Chapter 4 Chapter 4

Donovan moved faster than I'd ever seen him. He reached Chloe in seconds, shielding her with his own body as debris rained down around them. He was her hero, her savior. I was just a spectator, forgotten on the sidewalk.

My first instinct was to walk away. This wasn't my drama. But some lingering sense of duty, the ghost of the role I had played for three years, made me move forward. I walked towards the chaos, my steps measured and calm.

I found them in the emergency room waiting area. Donovan was pacing like a caged tiger, his hair disheveled, his face pale with fear. I sat down on one of the cold plastic chairs, a silent, unobtrusive presence.

A doctor came out, his face grim. "Miss Sanders has lost a lot of blood. She has a rare blood type, AB negative. We're running low on our supply. We need a donor, now."

Donovan ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wild. "Test me. Test everyone."

But it was a rare type. The chances were slim.

And then, the universe played its cruelest joke.

"I'm AB negative," I said, my voice cutting through the tense silence.

Donovan stared at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. It was a piece of information he'd never bothered to learn, a detail about his own wife that was completely unknown to him.

"Are you sure?" the doctor asked, turning to me.

"I'm sure," I said.

There was no hesitation. A life was at stake. My personal feelings for Chloe were irrelevant. I followed the nurse into a small room, rolled up my sleeve, and watched as my own life force, my blood, was drawn from my body to save the woman my husband loved.

The process left me feeling weak and dizzy. I sat in the room for a while, sipping the juice a nurse gave me, my body feeling strangely light.

Donovan was waiting outside when I emerged. He looked at me, his expression unreadable. The confusion in his eyes had deepened into something more complex, something I couldn't decipher. He was looking at a puzzle he couldn't solve.

"Thank you," he said, the words sounding rough, forced. He cleared his throat. "Why did you do it? Why are you still here?"

I had to give him an answer he would understand, one that fit his narrative. "I didn't want you to be sad," I said softly. "And... I didn't want there to be any more misunderstandings between us."

It was the perfect lie. The ultimate act of a selfless, loving wife.

He stared at me, his jaw tight. He was trying to reconcile the woman who endured his grandfather's beating, the woman who silently served his mistress, the woman who just gave her blood to save a rival, with the cold, distant stranger he lived with.

He opened his mouth to ask another question, a question I saw forming in his eyes. Do you love me that much?

But just then, the doctor came out again, smiling. "The transfusion was a success. Miss Sanders is stable. She's waking up."

The spell was broken. Donovan rushed into Chloe's room without a backward glance.

When Chloe was conscious, she immediately demanded to see me. She looked pale against the white pillows, but her eyes were sharp with malice.

"You," she spat, her voice weak but venomous. "You think this makes us even? You think because your blood is inside me, you've won?"

"I don't want to win anything," I said tiredly.

"Donovan only feels sorry for you," she hissed. "He will never love you. To prove how much he loves me, he needs to show you your place." She looked past me, to where Donovan stood in the doorway. "Donovan, darling. I feel so cold. That storm... it reminds me of how scared I was. Could you... could you push her into the ocean for me? Just for a little bit. So I know you'd do anything for me."

It was insane. A twisted, cruel test from a deeply disturbed woman.

I looked at Donovan, expecting him to refuse, to see the madness in her request. But I saw him hesitate. He looked at Chloe's pleading face, then at my stoic one. And in that moment of hesitation, I knew. He was going to do it.

He drove me to the coast, to a deserted stretch of beach under a gray, unforgiving sky. The waves crashed against the shore, their roar filling the silence between us.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice flat.

He didn't look at me as he pushed me. The icy water of the Atlantic shocked the air from my lungs. It was brutally cold, a cold that seeped into my bones. I was already weak from giving blood. The current was strong, pulling me under.

As the cold water closed over my head, a memory from my childhood surfaced. My sister Isabella pushing my face into the water of a lake because I had a toy she wanted. I had almost drowned that day. My parents had told me I was overreacting.

I was always the one who was sacrificed. Always the one who had to be pushed under to keep someone else happy.

I was pulled from the water by one of Donovan's bodyguards. As I lay gasping on the sand, shivering violently, I heard Donovan's voice on the phone, talking to someone.

"She's out of the water... yes, she's fine." He paused. "What was that dream you had? About leaving? What did you mean by that?"

He had heard me. The words I'd mumbled in my feverish state after his grandfather's beating. A slip of the tongue that could unravel everything.

He knelt beside me, his hand gripping my shoulder, his face a mask of suspicion. "What did you mean, Ava? Where are you planning on going?"