The day the doctor told me I had seven days left to live, my husband held my hand so tightly that, for one brief second, I thought he was trying not to fall apart in front of me. Then he leaned close, brushed his lips against my ear, and whispered the sentence that killed something in me before the illness could. “As soon as you’re gone, the house, the land, and every dollar will be mine.”
My name is Elena.
I was twenty-nine years old, and until that moment, I thought nothing could be more terrifying than hearing that my organs were failing and no one knew why. I was lying in a private hospital room with an IV in my arm, cracked lips, and a body so weak that even breathing felt like work. Dr.
Mercer had spoken in that careful voice doctors use when hope is no longer something they can honestly offer. My kidneys and liver were declining too quickly. They were still searching for the cause.
But we needed to prepare. Derek sat beside me with his head lowered, looking like a grieving husband. What a perfect actor he was.
The moment the doctor left and the door clicked shut, Derek lifted his face. No tears. No fear.
No grief. Just a calm, disgusting satisfaction. “Seven days,” he murmured.
“Honestly, I thought you’d last longer.”
I stared at him, too weak to scream, too stunned to understand if he was real or if fever had finally started twisting my mind. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, smoothing his jacket. “You’ve suffered enough.
And once this is over, things will be easier for everyone. Especially me.”
I wanted to ask what kind of monster he was, but my throat burned and my tongue felt heavy. Derek touched my hair with fake tenderness, and nausea rolled through me.
“I’ll bring your usual,” he said softly. “It’ll help you feel better.”
The usual. The cup.
The warm tea he brought me every night. Bitter. Metallic.
Strange. A taste I had explained away a hundred different ways. He always smiled when he gave it to me.
“It’s natural, sweetheart. It’ll make you stronger.”
I remembered the plant in the garden that had accidentally gotten a few drops of that tea one afternoon. The next morning, its leaves were yellow, curled, and dead-looking, as if it had burned from the inside.
I remembered months of dizziness, stomach pain, weakness, and Derek insisting he should prepare my drinks, handle my pills, speak for me, care for me. Suddenly, everything connected so fast that fear turned cold. Maybe I wasn’t simply dying.
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