Chapter 1

Bella’s POV

The doctor’s voice cut through the sterile hum of the machines. “Your body has been used as a test subject for an experimental drug. Continued exposure could kill you.”

I lay on the hospital bed, limbs heavy as lead, and stared at him. The words refused to settle. My lips carried that strange blue tint the nurses had noticed earlier, and my chest ached with every shallow breath. Shock wrapped around me like a frozen blanket. This couldn’t be happening. Not after months of weakness no one could explain. Not after all the tests that led nowhere.

My mind reached for the only anchor it had left. Josh. He would never do this to me. He had walked into that brothel like a man on a mission, paid them, and carried me out into the daylight. Six months of marriage had shown me a steady, quiet kind of safety I had never known. He made coffee for me in the mornings. He listened when I spoke about my fears of being useless. He held me at night as if I mattered. A good man. My savior. The thought steadied my breathing. There had to be a mistake. Someone else’s file. A mix-up in the lab. Anything but Josh.

I almost smiled at the relief that washed over me. Yes. He would walk through that door any moment now, worried and gentle, and we would figure this out together. He always fixed things. That was who he was.

The door opened.

Josh stepped inside wearing the crisp shirt I had ironed two days ago. His face held no worry. Only a stern line of his jaw and anger burning cold in his eyes. My fragile hope wavered, but I pushed it back. He must be upset about the hospital. Stressed from work.

“Josh,” I said softly, trying to sit up. Pain flared through my body. “The doctor said something crazy. Tell him it’s not true. Please.”

He didn’t look at me. He signed the discharge papers with quick strokes, exchanged a few low words with the doctor, then jerked his head toward the wheelchair. Silence followed us down the hallway, into the elevator, and out to the car. I kept my eyes on his profile, searching for the man I knew.

In the car, the quiet pressed against my skin. Every passing streetlight dragged shadows across his face. I couldn’t hold it any longer.

“Why?” My voice came out small. “Why would you do this to me after everything? After the love, the promises. You saved me, Josh. You chose me.”

He kept driving, knuckles tight on the wheel, offering nothing. The city lights blurred past. I repeated the question, softer, then again, my throat tightening with each mile. Still nothing. The man who once kissed my forehead when I cried now acted as if I were invisible.

When we reached the house, the familiar walls felt colder than the hospital room. I stepped out of the car on shaky legs, but the moment the front door closed behind us, the dam broke.

“Tell me the truth right now!” I crashed out, voice rising despite the weakness in my limbs. “All of it. Or I swear I will divorce you. I can’t live like this, not knowing.”

He paused in the hallway. For several heartbeats he stood with his back to me. Then he turned slowly, and the expression on his face sent ice down my spine. No softness. No guilt.

“It’s true.”

The admission landed hard. I searched his eyes, desperate for any sign that this was a nightmare. There was none. His tone stayed harsh, flat, as if he were discussing lab results instead of my life.

“I spent too much money getting you out of that brothel. This is how you repay me.”

The room tilted. I grabbed the back of the sofa to stay upright. Memories flooded in without mercy. My father’s gambling debts that grew faster than I could hide from them. The night he sold me to settle what he owed, his hand shoving me toward strangers while he counted cash. The shame that clung to my skin for months until Josh appeared like some impossible miracle. He had promised a new life. Safety. Love. I had believed every word because I needed to believe.

Tears spilled hot down my cheeks. “I want a divorce. I’ll sign whatever you want. Just let me go.”

Josh stepped closer, his presence suddenly suffocating in the home we had shared. “I will never sign those papers. You stay here and finish the cycle. That’s the deal.”

“Repay you?” The words tasted bitter. “You married me. You said I was your fresh start. Was any of it real?”

His shrug carried no remorse. “It was practical. Stay and repay what I spent bringing you back. That’s why I married you.”

I wiped at my face, anger and heartbreak twisting together until I could barely breathe. “Why not someone else? Why me?”

Josh scoffed, a cold, short sound that shattered whatever pieces of me remained intact. “Because your RH null blood is the rarest type in the world. You’re compatible with the compound in ways no one else we tested has been. You’ll be my lab rat for as long as I need. And if you leave before the full dosage protocol is complete, the toxicity already in your system will kill you.”

He delivered the sentence like a simple fact, eyes steady on mine, waiting for it to sink in.

I stood there in the house that had once felt like salvation, heart hammering against my ribs, the man I had loved staring back at me with nothing but calculation. The silence stretched, heavy and final, while the full weight of his words pressed down on my chest.

My life was no longer my own.