BIllionaire's Vengeful Heiress

"Fire! It's fire! Somebody help me!"

My screams tore through the night, but no one came. The wildfire had broken out suddenly at the resort, and I was trapped in the middle of the blazing inferno. Our fifth anniversary celebration was turning to ashes before my eyes.

Worse, my husband Leo wasn't anywhere around. The yacht keys I'd planned to surprise him with burned in my palm. I'd saved for months to buy them. But now, through the flames and smoke, I watched him sprint toward the next building where Lydia stood. Safe. Untouched. Smiling.

I shoved down the feelings clouding my mind and focused on finding an escape route. But my body was too weak. It had only been three days since the kidney transplant surgery. Three days since I'd given him my kidney because I couldn't imagine my life without him.

And he hadn't even waited.

He left me in the raging fire just to run to Lydia. The woman he swore meant nothing.

I was ready to give up, ready to let the flames take me, when someone suddenly scooped me up in a bridal carry.

"Thank you," I choked out, relief flooding through me. "Thank you for coming back..."

"Leo didn't come back."

The voice was deep. Unfamiliar. Male.

My eyes fluttered open for just a second before darkness swallowed me whole.

+++++

One week after the fire, I lay unconscious in my hospital bed. The sterile smell of disinfectant filled my nostrils. I tried to move, but my body felt like lead. My eyelids were too heavy to open. But I could hear everything.

"I want you to find a way to kill my wife within five days." Leo's voice was cold. Clinical. "Make it look like a complication from the kidney transplant."

My heart stopped. No. This couldn't be real. I had to be hallucinating from the pain medication.

"Two hundred million dollars." Leo continued. "That's how much she's worth in insurance. You need to make her death look clean and convincing. No one can question it."

The doctor's response was too quiet to hear. Then Leo's voice completely transformed, becoming soft and tender. "I want you to provide the best care for her. There must be no complications from the kidney transplant she just did."

Who was he talking about? Me?

Footsteps moved away from my bed. I heard a door open and close.

Then a woman's laugh. Light and sweet.

"You really think this will work?" Lydia's voice.

"It has to." Leo said. "Just give me five days."

My world collapsed.

I had donated my kidney to my husband after he'd knelt before me, sobbing and pleading that only I could save him. Without my kidney, he'd die. But it was all a lie.

Every tear. Every moment of vulnerability. Every desperate plea. It had all been a performance to steal my organ for the woman he actually loved. The pain in my chest had nothing to do with surgery.

Darkness pulled