Chapter 1

Three years after being diagnosed with heart failure, my mother finally got a matching donor heart.

Both she and I have the rare panda-type blood, and afraid something might go wrong, I made sure to bank blood every single month for those three years.

But right before the transplant surgery, Darrell had all of the panda-type blood I'd spent three years storing urgently transferred to his best friend, Maya.

I confronted him, on the verge of falling apart, but he pushed me away without any expression at all.

"Your mom's surgery isn't for another week, but Maya's due date is tomorrow. Can't you show a little sense? Do you really have to pick a fight out of jealousy at a time like this?"

"If you hadn't been so eaten up with jealousy back then, Maya wouldn't have married beneath her out of spite to just anyone, and she wouldn't have ended up abused all the way to a divorce. Giving her my blood is me atoning for your sins!"

I tried desperately to stop him, but my brother, who had rushed over, held me back and wouldn't let go.

His eyes were full of impatience as he looked at me.

"Cathy, can't you be a little kinder?"

"Mom's life is a life, but isn't Maya's a life too?"

"Besides, with you around, even if Mom's in danger she can get a transfusion in time. But Maya only has us."

I stood there, dazed, a bitter smile on my lips.

"I'm already three months pregnant. The doctor said if any more blood is drawn, I'll lose the baby."

Darrell scoffed, utterly indifferent.

"So what if you lose it. We're still young. We'll have other children."

I didn't argue anymore. I just nodded calmly.

Young, indeed.

But what he didn't know was that the car accident half a month ago had left him with more than just cuts and bruises.

The doctor said he had completely lost the ability to father children.

Except for the one in my belly, he would never have another child for the rest of his life.

Since he didn't care, then I would give him exactly what he wanted.

Neither the child nor him — I intended to keep neither.

1.

Inside the freezer, thirty-six bags of blood were stacked in neat rows.

It was what I had banked once a month, without fail, over the past three years.

The doctor said my mother was too old, and she was at high risk of hemorrhaging heavily during surgery.

And of course, like me, she had the rare panda-type blood.

For three years, Darrell had watched me go from a healthy person to someone with severe anemia, drained down by all that drawn blood.

He'd also watched my mother slip into critical condition again and again, gritting her teeth and holding on until now because she didn't want to break my heart.

He knew how hard we had struggled.

And still, for someone who didn't need it at all, he stole the life-saving blood I'd set aside for my mother.

I forced down the fury rising in me, and even my voice was shaking.

"Darrell, Maya has a common blood type. Even if she hemorrhages during delivery, blood bags can be pulled from the blood bank in time. Why do you have to take my mother's blood?"

"Do you know the doctor said there's an eighty percent chance my mother will hemorrhage badly? Without reserve blood, they won't even dare to operate."

"She's old. She doesn't have that kind of time to wait for me to bank blood all over again. If she misses this surgery, she'll die!"

I thought Darrell might show the slightest bit of feeling.

But he just looked at me indifferently.

After a long silence, he finally spoke, his face expressionless.

"Catherine, your mother is already old. Every extra day she lives is a blessing she's lucky to get."

"Maya's different. What she's carrying is a new life. It's always better to be well-prepared than to scramble for blood after something goes wrong."

"Can't you stop being so selfish? She's your best friend too. Do you want me to stand by and watch her die with her unborn child?"

I stood frozen in place, a chill I couldn't stop running through my whole body.

He said my mother was old.

Old — and so she should trade her own life to keep someone else covered for the worst?

He said I was selfish.

But he forgot that his life had been saved by me and my mother.

Not once, but three times.

My mom and Claude were business partners, and Darrell and I were childhood sweethearts who grew up together.

The year he was five, he fell into the water by accident.

It was my mother who, ignoring the raging current, jumped in and pulled him out, nearly drowning herself in the process.

The year he was ten, Claude died of illness.

After the funeral, the relatives who wanted to seize the estate hired someone to ram the car that was ferrying Darrell around.

Again it was my mother who, risking an explosion any second, smashed the car window with her bare hands and dragged him out.

He came out unharmed, but the broken glass severed the tendons in her hand — eighteen stitches in all.

Later, when he wanted to take over the company, my mother transferred all her shares to him without hesitation.

But he offended a lot of people because he was too domineering.

Someone hired a hit man for revenge.

When they came after him, I took three blows for him.

My ribs were broken, and my shoulder and lower abdomen were both stabbed through.

The red light over the operating room stayed on all night, and he knelt outside the door all night too.

The day I was discharged, his eyes were rimmed red, and he swore that for the rest of his life he would protect me and my mother, even at the cost of his own life.

So it turned out the rest of his life lasted only eight short years.

Seeing me biting down hard on my lip, Darrell patted my face as if to soothe me.

"Cathy, stop being unreasonable, okay?"

"Tomorrow is Maya's due date. She needs this blood more than your mother does."

"I promise you, if she delivers safely, I'll have the blood bags sent back the very first moment, all right?"

I ignored his attempt to comfort me and only looked up at my brother, who was busy packing the boxes.

"So you think Mom's old too, and it doesn't matter if she dies on the operating table, is that it?"