contracted. I ripped the IV needle from the back of my hand, grabbed the assistant by his collar, and yanked him toward me. "Where is my daughter? Where is he?"

"Mr. James already took her, ma'am. He said he'd handle the funeral arrangements. He didn't want you to overexert yourself."

My fingers uncurled, one by one. I fell back against the bed, hollow.

I checked myself out and went home to sort through my daughter's belongings.

The moment I stepped into her room and picked up the little dress she'd loved most, a sharp acid burn shot from my stomach to my throat.

I stumbled into the bathroom and retched over the toilet, but nothing came up except bile.

A single thought flashed through my mind.

Gripping the cold edge of the sink, I stared down at the pregnancy test with shaking hands.

I was pregnant.

I stared at the two red lines, my stomach lurching.

Was this a gift from God?

A flicker of joy sparked inside me, only to be swallowed whole by the grief of losing my daughter.

My daughter had left me just yesterday.

I forced myself to push open the door to her room, tears brimming as I packed her toys into a box, one by one.

Then I saw the smart speaker sitting on her nightstand. The tears spilled instantly. My hands trembled as I picked it up.

She used to record her day on this speaker, little updates and things she wanted to tell me. Every night before bed, she'd curl up on my lap and play them back, beaming the whole time.

I raised my stiff hand and tapped the last recording, desperate to hear her voice, to pretend she was still beside me.

But the voice that came through wasn't my daughter's. It was Mabel's breathy moan.

"Baby, thank God Amber's such an idiot. She got so wasted she didn't even realize she signed her own daughter's heart transplant consent form."

What did that mean?

My legs buckled. I collapsed to the floor, gasping for air, my eyes locked on the speaker.

It came flooding back. A week ago, Mabel had come to me with a glass of wine, wanting to talk. She kept pouring, glass after glass, until my head was swimming and she guided my hand across a piece of paper to sign my name.

I was the one who killed my daughter.

My hands shook violently. The speaker slipped from my grip and hit the floor. I pressed my palms over my ears, choking on the pain.

"I'd give up everything for you and our baby. Amber means nothing. I only want you two. At least her daughter's heart is good for something..."

Then came Guy's ragged panting.

I had believed I'd found my way into his heart. Only now did I understand that the person he would give up everything for had never been me.

Every scrap of happiness I thought I'd had was nothing more than overflow from Guy's love for Mabel. Scraps tossed my way from a feast that was never mine.

My heart seized as though an ice-cold fist had clamped around it and twisted. The pain bent me double. I couldn't breathe.

A voice broke through from outside the door. "Ma'am, if we don't leave now, we'll miss the funeral."

I bit down hard, swallowing the urge to tear Guy apart with my bare hands. I copied the last recording from the speaker, steadied myself on shaking legs, and left with the assistant for the funeral.

The service was nearly over. I had just worked up the nerve to confront Guy when Mabel appeared, a hint of a smile in her eyes, carrying a bouquet of white chrysanthemums in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

Her face wore a mask of tender concern. Then she opened the bag and pulled out the papers inside, one by one.

"Big sis, I brought you three gifts. You're going to love them."

She handed me the first sheet, smiling sweetly. "Gift number one: Guy's vasectomy certificate."

Whispers rippled through the crowd.

I stared at the cold date printed on the report. My nails dug into my palm hard enough to draw blood, but I felt nothing.

The date of the procedure was right there in black and white: the day after my daughter died.

Mabel looked me up and down, savoring my ashen face, then placed the second report directly into my hands. She lowered her gaze and stroked her stomach.

"I'm three months pregnant. It's Guy's."

In that moment, it felt like someone was slowly siphoning every last molecule of air from my lungs.

Three months ago was when my daughter's checkup results had come back wrong. The doctor said it was minor, but she'd need surgery to fix it completely.

That night, I'd cried in Guy's arms. I hadn't seen the flash of satisfaction in his eyes.

"Leave everything to me."

His touch had been so gentle when he comforted me that night.

Now I understood. His "everything" had never included me or my child.

Mabel's warm, venomous breath against my ear dragged me back. She leaned in close, whispering with quiet triumph.

"All I did was mention to Guy that my heart wasn't in great shape, and he arranged the compatibility testing immediately. Your daughter was lucky, really, being a match for me. And the transplant consent? Signed by your own hand."

Each word was a blade, stabbing into the place that hurt most.

"Oh, and there's nothing in that casket, by the way. Your daughter's probably still on the operating table, making herself useful. Hearts aren't the only organs worth good money."

My body shook. The last thread holding my mind together snapped.

What did she just say?

A dull thud.

I raised my hand to slap her across the face, but the sound of something heavy hitting the ground stopped me.

I whipped around. My mother's face was white as chalk, crumpled on the floor.

"Mom!"

Nothing else mattered. I threw myself to her side, fumbling for my phone with trembling hands, and called an ambulance.

I barely remember how I got to the hospital. I watched my unconscious mother disappear through the operating room doors, and I felt as though I were sinking into an endless darkness.

The man I loved had betrayed me and murdered my daughter.

Tears blurred my vision, but I knew I couldn't sit here and do nothing any longer.

Seven days. In seven days, they would pay for every last thing they'd done.

Several hours later, my mother was wheeled into the ICU.

"Ma'am, the surgery was a success, but your mother hasn't regained consciousness yet. She'll need to stay in the ICU for observation for a week."

The doctor's words nearly buckled my knees. I stood on the other side of the glass, staring at my mother's body threaded with tubes, my palm pressed flat against the cold surface. Only then did I let myself breathe.

She was all I had left. And thank God, luck hadn't abandoned her entirely. She was still here.

I was about to go into the ICU to see her when Mabel's syrupy voice slithered into my ears.

"Oh, Amber, we saw Auntie collapse at the funeral, so we came to check on her."

She stood in front of me, eyes glittering with provocation, every syllable dripping contempt.

Behind her stood my brother, Max Fox, and Guy.

"Mainly here to check on her condition. After all, Mabel is my most cherished little sister." Max's gaze swept over me with undisguised disgust. "Unlike a certain piece of trash."

I stood rooted to the spot. Every ounce of grief inside me curdled into a single bitter smile.

Max and I were the products of our father's drunken indiscretions.

Our mother had fought tooth and nail to keep us alive. It was only years later that the Fox family finally took us in.

The first year after we returned to the family, Max and I were kidnapped on the way home from school by people with a grudge against the Foxes. They locked us in a pitch-black shack in the mountains.

The kidnappers pressed guns to our foreheads and told the family to pay the ransom and pick one child to take home.

The family chose Max.

I was shaking so hard I couldn't stand. Max pulled me into his arms and held on like his life depended on it.

"I'll stay. Let my sister go."

His voice trembled, but he said every word with absolute certainty.

He defied the family's decision without a second's hesitation. He chose me.

I believed that kind of bond, forged in the shadow of death, was unbreakable.

Then Mabel and her mother walked through our door, and everything changed.

On Max's birthday, I baked him a cake with my own hands.

We blew out the candles together. I cut the first slice, and we shared it.

Then a searing pain ripped through my stomach. Max collapsed right in front of me.

We were both rushed to the hospital. Poison.

My dose had been smaller. After a day unconscious, I regained enough strength to rip out my IV and go find him.

Outside the emergency room, I saw his eyes flutter open. Relief hit me so hard my legs gave out and I crumpled to the floor.

But the very next moment, Mabel appeared with a group of people carrying several half-used packets of poison and sedatives, along with a recording.

"These were all found in Amber's bedroom and her mother's room. Their fingerprints are on the packages, and this recording proves Amber is the one who poisoned him."

My voice came through the recording, clear as day: "How come he didn't die in that kidnapping? Mom told the kidnappers to kill him. This time, I'll make sure he's dead for good!"

Max lay on the gurney, his face whiter than the sheets beneath him.

He looked at me, and something behind his eyes shattered completely.

"Amber Fox..." His voice was raw, scraped hollow. "I traded my life for yours. And you wanted me dead this whole time?"

"So during that kidnapping, your mother already wanted me gone." A cold, broken laugh left his lips.

"Max, it wasn't me! The recording is fake!"

"Get out."

He closed his eyes and refused to look at me again.

"From now on, you and your mother are nothing to me."

From that day forward, I went from being the sister he'd risked his life to protect to the person he despised most in the world.

The shards of that memory were still lodged in my throat when Max's voice cut through, cold as a slab of ice.

"Amber, Mabel's health still hasn't recovered. And since your mother doesn't have long to live anyway, we might as well use her heart to continue Mabel's treatment."