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The anesthetic was a thick fog, but the ache in my side was sharp and real. I' d just given away a kidney for Alex, the man I loved, my terminally ill boyfriend. I' d do anything for him. But then, I overheard Alex' s best friend, Mark, say, "I can't believe she actually did it. You told her you were dying, and she just rolled up her sleeve and gave you a kidney. She's so naive." My comfort turned to dread when Alex' s cold voice scoffed, "She's always been easy to fool. A few pretty words, a couple of sad stories about my 'art', and she'd do anything for me." The fog cleared, replaced by a chilling truth. "Everything is for Chloe," Alex declared, confirming he never loved me. Our three years were a lie, a scheme for revenge. He, the heir to Peterson Tech, had posed as a struggling artist while I worked double shifts. The deepest cut came when he casually said he didn't need my kidney and might just dispose of it. "It's kind of funny, isn't it? She gave me a part of her body, and it's completely worthless to me." They both laughed. My sacrifice, my love, my very body-all worthless. I was a tool for his revenge, all for Chloe, my adoptive sister, the golden child my parents adored while burying my own identity as the true heiress of Miller Tech. Betrayal, pain, and lies suffocated me, but in the wreckage of my heart, a cold, hard resolve began to form. They thought I was naive, easy to fool, worthless. They were wrong. I wouldn't let them destroy me. I would take back everything that was mine. There was an old, forgotten arrangement-a marriage my parents had tried to set for Chloe with a reclusive, paralyzed tech billionaire named Ethan Cole. They were terrified of sending Chloe to a man in a wheelchair. They would send me instead. And I would go-on my own terms.