Chapter 2

Ava Bell POV:

"Sir, there's something else." A junior officer, his voice tight with discomfort, called out to Carter. He was kneeling beside my body, his gaze fixed on my stomach.

My clothes were torn, exposing a faint, barely healed scar just above my navel. It was small, a thin white line against my pale skin. A reminder of a choice I was forced to make. A choice that led to this.

My heart, or where my heart used to be, twisted with a phantom ache. This was it. This was the mark he had refused to see, the truth he had rejected.

Carter turned, his professional mask slipping for a fraction of a second. His eyes narrowed, focusing on the scar. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

"What in God's name happened here?" His voice was low, guttural, filled with a sudden, raw anger. He wasn't looking at me, the victim, but at the injustice, the pure savagery of it all. "Who would do this to another human being?"

If only you knew, Carter. If only you knew the monster you chose to love.

I remembered the day. The doctor' s office. The sterile white walls. The heavy news. Cardiomyopathy. My heart was a ticking bomb. A bone marrow donation, even for my sister, would be a death sentence for me.

I called Carter, my voice trembling. "I can't do it, Carter. I can't donate to Cecelia. The doctors said I have a severe heart condition. It could kill me."

He had listened, or pretended to. Then, his voice, usually so controlled, had exploded. "Don't you dare, Ava! Don't you dare fake some illness to get out of this! Cecelia is dying, and you're her only hope!"

"It's not fake!" I had pleaded, tears streaming down my face. "I have the medical reports, Carter. I'll show you."

"I don't believe you!" he' d roared, his words like a physical blow. He pulled the car over, slamming on the brakes. "Get out, Ava. I can't even look at you right now. You're a manipulative, selfish excuse for a human being."

He left me there, on a deserted street corner, the rain starting to fall. He drove off, leaving me shattered, abandoned. That night, Cecelia' s thugs found me. And now, I was here.

Carter' s anger, his outrage, was for a stranger. He knew nothing of my pain, nothing of the monstrous betrayal that had led to this moment. He was so consumed by his own righteous indignation, so blind to the truth laid bare before him.

"This scar," he said, his voice hardening, "it's just a detail. A medical procedure, perhaps. Don't let it distract you. We need to focus on identifying her and finding the bastards who did this."

He moved away from my body, his focus shifting. "This case is priority one. I want every resource deployed. I want arrests, and I want them fast."

You want justice, Carter? For a stranger? You wouldn't even listen to me when I was alive. You never trusted me.

He trusted Cecelia. Always Cecelia. His beautiful, manipulative fiancée. She was his world, his reason. I was just a burden, a shadow always hovering, always in the way.

I had tried so hard to be enough. To be loved. To be seen. My heart ached for him, yearned for his approval. Even when James, my cousin, had warned me. "Carter's not right for you, Ava. He's too wrapped up in Cecelia's drama. He doesn't see you."

I hadn't believed him. I loved Carter. I believed his love for Cecelia was just misguided affection, a temporary obsession. I thought if I just loved him enough, if I was good enough, he would see me.

But he never did. I was a stand-in, a convenient placeholder for the woman he truly loved, the woman he swore he couldn't live without. My apartment, the one he had chosen for us, was filled with Cecelia's favorite books, her preferred coffee mugs, even a throw blanket she had left behind months ago.

I was an intruder in my own life, a ghost even before I died.