He Saved Her Daughter, I Took Everything

Chapter 3

No one knew what Trixie whispered into Johan's ear right then.

But when Johan looked at me again, his gaze brimmed with fresh, sharp disgust.

"Quit playing the sympathy card and putting on a poor act! Trixie has it way worse than you. She lost her ability to have kids years ago, and Maine is the only child she has left. If we don't give Caren's heart to Maine, Trixie will have no descendants left!

"And here you are, getting in my way at every turn from saving Maine. Get over here and apologize to Trixie right now!"

Right on cue, Trixie put on a fake gentle act from the sidelines, "It's fine, Johan. I won't push her if she doesn't want to apologize. It's just… when I'm in a bad mood, I get a lot rougher when I'm dissecting a body." As she spoke, she ripped the body bag holding Caren's corpse open with a sharp rip.

The second her eyes landed on the small body, she clapped a hand over her nose and stumbled backward, nose wrinkled in revulsion.

"It reeks! How can a corpse be this disgusting?" She pulled a bottle of clear liquid from her pocket and blasted the body with a messy, reckless spray.

The moment the liquid touched Caren's corpse, the last bit of unblemished skin on Caren's body melted away in an instant. A thick, putrid stench immediately billowed out into the room.

I swallowed the searing agony coiling through my chest, lunged forward, and shoved Trixie as hard as I could.

I snarled, furious, "Trixie! Caren is already dead! How can you desecrate her body even after she's gone? She was a child you once doted on with your own heart! How could you do this to her?"

Trixie's gaze flickered for just a split second, but her hands never stopped moving.

The moment I shoved her, she let herself crumple to the ground, looked up at Johan with wide, innocent eyes, and sniffled, "I'm a forensic pathologist. Autopsying a body is just my job. I didn't even do anything wrong. I was just disinfecting her."

Johan hurled me away like I was trash, then pulled Trixie to her feet, his whole face soft with concern.

Only after he checked her over and confirmed she wasn't hurt did he snap his head back at me, irritation rolling off him in waves. "Audrey, what do you think you're doing? This autopsy is what got Trixie her permanent promotion. I will not let anyone ruin this for her!"

He lifted his foot and ground it brutally down onto my outstretched hand, and said offhandedly, "This is your lesson. Let's see how you cause trouble when you don't have working hands anymore!"

He ignored my ear-splitting screams of agony, pressing harder and harder until every single one of my ten fingers snapped cleanly beneath his boot.

Only when he finally lifted his foot away was I able to yank my mangled hand back in a pathetic, hunched posture.

The searing, white-hot pain made my temples throb so hard I thought my skull would split, and beads of sweat the size of beans poured down my face nonstop.

I stared at Trixie, who was staring right back at me with a smug, challenging smirk, and icy rage burned in my eyes.

When Trixie saw how broken I was, she suddenly flashed me a sharp, malicious grin.

Then, clutching her sharp scalpel in one hand, she tugged Johan over, giddy with excitement, and started rambling about human anatomy to him.

Johan would never kill her vibe, of course. He just stood there smiling, nodding along as she pointed and explained every little detail.

And while those two laughed and chattered away, they butchered Caren's once mostly intact body into tiny, unrecognizable pieces.

The sheer brutality of what they'd done sent ice-cold fear crawling down my spine.

But I couldn't just stand by and let the child I'd raised from a baby suffer this desecration even in death. Not when I still had breath in my body.

I dragged my broken, bleeding body forward, desperate to stop Trixie from going any further.

Trixie let out a dramatic little gasp, like I'd startled her out of nowhere.

Her scalpel slipped, and it nicked a shallow cut across her finger.

The tiny wound barely even bled, but Johan panicked immediately, tearing the room apart and looking for a first aid kit to wrap it up for her.

I glanced down at my own ten fingers, crushed, swollen, oozing blood everywhere, and a bitter, mocking smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

Once he'd finished bandaging her tiny scratch, Johan finally turned his icy, murderous gaze on me.

He wrapped his hand around Trixie's scalpel, ready to carve a lesson into me that I'd never forget.

But when his eyes landed on my mangled, already broken fingers, he hesitated and pulled back.

Instead, he spun around in a fit of rage and kicked the operating table where my daughter's body lay.

The corpse went flying off the table, shattered into several scattered pieces when it hit the floor, and every chunk got coated in filthy grime.

Trixie bent down, picked up all the little broken pieces off the ground, and tossed them into the trash can.

Then, claiming she was just going to clean them off, she dumped the whole mess straight into the toilet and flushed it away.

When she was done, she pressed a dramatic hand over her mouth and simpered, "Oops, I'm so sorry, Audrey! Your daughter fell on the floor, and I was just trying to pick her up and clean her off. I never meant for her to get flushed down the toilet by accident! You won't blame me, will you?"

I stared at her, unblinking, then said in a low, steady voice, "Trixie... after all the vile things you've done to Caren, haven't you ever stopped to wonder… what if she's your real biological daughter?"

Trixie looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "How could Caren be my daughter? You've completely lost it, haven't you?"

That question seemed to hit her.

End of Audrey's POV

For years, Trixie never managed to feel close to her own daughter, Maine. Ever since she'd returned to San Francisco and met Caren, though, she'd felt an instinctive, deep-rooted affection she couldn't explain.

"You've made so many enemies your whole life. Isn't it totally possible someone swapped your baby to get revenge on you?" Audrey said.

Her smug, triumphant posture froze mid-step.

But just as quickly, she shook the thought away and regained her composure.

This b***h was just trying to mess with her head, she told herself.

Convinced she'd seen right through her game, she smirked and said, "Stop spouting nonsense! You're just saying this because your daughter is dead and mine's still alive. You're just eaten up with jealousy!"

Right after she finished, she suddenly leaned close to Audrey's ear, her voice dropping to a vicious whisper, "Actually, your little girl was still alive before the heart donation. I just figured a living heart is way healthier than one from a dead person. To make sure my girl got the best possible heart, I was the one who pulled your daughter's breathing tube out with my own two hands, and sent her straight to the operating table.

"Your baby was screaming for mommy to save her right before she died! Being your daughter is just so pathetic, isn't it?"

When she finished, she leaned back, her eyes blazing with cruel excitement as she stared Audrey down.

Audrey knew exactly what she was waiting for. Trixie wanted to watch her fall apart, to see her screaming in agony with no way to fight back.

But she only bared her teeth at her in a cold, sharp laugh. "Nope. It's being your daughter. That's the real tragedy."

The words left Audrey's mouth, and she pulled up the newly received DNA maternity test results on her phone and laid it right in front of Trixie's face.

The report clearly stated that she was Caren's biological mother.

The smug smile froze solid on Trixie's face in an instant.