PART 1: The Blood Price and the Marriage
Six years ago, I stood by a sterile, cold bed, my world compressed into the sickening flatline of a monitor.
My sister, Chloe, was gone, the victim of a supposed “freak accident.” Her heart—a perfect, vibrant organ—was harvested on the spot. A perfect match, they said, for the dying heiress of the powerful Shawe Corporation.
“Her heart is still alive, but she isn’t… That heart has loved me all its life.”
The family of that woman, Amelia “Amy” Shawe, offered my grieving family a fortune. They called it “thanks.”
My brother, Ben, and I called it blood money. I, Elias “Gus” Thorne, a poor kid fresh out of college, looked into the eyes of Richard Shawe, Amy’s father, and saw a transaction, not a donation. They staged the crash. They stole my sister’s heart to save that dying woman.
My world warped into a singular, obsessive purpose: Revenge.
Ben tried to reason with me.
“That’s great, Gus. Our Shawe family must thank the donor’s kin.”
He was naive. He didn’t see the perfect, symmetrical horror of the plan that bloomed in my mind. I approached Amy Shawe—the woman whose chest now housed my sister’s beating heart—with calculated precision. I wooed her, hid my true identity, and married her.
Five years I lived as the perfect son-in-law, a poor kid elevated to a business star by the Shawe family’s immense power. I amassed the wealth and influence I needed. I was a wolf in a perfect suit, hiding in the very belly of the beast.
Then, one year ago, my fangs came out. I launched my retaliatory strike. The Shawe Corporation, built on blood and greed, began to crumble under my relentless assault. I was a mad dog, tearing apart the family that had killed my sister.
Amy—my wife of five years—pleaded with me one night, tears streaming down her face as I signed another order to liquidate a Shawe asset.
“Gus, don’t do this. It hurts.”
I met her eyes, ice cold.
“Now you know pain. When your Shawe family killed Chloe, did you think she hurt too?”
She was confused, heartbroken.
“It’s not what you think. I didn’t…”
“Shut up!” I roared, the carefully constructed facade finally shattering.
“Do you know how I wished these five years that you were the one dead?”
Amy looked at me, her face pale, the realization of my complete hatred finally hitting her.
“Have you ever loved me?” she whispered, barely audible.
“For you, I feel only pure hate.”
The final, devastating words came from her.
“Since you hate me so much, then I will give this life back to you now.”
And then, she left. Amy, the woman who had nursed me through fevers, who had always remembered my favorite sweets, who had loved me with a blinding, desperate intensity for five years, was dead by her own hand.
“Congrats, Gus,” I told myself, the victory a bitter, empty taste.
“You got your revenge. After tonight, the Shawe family will fall.”
My associate, the shrewd and beautiful Sierra Chu, who had been my secret weapon and my ‘first love,’ was waiting.
“That wife of yours, will she leave you?” she purred.
“She is mad about me. She cannot leave me,” I sneered, even though the words felt hollow.
Sierra knew the game.
“All these years, you never loved her. It was just an act.”
“She killed Chloe,” I stated flatly.
“I could never love her.”
Sierra smiled, a hungry, satisfied expression.
“Will you divorce her?”
I looked away, toward the operating table of my vengeance.
“Inside her beats Chloe’s heart. I will keep her memory close. I will keep her ashes to torment her to death.”
The next week was a blur of calculated destruction and the unsettling silence of her absence. Then came the phone call. Amy’s funeral.
PART 2: The Ashes of Truth
The wake was a farce. A closed-casket tragedy that played out in a sterile funeral home I owned. Richard and Ethan Shawe—the men I held responsible for my sister’s murder—were broken, weeping messes.
I stood there, calm and cold, when the funeral director presented me with the small urn.
“Mr. Thorne, this is your wife’s ashes, Amelia Shawe.”
Ben, my older brother, stumbled forward, his face contorted in rage.
“You bastard! Where’s my sister? Give her back!”
I gave him a sickeningly sweet smile.
“Your sister? Here, Ben.” I held up the urn.
“I haven’t seen her last time. You burned her. Her body was rotten and stinking. So gross, if not cremated. Should we leave her to discuss all what?”
Richard Shawe, weeping openly, agreed with my casual cruelty.
“Gus is right. Amy was filthy. She should be ground to dust.”
Ben lunged at me.
“You bastard!”
Richard pleaded.
“Gus, listen. However you hate our family, Amy was your wife. You lived close for six years. And you did that to her. Do you feel nothing at all?”
I felt nothing. Only the cold, clean satisfaction of completion. I refused to hand over the ashes.
“Even if Amy dies, she is still mine. I will keep her close to me to torment her day and night.”
Richard and Ethan begged me for the ashes, for the chance to give their daughter a proper burial, a true rest.
“If you have some mercy, then return her to us.”
“Rest in peace?” I scoffed.
“A woman like Amelia Shawe, one who lives by taking lives, deserves only to suffer forever more.”
I watched as Richard collapsed, muttering to the urn.
“My own daughter, do you hate me that much? Hate me to this twisted end? I loved you truly for five years and this is how it ends for me in the end. My dear child, my daughter, when you lived, Daddy failed to protect you. After you passed, Daddy could not even keep your ashes safe. I have failed you. Forgive me.”
I walked out, the urn heavy in my hands, unaware that my sister’s true family had not been the Shafes, but the man now collapsing on the floor, broken by a lifetime of love and a final, brutal loss.
PART 3: The Seven Days of Haunting
The next seven days were strange. I kept the ashes in my study. I watched the Shawe family crumble. I watched as Ben, heartbroken over his lost wife (he still believed Amy killed Chloe, but had grown close to Amy over the years), tried to confront me.
“Gus,” Ben pleaded, “you were out partying, drinking till your gut bled. Who cared for you? Seven days and nights no rest. Have you forgotten that? Amy stayed up seven days and nights to care for you when you were sick! Go back. Get some rest.”
I threw a glass against the wall.
“That was just her own drama! It truly makes me sick! If it were not for Amy Shawe, would Chloe have died? Since you all miss her so much, I will make the whole Shawe clan die with her!”
I was spiraling into the dark abyss of my vengeance.
But the house was not empty. I began to sense her presence. I would find the orchid lamp we bought years ago—the one thing she ever truly loved—moved. I’d find half a slice of her favorite cake left on the counter, the one I’d rejected just before her death.
I saw a post-it note on the fridge.
“Babe, what doing? Put up a board to remind you daily things today. First thing I will remind you, I love you so much. I will remind you forever.“
I ripped it down, throwing it into the fire.
“Amelia Shawe. You serve you right. Only her death cheers me. If you had not killed Chloe, you would still be here!”
My hatred was a desperate scream against the encroaching silence.
I remembered the last anniversary, a year before the end. I had been drunk, haunted by Chloe. Amy found me, crying in the living room.
“Honey, why drink that much? Easy now… You are not Chloe,” she’d said, trying to comfort me.
That night, I saw the truth on her face, the quiet, painful realization of my first love. The next day, she hired a private detective.
“Madam, you asked me to look into that girl… Chloe. She was his first love. After she died in a crash, her heart was donated to you.”
Her heart beats here. It still beats in my chest.
Amy’s horror was immediate. She realized my wedding day was Chloe’s death day. She understood the true meaning of my five-year ‘love.’
She drove herself to the hospital, bleeding, and lost our child. A child I didn’t even know existed.
That was my child. I could feel his tiny heartbeat. But you cannot anymore.
I dismissed her pregnancy report, found in her belongings.
“Amelia Shawe, are you trying to guilt me? Do not even dream about it. If I find true Chloe’s parents, I can expose your lies. You killed Chloe. You are a killer. You never deserve my child. You earned that loss.”
But the truth of her quiet suffering, the knowledge of the child I’d lost, gnawed at me.
PART 4: The Revelation in the Suburbs
Driven by a gnawing doubt, I started to investigate Chloe’s death again. If Amy was innocent of the murder, then the Shawe family had fabricated the evidence.
I tracked down the address of Chloe’s original family—the Chu family—who supposedly donated her heart. I arrived at a suburban home, only to find they’d moved years ago.
A neighbor told me.
“Shaolan? Chloe? You say she died years ago. You must be her ex. Chloe was a good girl. Such pity. She was so young. Someone killed her.”
“That is right! Yes, Chloe died unjustly. But luckily, I already avenged her!” I boasted.
The neighbor’s face turned grim.
“Revenge? Revenge for what? She was killed by her own cruel parents.“
I staggered back.
“What? You said Chloe was healthy. Then how did she die?”
“The Chu family never held a funeral,” the neighbor continued, whispering secrets.
“Wearing gold and silver, buying cars and houses. They must have killed her for that blood money.”
My mind raced. Shawe said Chloe was killed by the Chu’s. How could the Chu’s kill her? I had to find out.
I confronted Richard and Ethan Shawe, now living in a broken-down apartment, their empire gone. I demanded to know the truth about Amy’s heart donor.
“It came from your old lover,” Richard spat out.
“To be honest with you. Is that not what you want?”
“Stop! It is Amy’s heart! My legal means got through donation! Later I did gave money to kin! 10 million as thanks! All papers are here! Anything else? Voluntary gift! How is that possible?”
I saw the consent form. Signed by the donor’s parents. No forgery.
“Gus, you saw it, right? Chloe’s death is not on me,” Richard pleaded.
I rejected it immediately.
“All right. Nice trick. The Shawes faked a deal. Too easy. You think you can fool me?”
I still refused to believe them, clinging to my six years of hatred.
Then, Sierra Chu—Chloe’s sister and my vengeful accomplice—stepped in. She was the one who fed me the initial, damning story that the Shawes had killed Chloe. She had witnessed the “crash.”
“Ben, I am Chloe’s sister. I saw the Shawe father and son kill my sister with a car.”
My brother, Ben, who had loved Amy like a sister, now sided with Sierra.
“She’s what Sierra said is completely true. Trust Sierra! Do not let the Shawe family trick you. We are Chloe’s true family!”
The lie was perfectly crafted. It used my deepest grief and Sierra’s calculated charm.
But the lingering doubt, fueled by the neighbor’s words, forced me to act.
PART 5: The Final, Vicious Betrayal
I seized Richard and Ethan Shawe. I dragged them, along with the Chu family (Chloe’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Chu, and Sierra), to a luxurious hotel ballroom I’d booked for a staged “surprise proposal” to Sierra.
Before a crowd of shocked socialites, I put on a show. I demanded the Shawes kneel and pay respects to my “late wife,” Amy. They complied, broken and humiliated.
Then, the final reveal. I had the supposed “surprise video” for Sierra played on the huge screen.
It wasn’t a proposal. It was the crash footage.
The ballroom gasped. The video, which I had secretly procured, showed the accident clearly. A car hitting Chloe. And the people who got out of the car were not Richard and Ethan Shawe.
The real killer was exposed. It was Mr. and Mrs. Chu—Chloe’s own parents—who had killed their daughter to harvest her heart and sell it to the Shawe family for the blood money I had so long resented.
Sierra, Chloe’s sister, stood exposed.
“It was edited! The video is fake! It was edited!”
I saw the monstrous truth.
“It is clear now. It was you. Your Chu family! You hid my sister! You even blamed the Shawes!”
I looked at Sierra, who had pretended to be my lover, my vengeful comrade.
“You knew Chloe is your sister. You took the 10 million. You even made me kill Amy.”
Sierra screamed her confession in front of the stunned crowd.
“Our Sierra is smart! She used the car crash to blame the Shawes! That Gus fed us five years, spent 30 million, and we fooled him hard! Made him kill his wife!“
The world went silent. I had destroyed an innocent woman, Amy, who loved me beyond reason, driven her to suicide, and torn apart her family, all based on a perfectly calculated, six-year-long lie constructed by the very people I trusted.
I had been the puppet. Sierra had been the master.
“Brother Gus,” Sierra wept, “in your heart, is there no place for me?”
My response was cold and final.
“Without Chloe, you are nothing.”
The Chu family was arrested on the spot. But the victory was dust.
PART 6: The Unforgiven Dream
I was left alone, haunted by the ashes of Amy. I found the anniversary rings she had ordered days before her death—a symbol of unity and faithful love.
She still loved me. She was going to surprise me.
I went to the Shawe family. I begged Richard to let me atone. I promised to fund the Shawe Group with $10 billion—to restore their name, to make the last six years as if they never happened.
Richard stared at me with pure hate.
“You just want me to hurt you? Then lock me up and destroy the Shawe family. Listen to me. Not a chance. You ruined the Shawe family. No. You hurt my sister.”
Amy’s ghost was everywhere. I was insane with grief and regret. I slit my own wrist in a desperate attempt to join her, to escape the crushing weight of my actions.
I woke up in the hospital. Amy—alive—was there, her face etched with fear.
“Mingme—Amy—you’re back! I was home all along! What you saying?” I babbled.
“Amy, I am sorry. I was wrong. I was wrong about you. I am a fool!”
She looked at me, detached.
“Forget it. You forced me to die. I bled so much. Did you forget all?”
I confessed everything—the betrayal, the revenge, the truth. I told her I had exposed the Chus and was funding the Shawe family’s rise.
“Even if she fooled you,” Amy said, her voice hollow, “it was because you deep down think we are that kind. So you believed her. No trust left between us. No more need together.”
I knelt, grabbing a knife.
“If you must divorce me, step over my body then!”
She promised not to divorce me, but her eyes held a new, colder truth. Later, she revealed a secret, holding my hand to her abdomen.
“I’m pregnant. Just found out. Two weeks.”
I was overwhelmed. A second chance. I am reborn. Everything can restart.
But then, Amy’s face changed. The love vanished, replaced by a terrifying, absolute hatred.
“This is only a dream, Gus.”
“No, that is not true! We have a baby! Look! Our girl!”
“Where’s our daughter? Have it all. How does it feel to lose all? It is finally ending. You have no idea how much I hate you.”
Her voice was the sound of my undoing.
“I stayed with you seven days. I saw you throw up my things. I saw you kill my father and brother. You like this? How could I still love you?”
“No! That is not true! I fixed it all! It never happened!”
She held up her hand.
“Because you are dreaming. The dream ends here. Farewell.”
The dream shattered. I woke up in my own bed, screaming her name. I was truly alone, left only with the ashes, the $10 billion wire transfer, and the unforgiving certainty that I had killed the one woman who truly loved me, based on a six-year-old lie. The ultimate price of revenge was the destruction of the one life that mattered most, a price I would pay forever.
