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He Wanted My Daughter's Heart. I Gave Him the Grave
Novelix
Completed
"My ex-husband spent six years planning to kill our daughter on her sixth birthday. He needed her heart to save the son he believed was his. I saw it in a vision. I saw him push us off a cliff. I saw her chest cut open in the wilderness while he rushed her heart to a private surgical suite. I saw his happy family celebrate her death at dinner. But the boy he killed two people to save wasn't even his son. So I set a trap. I recorded every confession, rigged a rescue net, and livestreamed their plot to the world. When they pushed us off that cliff, millions watched them celebrate our “deaths.” Then I stood up behind them and asked: “Looking for me?” Now he’s on death row, the boy’s real father is in prison, and my daughter is alive. He wanted her heart. He got the grave."
Chapters (3)
第1章
My husband posted a poll in his family group chat asking whether he should stay with his pregnant wife or leave me for my pregnant best friend.
Everyone in the Pierce family already knew Ethan was cheating. They had helped him hide the affair, congratulated him on the other pregnancy, and voted as if my marriage were a game.
I did not even bother opening the poll results. I was already packing my things and preparing to file for divorce when Ethan dropped to his knees in front of me and slapped himself again and again.
"Claire, every single person voted for you. I swear on my life, if I ever betray you again, I'll die!"
I would never forgive a man who betrayed me.
After the divorce, I gave birth to our daughter, Sophie, and raised her alone. The court granted Ethan one supervised visit a month.
On the day of Sophie's kindergarten family outing, Ethan and I took her camping. I fell asleep in a hammock and had a vision.
On Sophie's sixth birthday, Ethan used his monthly visitation to take us hiking out of town. While Sophie and I posed for a picture, he shoved us off a cliff.
Our bodies shattered on the rocks below.
He cut out Sophie's heart and rushed it to a private surgical suite, all to give his son one last chance at life.
The transplant succeeded. Afterward, the five members of his happy family sat down together for a celebratory dinner.
My little girl was left cut open in the wilderness beside me. Our bodies rotted where no one would find us.
The cruelest part was that the boy Ethan had murdered two people to save was not even his biological son.
I jerked awake as if someone had dragged me out of deep water. Sweat soaked my clothes, and I could barely breathe.
Not far away, Sophie sat on Ethan's shoulders, her laughter carrying across the clearing.
Cold sweat still beaded along my hairline.
Ethan charged toward me with Sophie perched high above him. "Coming in for a landing!"
He set her down and reached out with his sleeve to wipe my forehead.
"Why are you sweating so much? I hung the hammock in the shade on purpose."
I flinched away before I could stop myself. His voice trailed off.
Ethan lowered his hand and quickly smoothed his expression. "You never could handle the heat. Sophie's birthday is next month. How about I take you both up to the mountains where it's cooler?"
The mountains.
Every muscle in my body locked. I pulled Sophie tighter against me and forced myself to ask, "Which mountain?"
Ethan smiled. "Blackridge Mountain."
The same mountain where Sophie and I had died in my dream.
I scooped her into my arms and strode toward the car.
Ethan hurried after me, confused. "What's wrong, Claire? My mom is waiting at home to have dinner with Sophie."
The dream no longer felt random. I needed to get Sophie away from him.
I yanked open the car door. "Something came up at work."
From the back seat, Sophie pressed her face to the window. "Mommy, I only get to see Daddy and Grandma once a month. I don't want to go home yet."
The longing in her voice cut straight through me. She had no idea that the people she loved were waiting to kill her.
I drove straight to my older sister's house.
Megan opened the door, took one look at my face, and pulled me inside.
"Noah, take Sophie to your room and play with her."
Once the children were out of earshot, I looked at her gravely. "This is going to sound insane, but I have to find out if it's true."
I told her everything. By the time I finished, the color had drained from her face. She sprang from the couch and grabbed her phone.
"David knows the transplant system. He'll know whether any part of this makes sense."
Megan's husband was a cardiothoracic surgeon. He could not access a child's medical records just because we asked, but he knew where to look for information the family had made public.
Within an hour, Megan found a church fundraiser created by my former mother-in-law. The smiling boy in the photographs was Tyler Pierce, the baby Ethan's family had supposedly rejected in that poll six years earlier. Post after post documented his congenital heart defect, repeated hospitalizations, and failure to receive a donor match.
The newest update thanked supporters for helping the family reserve a private operating suite for a procedure on Sophie's sixth birthday.
David recognized the surgeon's name. Dr. Foster had once worked in transplant medicine but had lost his hospital privileges after an organ-allocation investigation. Whatever Ethan and Amber had arranged, it was not a lawful transplant.
Rage blurred my vision. "Those monsters really are planning to use my daughter."
Megan shoved the phone away as if it had burned her. "They've spent six years building a murder plan."
She seized my hand and pulled me toward the door. "Come on. We're going to the police right now."
I held her back. "We don't have any evidence. Going to the police now will only warn them."
"I need proof of everything they're planning. I want them trapped by their own crimes, and I want them to pay."
"And when Ethan thinks he's won, I'm going to tell him the boy he sacrificed everything to save belongs to another man. Then I'll watch them tear each other apart."
第2章
I carried a sleeping Sophie home around dinnertime.
Ethan was waiting on the front steps with two bulging grocery bags. He smiled when he saw me.
"The day's not over yet. I thought I'd cook one more meal for you two."
If I wanted evidence, I would have to keep him close. My skin crawled, but I swallowed the urge to throw him out.
Later, Ethan emerged from the kitchen carrying a glass. "You were sweating so badly at lunch that I worried you might have heat exhaustion. I made you some iced mint tea."
A chill settled in my chest. "Thanks."
When I saw the relief he tried to hide, I smiled.
"It's late. You can stay in the guest room tonight and leave in the morning."
He looked stunned by his good fortune and agreed at once.
I handed him a glass of milk laced with sleeping pills. "Sophie went to bed early. No point letting fresh milk go to waste."
He drained it in one swallow. "Claire, does this mean you're finally willing to forgive me?"
I gave a soft laugh. "You'll find out on Sophie's birthday."
He grabbed my hand, beaming.
After I made sure he was deeply asleep, I pressed his fingertip to his phone and unlocked it.
I searched every messaging app. He had been careful. There was nothing.
His call history was my last resort. My finger stopped over a one-minute call with an insurance company.
A heart transplant cost more than Ethan could possibly afford. Stories about husbands killing their wives for insurance money flashed through my mind. I memorized the company's name.
The next morning, after dropping Sophie off at school, I called the insurer's fraud department. As the insured person, I was entitled to request the policy file. Megan came with me while I signed the paperwork and showed my identification.
An investigator returned with a thick envelope. "Ms. Sutton, this accidental death policy was opened six years ago. Ethan Pierce is the owner and beneficiary. The application includes what appears to be your signed consent."
The signature was not mine.
Outside the building, I stared at six years of premium statements and a photocopy of the forged application.
Before we had even divorced, Ethan had insured my life, forged my consent, and chosen how I would die.
Sunlight beat down on my shoulders, yet I shook from the cold.
Tears streamed down Megan's face. "He's a murderer. That bastard."
I patted her back. "This time, they're the ones going to hell."
I called Ethan.
"The insurance company contacted me today. They said someone took out a policy on me and needed me to confirm it."
Panic sharpened his voice, though he tried to sound calm. "It's probably a scam, Claire. Just block the number."
"That's what I thought. I already did."
He exhaled audibly. I hung up with a silent sneer.
My daughter's heart would keep your son alive, and my death benefit would pay for the surgery.
Ethan, you really did think of everything.
My call rattled him exactly as I had hoped. Late that night, he got into his car and headed toward the hospital.
I had been waiting for him. I followed.
第3章
Ethan met Amber near the hospital. I parked out of sight and started recording on my phone.
"Ethan, why did you need to see me in the middle of the night?"
"Claire got a call from the insurance company today."
Amber's eyes went wide. "What? Then she knows?"
Ethan put an arm around her. "Relax. She's an idiot. She thought it was a scam and blocked the number."
Amber sighed with relief. "Good thing you've played your part so perfectly all these years. That fool wouldn't believe the truth if someone put it right in front of her."
Pride crept into Ethan's voice. "Of course not. Pretending to care about that woman and her brat all these years has made every day feel like a prison sentence."
My nails dug into my palms.
Sophie talked about missing her daddy every single day.
Every ounce of fatherly love he had shown her was a poisoned blade, waiting for the right moment to take her life.
Amber stroked his cheek. "Just hang on for two more weeks."
"Once we take that little girl's heart, Tyler will be safe, and we won't have to spend every day looking over our shoulders."
Ethan let out a long breath. "Why did the prenatal tests have to find something wrong with Tyler instead of that bitch's baby?"
I laughed silently.
What would Ethan do when he learned he was planning to use his own daughter's heart to save another man's son?
Amber's eyes filled with tears. "Claire Sutton poisoned everything. She cost me my degree, my career, and every chance I had at a decent life. Now my son spends his life in a hospital while she gets to raise a healthy little girl."
I slowly uncurled my fingers. My nails had left deep crescents in my palms.
Amber and I had grown up together. After her parents died, I persuaded my parents to pay her tuition through college.
Then she committed academic fraud. When the university discovered she had plagiarized her thesis, she begged my father, a professor there, to protect her.
He had always treated Amber like another daughter, but he was a fair man. He refused.
The university revoked her degree, and she lost a lucrative job offer. From that day on, she hated my entire family.
At one of my prenatal appointments, she had appeared with a triumphant smile and announced that she was pregnant too.
The father was my husband.
No kindness goes unpunished.
I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly.
Ethan drove away. Instead of leaving, Amber doubled back.
A few minutes later, a familiar man emerged from the darkness.
"Ryan."
I recognized Ryan Carter, Amber's college boyfriend and first love.
She had seduced Ethan to get revenge on me. What Ethan believed was true love had been nothing but a calculated use of him.
I pressed Record again.
"How is Tyler doing?" Ryan asked.
"Don't worry. In two weeks, Ethan will personally deliver his daughter's heart to our son."
Ryan wrapped an arm around her. "Call it payback. Ethan sabotaged my application and took the job that should have been mine. His wife stood by while you lost everything. They deserve what's coming."
Amber smiled smugly. "Claire always acted like she was better than me. Now I have her and her husband dancing on my strings. It feels incredible."
I captured every second of her gloating.
Enjoy it while you can. Soon, you will learn what real payback looks like.
