I Died the Night We Married

I was dead.

I died the night Julian Whitmore and I made our marriage official.

And the man who killed me was my childhood sweetheart. My brand-new husband. The man I had loved enough to willingly give him one of my kidneys.

Julian Whitmore.

“Stella, meet me at our secret spot. I have a surprise for you.”

His text came after I finished working late. I drove to meet him with a heart full of happiness, wondering the whole way what he had planned.

At an intersection, a truck shot out of nowhere.

The impact flipped my car. My body twisted into a hideous position, pinned between the seat and the steering wheel. A shard of broken windshield lodged in my head. Blood covered half my face.

But I wasn’t dead yet.

I watched the truck driver climb down and approach. A cap and a mask hid his face. He dragged me out of the wreckage, then frowned when he realized my leg was trapped.

He reached inside and broke it.

That was when I saw the wedding band on his finger.

I had stayed up for several nights designing that ring myself.

With the last of my strength, I tore off his mask.

Julian’s familiar face stared back at me.

“Well. You caught me.” He sounded indulgent, almost fond, exactly as he always had. “Stella, you never do learn.”

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

“Why?” My fingers clutched weakly at his collar. Blood and tears ran down my face. “Julian, I’m your wife. You said I mattered as much as your own life!”

Crack.

Crack.

He broke my fingers, one by one. Those beautiful eyes, the eyes that had always seemed so tender, filled with a horrifying smile.

“Sweetheart, your heart and your blood are a perfect match for me. You are my life.”

He pressed a drug-soaked cloth over my nose and mouth. I didn’t even have the strength to struggle before everything went black.

Pain woke me.

I lay naked on an ice-cold operating table. I lowered my eyes toward the source of the agony and wished I could die right then.

My chest was already open.

I couldn’t move, but my mind was clear. The pain of being cut apart made me try to scream. My mouth opened.

No sound came out.

My tongue was gone.

A trace of sympathy showed in the masked surgeon’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Whitmore. Your husband didn’t want to hear you screaming, so he removed your tongue himself. Please don’t blame us. We’re being paid to do a job. General anesthesia would compromise the blood exchange. We have to do this while you’re conscious.”

I managed to turn my eyes.

Julian lay beside me, eyes closed, a faint smile on his lips. He was already under general anesthesia.

A tube as thick as my thumb ran from my body to his, carrying my blood into him in a steady stream.

Unable to speak, I endured the agony of having my heart taken out. My eyes, desperate and full of hatred, stayed fixed on the man I had loved for so many years.

“Stella, I chose you myself. You were the very best one.”

“Take care of that heart of yours. Do it for me. Be a good girl and take your medicine.”

“Marry me, Stella. You’ll become part of my life.”

The signs had been there all along.

I had been too stupid to see them.

From seven to twenty-six. Nineteen years.

Julian, you lied to me for nineteen years.

Bloody tears slipped from the corners of my eyes.

From the day I entered the Whitmore household, this had been waiting for me.

Death.

In the end, I died from the pain of having my heart cut out while I was still alive. My eyes remained open, filled with hatred.

Thunder exploded outside. Lightning split the night.

At that very instant, an invisible force pulled my soul out of my body and left me suspended in the air.

I threw myself at Julian, frantic for revenge.

I passed straight through him.

I tried again. And again.

Every time, the same thing happened.

I wasn’t some vengeful spirit who could make him pay. I was a useless ghost.

All I could do was watch as they placed my heart inside his chest and drained the last of my blood.

The operation was a success. Julian was moved to a VIP suite in a private hospital.

That same invisible force dragged me after him.

As we left, two masked men came in. They stuffed my opened body into a sack and carried it away as if it were a slaughtered animal.

I didn’t know what they would do with my remains.

My ghost was trapped in Julian’s hospital room.

The man who had tortured me to death lay right in front of me, and I couldn’t so much as touch his finger.

On the third day after the operation, shortly after Julian woke, his assistant, Gavin Cole, opened the door.

“Mr. Whitmore, Detective Hayes from the city police is here. He says he needs to speak to you urgently. It’s about your wife.”