The third year after my death, my husband sent me a lawsuit.

He was suing me. The papers alleged that the kidney I had donated to his childhood sweetheart, Olivia, was defective. He, of course, received no response.

To force me out of hiding, he held a press conference, publicly transferring twenty percent of his company's shares to her.

When that failed, he finally drove back to my hometown, his patience exhausted.

Our old neighbor was baffled. "Maya? We haven't seen her since her grandfather passed."

He pounded on my family's door, his fury a palpable thing.

My sister was the one who opened it.

"Ethan? Don't you know? My sister has been dead for two years."

1

The man, my husband, jammed his hands into the pockets of his tailored slacks. A derisive laugh escaped his lips. "What new game is Maya playing now? Faking her death? Trying to make me feel guilty?"

His voice was laced with ice. "She had the nerve to drive her car at Olivia two years ago. All I did was cut off her credit cards, and she throws a tantrum like this?" He shook his head, a muscle ticking in his jaw. "If Olivias kidney hadn't started acting up today, I never would have forgiven her."

My sister Chloe's brow furrowed, her expression a mixture of grief and disbelief. "My sister has been dead for two years. What are you talking about, you forgive her? Thats insane."

Ethan ignored Chloe completely, his gaze shifting past her into the small house. A flash of white fur caught his eye; our little dog, Buddy, was wagging his tail.

"Don't even try to lie to me," Ethan scoffed. "Buddy's here. Where could Maya have possibly gone?"

He lowered his voice, the sound a low threat. "You tell her I'm giving her an out. If she doesn't take it, she can stay gone forever."

As if he understood, Buddy limped forward, barking twice at Ethan's expensive shoes. Chloe reached down, scooping the little dog into her arms to soothe him. But it was too late. Buddy's tongue lolled out, and his small body was seized by violent, spasming convulsions.

Chloe scrambled, frantically searching for the small oxygen tank and the tongue depressor. Seeing Buddy like that, a fissure of pain cracked through my soul. I instinctively reached out, my ghostly arms trying to embrace him.

But they passed right through his trembling body.

The cold reality washed over me again. I wasn't in this world anymore. I could never hold my loved ones again.

A look of disgust twisted Ethans handsome features. "Damn dog. You want me to kick you again?"

Two years ago, in a fight over Olivia, Ethan had slapped me across the face. Buddy, ever loyal, had sunk his teeth into Ethan's leg. Ethan had kicked him so hard he flew across the room. The attack had left Buddy with permanent damage to his right leg and these terrifying stress-induced seizures.

Ethans voice dropped to a low warning. "I'll say it one last time. Get Maya out here. Now."

"She's dead!" Chloes voice was a raw, desperate scream. "And even if she were alive, she would never want to see you again! Id make her stay away from you, find a good man, and build a life that had absolutely nothing to do with you!"

Ethan didn't believe a word of it.

"So that's it?" He sneered. "She's shacked up with some other guy behind my back? Just like Olivia said. A cheap, faithless woman. I must have been blind to ever marry her."

The words struck me like a physical blow, tearing through the fabric of my spirit. So, this is what it felt like. Even in death, your heart could still break. He and his perfect Olivia had already pushed me to my grave, and still, he stood here, desecrating my memory with his filth. The agony was a wildfire in my soul, scorching me from the inside out.

"How dare you," Chloe choked out, tears streaming down her face. "Get out. Get out of our house!"

Ethans eyes, cold and hard, swept over her. "Your house? Every brick and board of this place was paid for by me, Ethan Blackwood. Didn't your sister tell you? Even the money for your deadbeat brother's weddingthat came from my pocket."

It was true. Ethan had been our familys twisted savior. When my mother was dying, he'd paid the medical bills that saved her life. When my brothers fiance got pregnant and her family pressured her to have an abortion, Ethan had provided the money that allowed them to marry, the money that allowed my nephew to be born.

And so, in his mind, everything I gave, everything he took, was simply a debt being repaid.

What he never knew, what he never bothered to ask, was that I was born with only one kidney. The doctor who did my pre-donation physical, the one who was supposed to protect me, had been bought off by Olivia long before.

I only found out on the operating table.

The anesthesiologist, in on the scheme, had given me half the standard dose. I drifted in and out of a hazy, paralyzed consciousness, a silent witness to my own violation. I heard them chatting idly as they worked. I felt the searing pain as they removed my only healthy kidney, replacing it with a cold, mechanical device that was a torture chamber inside my own body.