The Billionaire's Daughter They Tried to Harvest

The app I built just sold to Dolby. One billion dollars.

I'd only just walked out of the meeting, ready to share the news with my wife and daughter, when I found out my wife had taken our daughter in for tissue matching.

I rushed to the hospital and learned that her brother's son had kidney disease, and my daughter was a match.

Her whole family was there, pressuring my daughter to donate a kidney, threats and bribes both.

I wanted to take my daughter home. Instead my wife led the charge, calling me heartless and threatening divorce.

1.

"Alma Pruitt? Where are you? Why is it so loud there?"

I couldn't keep the joy out of my voice. It came out light and quick. "I've got huge news for you. We're never going to have to worry about money again"

"My nephew, Harvey Acevedo. He's in late-stage kidney failure. He needs a living-donor transplant, and they can't find a match."

Alma cut in, flat as anything. "I brought Daisy Abbott in to get tested. She and Harvey are a perfect match. I've agreed to give Harvey her kidney."

I froze for a second. How could she say something like that in a voice that calm?

When I didn't answer, Alma let out a cold laugh. "One less kidney won't kill her. And Harvey is the only boy in the Pruitt family."

Was that something a mother could say?

Alma's patience was already thinning. "Just get over here and sign. Don't make me angry."

Then she hung up.

I laughed, the kind of laugh that comes from pure fury. I never would have guessed that in Alma's heart, her own daughter ranked below a nephew.

Before long I reached the hospital, and the room was packed with her family.

Alma sat by the bed. Eight-year-old Daisy was curled into a chair in the corner, her eyes red and raw, her little hands twisting the hem of her shirt, her shoulders shaking.

On the bed, Harvey, wasted down to skin and bone, snapped at her, "Quit your crying. You're just a money-losing girl, and you're giving me that kidney whether you like it or not!"

Daisy flinched hard. Alma said nothing.

My mother-in-law, Angelica Lambert, chimed in, just as impatient. "Daisy, Harvey is your brother. You won't even save your own brother? What kind of person are you?"

Daisy shook her head timidly, whimpering, "Grandma, I'm scared of the pain"

"Scared of the pain? You think a little pain's going to kill you?"

Wayne Pruitt jabbed a finger at her and shouted, "If you don't save Harvey, I'll beat you every single day from now on!"

Wayne's wife, Patsy Lawrence, piled on. "Daisy, a good person has a kind heart. If you don't save Harvey, that makes you a bad person."

Face cold, I crossed the room and pulled Daisy into my arms. She was already crying.

"Daddy, I'm scared. They said if I don't save my brother, I'm a bad person"

I soothed her, then lifted my head and swept my eyes over the Pruitts, ending on Alma.

She stood off to the side, unmoved. She was even frowning, like Daisy's crying was an embarrassment, a child too silly to understand.

"Alma, we're going home."

I held the anger down, keeping my voice as even as I could.

Alma snatched Daisy right out of my arms. "Home? The match came back positive, the doctors have the surgery all planned out, and now you want to leave? The donation consent form gets signed today."

"My daughter is eight. She's a minor. She isn't legally allowed to consent to donating an organ, and as her guardian, I am flatly refusing."

I closed my arms tighter around her. "Living-organ donation is strictly regulated by law. Children are barred from donating a kidney. Don't waste your energy."

Angelica pointed at my face and screamed, "Jacob Fox, when our Alma married you, you had nothing, and this family never once looked down on you. Now we ask your daughter to save her own cousin and you fight us at every turn. Did a dog eat your conscience?"

"You're just heartless!"

Fury filled Alma's face. "Over one kidney, you'd throw away every bond this family has. Daisy is my daughter too, and I get a say. If you insist on taking her today, then we're getting divorced. Right now."

"Everyone, come look at this!"

"This son-in-law of mine is an ungrateful dog!"

"When he was nothing, I gave him my daughter!"

"Now that he's got a little money, he won't even help my sick grandson!"

Angelica shrieked and wailed, drawing a crowd.

Wayne turned to the onlookers at once.

"Judge for yourselves, folks. My son's in kidney failure, and the only match is my niece."

"My sister already agreed. It's my brother-in-law who won't."

"Some people start a business, make a little money, and suddenly they look down on us poor folk."

Patsy dabbed at fake tears.

"The doctors said it themselvesone less kidney is no big deal."

"But my brother-in-law here, not agreeing is one thing, he'd sooner put a dog's kidney in my boy."

The onlookers filmed it all on their phones, murmuring among themselves.

"He looks so respectable. How can he be this cold?"

"That's just looking down on poor relatives. If it were some rich man's kidney, bet he'd be first in line."

"Family, and he'd let the boy die. That's ice-cold."

Alma leaned in and threatened me under her breath.

"Jacob, I'm telling you, sign right now!"

"Or we'll take it online, we'll come make a scene at your company every single day!"

"We'll bankrupt your company, we'll get the whole internet on you!"

I looked at her, cold. "Are you out of your mind? Selling out your own husband and daughter for outsiders?"

"Who's an outsider?"

Alma rolled her eyes. "My name is Pruitt. Harvey is the only boy of the Pruitt line this generation. He's the one who matters most!"

Then she said, cold and flat,

"And blocking us won't do you any good. If you don't sign, I'll divorce you."

"Custody will go to me, no question. I'll be the sole guardian, and then my signature is all it takes!"

I held Daisy against me, my teeth clenched as I bit out, "What kind of mother are you?"

After that I didn't want to argue anymore. I only wanted to get Daisy out of there fast.

But the second Wayne and Angelica saw it, they blocked our way.

Patsy even threw herself to the floor and wrapped her arms around my legs, refusing to let go.

"You are one cold, heartless man, aren't you?"

"We're all family. Just help us out."

"A man like you deserves to be exposed online!"

The onlookers packed into the doorway of the room kept filming me while spouting whatever they liked from their moral high ground.

Alma simply pulled out her phone too and aimed it right at me.

"Everyone, come see this. This is my husband!"

"When I married him, he had nothing!"

"It was my family who didn't look down on him, who helped him start his business."

"Now that he's rich, we're not even asking him for money. We just want my daughter to save my nephew, and he won't even agree to that!"

"Look at this cold-blooded face. His name is Jacob Fox, and his company is called Fox Corp!"

"And this is my daughter, Daisy. Her uncle doted on her most of all, and she won't even save his son. She's a little ungrateful brat!"

For the sake of her nephew, she was turning the internet loose on her own husband and daughter.

"Quick, quick, let's go live too!"

"This kind of thing pulls the most traffic. Netizens have no brains, they'll pile on for sure, and some'll even send gifts."

"Heh, guess I'm cashing in on blood money too."

The onlookers all took out their phones, livestreaming me and Daisy, attacking us the whole time.

Daisy was frightened into tears again. "Daddy, did we do something wrong? Why is everyone yelling at us?"

"We did nothing wrong!"

My teeth were clenched, and I stared hard at every single person in that room.

A few minutes later, Alma ended her livestream, drove the onlookers out of the room, and shut the door.

She gave me a scornful little smile. "See that, Jacob? We Pruitts have plenty of ways to handle this. Don't cooperate, and we'll destroy your name completely!"

I said nothing. I took out my phone to call company security, planning to get us out of there first.

That was when Wayne suddenly rushed over, snatched my phone straight out of my hand, and smashed it hard against the floor.

Wayne sneered. "Want to call for help? Not a chance! You don't sign today, you don't walk out that door!"

"Cousins, you all stand guard outside the door!"

Wayne barked it at the four Pruitt relatives.

They meant to keep Daisy and me locked in this room.

For the moment, I really had no way out.

But there was a signing this afternoon. When the company couldn't reach me, they'd track my car for sure.

For now, all I could do was stall.

I tried once more to wake some scrap of maternal feeling in Alma.

"Alma, if a kidney is taken out at eight years old, her risk of high blood pressure and kidney failure doubles when she grows up.

"She'll never be able to overexert herself. No P.E. class, no field days, none of it. She'll live her whole life under the shadow of illness.

"Harvey can wait for a donor, wait for a match. Why does it have to be our daughter we sacrifice?"

Alma stayed just as cold.

"Wait? Harvey can't afford to wait. Dialysis is agony. Every extra day is torture for him."

"Daisy's young, she'll bounce back fast. A price this small is nothing."

"You just work harder and make more money. Hire a nutritionist for Daisy, buy Harvey plenty of supplements. Raising two kids costs a fortune."

That was when I saw it clearly. Alma had no maternal love for Daisy at all. There was nothing left to say to her.

All I had to do now was keep Daisy safe.

So I held her and edged back slowly toward the nightstand. There was a fruit knife there.

Seeing me go quiet, Alma just picked up where she'd left off.

"Jacob, think hard. Without my family, what would you even be right now?"

"Back when I married you, you had nothing!"

"It was my brother who begged our mother for me, that's the only reason she let me marry you. Am I wrong?"

"Without my brother, you wouldn't even have a wife!"

"Now my brother's son is sick, and you won't even give him your daughter's kidney. Are you even human?"

"You're nothing but an ungrateful dog!"

I couldn't hold back a cold laugh.

"Alma, you lie without even blinking, don't you?"

"When I married you I didn't have much money, sure, but both my parents were teachers. They'd put a little something away!"

"They gave your family a hundred and eighty grand for the wedding, and you never brought a cent of it home, you handed it all to your brother. Did my family say one word about it?"

"Later, when I started my own company, you never once looked after Daisy or me. Every day you were off helping your brother run his breakfast shop. It was my parents who took care of Daisy and me the whole time!"

"And that idiot brother of yours and his wife, the second the shop made a little money they went out and blew it. I've never even gambled in Las Vegas, and he had the nerve to lose over a million there!"

"I'm the one who paid off that million. Did you forget?"

"I'm the ungrateful dog? How much money I've poured into your family all these years, do you really not have a clue?"

Honestly, the only reason was that I didn't want Daisy growing up without both parents. Otherwise I'd have divorced this rotten, maggot-ridden woman long ago.

Alma shoved her sleeve up.

"So what if you spent money on my family?"

"We're married, so your money is my money, and my money, I'll give it to whoever I want!"

"And I'll say it right here and now: Daisy is giving Harvey that kidney, end of story!"

Wayne came over and jabbed a finger in my face, cursing.

"Jacob, don't go thinking too much of yourself. Us spending your money, using your daughter's kidney, that's an honor for you, you get that?"

"And you think it makes any difference whether you agree?"

"You know who owns this hospital? My uncle. This is my turf, damn it!"

No wonder they were so brazen. So the hospital was in on it too.

I snatched the fruit knife into my hand and backed away again, thinking that even if I had to kill someone, I'd keep Daisy from being touched.

Just then the door opened.

A crowd of medical staff pushed a gurney in.

A man dressed like the attending physician gave Wayne a nod. "The operating room's ready. Has the paperwork been signed?"

"Do the surgery first, sign after!"

Wayne ground out the words through his teeth.

I knew they were done talking. Now they were going to take her by force.

The next moment, a few male orderlies started toward me.

The one in front had to be six foot three. He didn't look like an orderly at all. He looked like muscle for hire.

He came straight at me, cursing as he reached. "Let go of her, damn you, or I'll beat you to death!"

"Screw you!"

I roared it and drove the fruit knife straight at his throat.

He flinched on instinct, and the blade sank into the base of his neck.

He screamed, staggering backward, blood pouring down.

The others saw it and pulled back too.

Two orderlies grabbed the wounded one and hauled him out of the room.

I leveled the bloody knife at all of them. "Daisy is my daughter. Anyone who touches her, I kill. If you don't believe me, come try."

Daisy was crying now, clinging to me tighter, saying over and over, "Daddy, I'm scared, they're all bad people, Mommy's a bad person too!"

"That's right, they're all bad people."

"But you don't have to be scared, sweetie, because Daddy is going to kill every last one of them."

I stared them all down.

Alma shouted, "Jacob, you stabbed a man. You think I won't call the police and have you arrested?"

"You'd really call the police?"

I let out a cold laugh. "What you're doing is a crime. You'd actually call the cops?"

Alma knew she couldn't get through to me, so she turned to Daisy.

"Daisy, I'm your mother. You won't listen to me?"

"Look at your father, hurting people with a knife. Only bad people do that."

"But what Mommy wants you to do is save your little cousin. That's a good thing."

"You want to be a good girl, don't you? Not a bad one."

Alma was sure she could fool her.

Instead, Daisy wiped her tears, her small face set with a seriousness far beyond her years.

"Daddy is good. Daddy is protecting me."

"Mommy is bad, because Mommy wants to hurt me."

"And Mommy never loved me. Mommy loves Harvey more."

"Grandma and Grandpa bought me LEGO sets, and Mommy took them and gave them to Harvey in secret."

"And the birthday money Grandma and Grandpa gave me, Mommy gave that to Harvey too. I saw it!"

Alma hadn't expected that. Humiliated in front of everyone, her rage boiled over.

"You little wretch, is that how you talk to your mother?"

"Don't you get it? You're worthless, a drain on this family. You don't deserve LEGO, and you don't deserve a cent of that money!"

I was about to lunge across the room and drive the knife through this vicious woman when the door to the room burst open.

Four men in security uniforms rushed in. I looked closer. They were my own company's security team.

I asked, startled, "How are you here?"

"Mr. Fox, after you called and didn't say anything, we heard the arguing on the line. We tracked your location and came straight over."

The guard drew his baton, shoved through the crowd, and closed around me and Daisy.

I carried Daisy toward the door, my eyes fixed on every last one of the Pruitts.

Alma screamed after me, "Jacob, you can walk out of here, but that little wretch's kidney still belongs to Harvey! I'll divorce you and take custody. Just you wait!"

I stopped in the doorway and looked back at them, cold. "I forgot to mention. I'm worth a billion dollars now. With the money and the connections I have, there are more ways than you can count to make you wish you were dead."