Chapter 1: The Last Transfusion
The needle slid into Joyce’s arm with practiced cruelty, a silver sting she had long since stopped flinching from.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The heart monitor marked time like a countdown to another piece of her soul being siphoned away. Across the private hospital suite, Tristan scrolled through his phone, his designer suit immaculate, his jaw set in that perfect, indifferent line she used to trace with her fingertips.
Three years. Three years of this. Three years of her blood snaking through tubes into Selena’s veins while Tristan watched—not Joyce, never Joyce—but the monitor, the door, the clock. As if her sacrifice was a quarterly board meeting.
“Almost done, Mrs. Beckett,” the nurse murmured, adjusting the IV.
Mrs. Beckett. The name tasted like ash. She’d once loved the way it sounded—Joyce Beckett—like a vow made of gold. Now, it was just another shackle.
A giggle cut through the silence.
Selena lounged on the hospital bed, her rose-gold silk robe artfully draped to show off collarbones sharp enough to draw blood. “Tristan, darling, tell Joyce thank you,” she cooed, fluttering her lashes. “She’s always so… generous.”
Tristan didn’t look up. “You’re welcome, Joyce.”
The words were automatic, hollow. Joyce clenched her fists, her nails biting into her palms. Generous. That’s what they called women who gave until they were empty.
The machine beeped faster.
A wave of dizziness hit her—harder than usual. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision.
“I think—” Joyce’s voice cracked. “I need to stop.”
Selena sighed. “Again? You know my levels drop if we don’t finish.”
Tristan finally glanced over, his ice-blue eyes flickering with annoyance. “Just ten more minutes, Joyce.”
The room tilted.
Beepbeepbeepbeep—
“Her blood pressure’s crashing!” The nurse lunged for the IV.
Joyce’s last thought before the darkness swallowed her was bitter irony: Even now, he doesn’t touch me.
Consciousness returned in fragments.
White ceiling. The sour tang of antiseptic. A voice—“fetal distress”—that couldn’t possibly be about her.
“—lost the pregnancy.”
Joyce’s eyes flew open.
A doctor stood at the foot of her bed, his mouth a grim line. Tristan loomed by the window, his back to her.
Pregnancy?
Her hand flew to her stomach. Flat. Empty.
“There was… a baby?” Her voice sounded shattered, even to herself.
Tristan turned. For a heartbeat, something raw flickered across his face—then vanished. “It’s for the best,” he said coldly. “You’re not well.”
Not well. The words detonated in her chest.
Selena’s perfume wafted through the door before she did. “Oh, poor Joyce,” she murmured, her lips curved in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “All that blood you gave me… I did warn you it was too much.”
Joyce’s vision went red.
In that moment, she saw it all—the years of gaslighting, the way Tristan’s hands never shook when he handed her over to the needles, Selena’s staged fainting spells that always coincided with Joyce’s birthdays, anniversaries, dreams.
The monitor screeched again—but this time, it wasn’t from weakness.
It was fury.
Two Hours Later
Joyce stood in the Beckett mansion’s marble foyer, her suitcase in hand. The divorce papers lay on the console, crisp and final.
Tristan snatched them up with a laugh. “You’ll crawl back. Where else would you go?”
She didn’t blink. “Funny. I was just wondering the same about you—when she sucks you dry.”
His smirk faltered.
Joyce turned on her heel. The door slammed behind her with the weight of a guillotine.
Midnight. A Private Jet.
The Powell family crest glinted on the champagne flute as Joyce’s grandfather studied her over the rim. “Did you really think,” he said softly, “we’d let you starve?”
Outside the window, the city lights blurred. Somewhere below, Tristan was telling himself she’d return.
Let him wait.
Joyce sipped her drink. “How soon can I ruin him?”
End of Chapter 1
