The Heart She Stole

My wife and I were the world’s greatest liars.

She lied and told me we were going for a routine check-up. In reality, she was harvesting my heart to save the love of her life.

I lied and told her I was going to a private sanitarium to clear my head. In reality, I left signed divorce papers on the counter and vanished to die alone.

It wasn’t until three years later, at her lover’s birthday gala, that my wife of four years finally remembered we shared the same birthday.

Feeling a rare moment of mercy, she ordered the leftover cake to be sent to the facility where she thought I’d been rotting for three years.

The nurse on the other end of the line was shocked:

“Ms. Thorne, didn’t you know? Mr. Vance’s body rejected the trauma. He died three years ago.”

Serena Thorne sneered, convinced I was playing another game. She dialed my number:

“Ethan, you better get your ass back here right now. Liam wants to see you.”

Beside me, my mother heard my name. Blood tears streamed from her blind eyes:

“Are you a friend of Ethan’s? My son has been dead for three years.”

1 “Where is Ethan Vance? Tell him to get out here! Now!”

“If he hadn’t agreed to the surgery back then, do you think I’d ever set foot in this godforsaken trailer park?”

Serena Thorne, fresh from a board meeting in the city, kicked open the rusted door of my childhood home.

My mother, who was carefully wiping dust off a framed photo, turned around.

Because we couldn’t afford treatment back then, her eyes had healed into two terrifying, hollow pits.

She reached out, her hands trembling as she felt for her white cane.

“Is that… is that Serena? Are you back from work?”

Serena scanned the room, her gaze colder than the winter wind blowing through the cracks.

“Where is he? I don’t have time for hide-and-seek.”

Mom froze, her hand hovering over the cane.

“You’re not Serena. Who are you? Are you Ethan’s friend? Ethan… he passed away.”

Mom’s voice cracked, wet with grief.

Serena let out a cruel, sharp laugh.

“Did Ethan tell you to say that? Three years of silence, and now he’s playing dead?”

“If he doesn’t come out, tell him not to bother showing his face to me ever again!”

As you wish, Serena. I really won’t appear again…

Mom gripped her cane until her knuckles turned white.

“Ethan is gone. He died three years ago…”

Serena looked around the room.

She spotted the photo Mom had been cleaning. It was a funeral portrait—me at twenty-five, smiling, full of life.

“He even photoshopped a funeral portrait to make me feel guilty? I don’t find it sad; I find it disgusting!”

“Don’t touch Ethan’s picture! Give it back!”

Mom stumbled forward to grab it. Because she couldn’t see, she tripped and fell hard onto the floorboards.

I instinctively reached out to break her fall.

But my hands passed right through her trembling body.

It hit me again. I was dead.

I had been dead for three years.

Serena kicked Mom’s cane away.

She smashed the picture frame onto the floor.

My twenty-five-year-old smile shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Tell him to come out. Stop wasting my time!”

Mom crawled through the glass shards, frantically feeling for my photo.

Her hands were cut and bleeding.

My heart—or the phantom of it—was being crushed in a vice.

I tried to grab her hands, to stop her, but I was nothing but air.

After her bodyguards tore the small house apart and found nothing, Serena turned her rage back to my mother.

2 Her designer stiletto ground down on Mom’s hand, pressing it into the broken glass.

“Where is he? Did he run off with some other woman? I knew it. He’s unfaithful trash. I never should have married him!”

I didn’t cheat!

I was already dead!

I died three years ago because of your bias and Liam’s cruelty!

When I was alive, I couldn’t stop my fate.

Now that I’m dead, I could only kneel on the floor, screaming, begging Serena to lift her foot.

Just as Mom cried out in pain, the door burst open. My sister, Harper, rushed in, still wearing her security guard uniform.

She only had one arm left.

She shoved Serena away with a force born of pure fury.

“You psycho! You killed my brother, and now you want to kill our mother too?”

Serena scoffed, dusting off her coat.

“So that’s the script? Ethan told you to lie so he could live happily ever after with his mistress? Newsflash: The doctors said the surgery was safe.”

“I sent him to the best sanitarium. I hired the best private nurses. How could he be dead?”

Safe? The only one safe was Liam!

Less than a month after they took my heart, my body began to fail.

The facility rushed me to the ER.

While I was lying on a gurney, waiting for the treatment deposit and a family signature, Serena was walking on the beach with Liam.

When the doctor called time of death, Serena was draping her jacket over Liam’s shoulders, terrified he might catch a chill.

Harper shielded Mom with her single arm.

“Ms. Thorne, my brother is dead. If you don’t believe me, go ask the hospital that tried to save him!”

Serena looked down at them like they were insects.

“You think I’m stupid? The sanitarium director told me everything. Ethan checked himself out with a woman!”

No!

3 It was Liam Cross. He bribed the director to frame me.

It was such a clumsy lie, yet Serena swallowed it whole.

Harper, who used to be so proud, fell to her knees.

“Ms. Thorne, Ethan died of post-op infection three years ago. We didn’t have the money for the treatments. We watched him die. Please.”

“No money? I gave your family a settlement of ten million dollars. How could you be broke?”

“Ethan really will say anything to make me the villain.”

“I don’t know what settlement you’re talking about! He’s dead!” Harper screamed.

Serena’s eyes went cold.

“Beat them. Don’t stop until Ethan comes out.”

The bodyguards moved in. Harper curled into a ball, taking the kicks meant for Mom.

The sound of boots hitting flesh filled the tiny trailer.

Mom waved her hands helplessly, blood tears streaming down her face.

“Please stop! He’s my only son! He’s gone!”

Serena kicked Mom aside.

I screamed, throwing myself at Serena, trying to rip out her black heart.

But I was a ghost. I couldn’t touch her.

I could only listen to my own desperate wails.

“Stop it! Stop it! I’m already dead! Why won’t you let my family go?!”

Harper coughed up blood.

“Serena! If you want to hurt someone, hurt me! Leave Mom alone!”

Serena looked at them with disgust.

“If Ethan has the guts to run away with a mistress, he should have the guts to face the consequences. This is on him.”

“Did you forget how you lost your arm? Did you forget how your mother went blind? If you don’t want a repeat performance, tell Ethan to get out here and kneel.”

Three years ago, to force me into the surgery, Serena used her connections to get Harper fired from the police force.

4 Harper had just received a commendation for bravery. Her future was bright.

But Serena framed her for taking bribes and protecting a felon.

I knelt in the rain outside Serena’s estate for twenty-four hours before she agreed to let Harper go with just a firing.

Mom, who ran a small art studio, was smeared online until she was a social pariah.

Our family was buried in debt from the lawsuits.

But Harper and Mom didn’t give up on me. They tried to help me run away. To escape Serena.

But Liam found out. He tipped off Serena.

Serena’s “fixers” chopped off Harper’s arm.

Mom was blinded by a shattered mirror while trying to protect Harper.

Three years ago, I signed the consent form to save them.

Three years later, I still couldn’t protect them.

A bodyguard ran in. “Ms. Thorne, Mr. Cross is here.”

Serena stopped instantly. The cruelty vanished from her face.

“Who told him to come? His immune system is weak. This place is filthy. What if he catches something?”

Seeing the tenderness on her face, my soul ached.

To her, Liam was porcelain. I was just the packaging.

She stole my heart to fix him. She turned a living man into a corpse for him.

Serena looked at my dying sister and mother.

“Make them talk. Just don’t let Liam see the blood. He gets faint.”

I drifted after her as she walked to the waiting limo.