Chapter 1

After the car accident, my best friend, Isla Mercer, and I were both rushed to the hospital.

My husband, Adrian Cole, an ER physician, arrived in a hurry, but instead of coming to me, he went straight to Isla.

My leg had gone numb after being crushed beneath the mangled car door when I tried to save Isla.

Isla only had a cut on her arm, yet my husband didn’t even look back as he chose her.

I endured the pain and begged him to treat me first.

But my brother, Caleb Whitaker, arrived late and immediately refused.

“Adrian is the only attending physician available right now. You’re his wife. If he treats you first, what will people think of him?

“Stop being so selfish. Just endure it. It’ll pass.”

When I woke up again, excruciating pain shot through my empty right leg.

Tears streaming down my face, I demanded an explanation.

“I was clearly more seriously injured. Why didn’t you save me first?”

Caleb’s eyes were filled with nothing but blame.

“Natalie, there’s a limit to how selfish you can be!

“Isla was already in the terminal stage of cancer before she was brought here. How could you even try to take away the last bit of peace she has? Don’t you have any conscience?”

Beside him, Adrian didn’t defend me. He simply lowered his head and silently accepted everything Caleb said.

I lay on the hospital gurney, staring at the ceiling, and suddenly felt like laughing.

So it wasn’t that they couldn’t save me.

They simply didn’t want to.

Fine.

They had no idea that the cancer diagnosis belonged to me.

And I didn’t need any of them anymore.

Chapter 1

When I woke up again, a sharp pain shot through my empty right leg.

The terror of losing my leg made me break out in a cold sweat, and I gasped for breath.

A nurse walked in and slowed the IV drip.

“Your family has already signed the consent forms. The wound on your right leg was severely contaminated, so we had no choice but to perform a high-level amputation.

“Dr. Adrian Cole instructed us to keep you from getting too emotional. Don’t move around too much, or you might tear your stitches.”

I bit my lip so hard that it turned white.

“I want to see my medical records. Bring them to me!”

The nurse didn’t even look up.

“Dr. Cole said no documents can be given to you without a family member’s signature.

“He’s only doing it for your own good. He’s worried you’ll become too distressed if you see them.”

Unable to accept her explanation, I abruptly pulled the IV needle from the back of my hand. Blood immediately welled from the puncture.

I tried to get out of bed, but I still hadn’t adjusted to having only one leg. My wound slammed hard against the floor.

The nurse cried out and tried to hold me down.

I shoved her away, gripped the edge of the bed, and slowly dragged myself into the wheelchair.

I had clearly been the most seriously injured.

I needed to ask them to their faces why they hadn’t saved me first.

I pushed the wheelchair forward with all my strength. The skin on my hands was rubbed raw, but I didn’t care.

As I passed a VIP hospital room with its door slightly ajar, I saw a shocking scene.

My own brother, Caleb Whitaker, was holding a bowl of soup, gently blowing on it while looking at Isla with concern.

My husband, Adrian, was kneeling beside the bed, gently massaging Isla’s right shoulder.

And Isla had only suffered a minor scrape.

I clenched my fists, suppressed the emotions surging inside me, and pushed the door open.

The moment she saw me, her eyes reddened.

“Natalie, your leg... I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.

“If you hadn’t protected me, you wouldn’t have been hurt this badly...”

At her words, Adrian’s expression turned cold. He stepped in front of Isla and snapped at me.

“Natalie! What the hell are you doing?

“You just had your leg amputated and came running over here. Don’t you realize how frightening you look? You scared Isla!”

I looked at the two men who had once been the closest people in my life and suddenly laughed.

“Adrian, I’m the one who almost died!

“If you hadn’t prioritized treating her little scrape, my leg wouldn’t have been crushed!”

The moment Isla heard that, she immediately clutched her chest, swaying as if she were about to collapse.

“Natalie, I know you hate me because you lost your leg.

“But you’re still alive, aren’t you...?”

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

Caleb slammed the bowl onto the table, his eyes filled with accusation.

“Natalie, there has to be a limit to how selfish you can be!

“Isla was already in the late stages of terminal cancer when she was brought to the hospital. Do you really have to take away even the last bit of peace she has? Don’t you have any conscience?”

His words sounded utterly absurd to me.

Then I noticed the medical report on the table. It was the one I had picked up from the hospital before leaving for my trip.

I stared at Caleb.

“Caleb, what part of her looks like she has terminal cancer? Look at the diagnosis. It clearly says...”

“Enough! The diagnosis is written clearly. You don’t need to explain it to me.”

Caleb cut me off without even listening to what I had to say.

Beside him, Adrian seemed to have made up his mind. He pulled two sheets of paper from his pocket and slapped them onto the armrest of my wheelchair.

“Sign them. Stop using this as an excuse to cause a scene. Isla needs to rest for a while. Don’t show your face in front of her again. You might aggravate her condition.”

I stared at the divorce papers that had clearly been prepared in advance, and my stomach churned.

I grabbed the papers, tore them in half right in front of them, and threw them in Adrian’s face.

Then I pulled out my phone and called the hospital’s complaint hotline.

Adrian’s expression changed. He immediately pressed the emergency call button on the wall.

“Nurses’ station! Patient in Room 27 is experiencing severe postoperative agitation! Bring two doses of sedatives!”

The needle pierced my arm.

I completely lost consciousness.

Chapter 2

Once the effects of the sedative wore off, I found myself in a regular hospital ward.

The infection in my amputated leg had caused a fever, leaving me feeling miserable all over.

The head nurse walked in holding a notice and tossed two boxes of antibiotics onto my bed.

“Chief Physician Cole said the hospital’s resources are to be prioritized for Ms. Isla Mercer. You only have a minor injury, so take some medicine and deal with it yourself!”

I stared at the medicine and let out a cold laugh.

To them, losing a leg was nothing more than a minor injury.

That evening, the door opened, and Caleb walked in with a lawyer.

The lawyer took out a document and handed it directly to me.

“Ms. Whitaker, this is a medical liability waiver regarding the treatment you received after the car accident.

“Once you sign it and acknowledge that the amputation was voluntary, Dr. Cole will not only be exempt from medical liability, but you will also receive compensation.”

I was so furious that I laughed.

I abruptly pulled back the covers, exposing my amputated leg wrapped tightly in gauze, and stared at Caleb.

“Caleb, Mom made you promise to protect me before she died!

“Is this how you protect your own sister?”

Caleb’s eyes swept over my amputated leg, and his face twitched. But he quickly turned his head away.

“Don’t bring Mom into this!

“If it weren’t for Isla saving my life back then, I would have died at the bottom of that cliff!

“You can still live with one less leg. Isla, on the other hand, is dying. Can’t you be a little more understanding?”

His words made me so disgusted that I trembled.

Struggling, I pulled out my phone. I wanted to contact Dr. David Warren, the specialist treating my cancer, and ask him to retrieve the original copy of my medical records.

The moment I unlocked my phone, I discovered that Adrian had added Isla to the family group chat.

Isla sent a screenshot to the group.

“I know Natalie must be devastated about losing her leg, but why does she have to question my terminal illness? If giving her my illness would make her feel better, I’m willing to admit it.”

Less than two minutes later, the family group exploded.

My aunt sent a voice message directly.

“Natalie Whitaker, you’re truly heartless! You’re already crippled, yet you still refuse to do anything good. How dare you even try to steal the bad luck of someone who’s dying!”

I don’t know where my uncle got it, but he sent a photo of me lying on a hospital bed with blood all over my face.

“This is what happens to an evil woman. Even heaven couldn’t stand watching her, so it took her leg!”

I stared at the insults on the screen, feeling as though I couldn’t breathe.

Then a private message from Adrian popped up. It contained a newly revised divorce agreement.

“The house in the city will be transferred to Isla free of charge and used as her private sterile recovery room.

“Also, the commercial property Mom left you will be used to cover Isla’s expensive future medical expenses.

“Sign it immediately. Don’t force me to take legal action.”

I gritted my teeth, took screenshots of all those ridiculous agreements, and sent them to my best friend, Jenna Quinn.

Five minutes later, Jenna called me, her voice filled with panic.

“Natalie, Adrian used your status as the family member of a critically ill patient to apply for a freeze on all the accounts under your name!

“You can’t withdraw a single cent from your accounts now.

“Listen to me. Focus on staying alive and getting your health back first. We’ll deal with the legal fight afterward!”

After hanging up, the cancer in my body flared up under the stress.

The pain was so intense that I rolled off the hospital bed and curled up on the floor, trembling.

I desperately pressed the emergency call button on the wall.

Nurses came and went in the hallway, yet not one of them opened my door.

The woman accompanying the patient in the bed beside mine munched on sunflower seeds and came over with her phone.

“Oh, you’re the wicked woman who bullied her terminally ill best friend?

“Isla is livestreaming right now! She says you’ve been threatening her!”

On the screen, Isla sat on her hospital bed, crying so pitifully that tears streamed down her face.

The comments had already spiraled out of control. Netizens had dug up all my personal information, and virtual funeral wreaths flooded the screen.

“May Natalie Whitaker rest in peace!”

“Get that one-legged witch dead already!”

I stared at the screen, clenched my teeth, and swallowed the blood rising in my throat.

Chapter 3

I endured the excruciating pain in my body and used the only smartwatch I had left to hire a hospital aide.

She carried me downstairs and hailed a cab to Caleb’s company.

I needed to retrieve my mother’s belongings from the safe, as well as my paper medical records.

The moment I entered the lobby, the security guards stopped me.

Caleb stepped out of the elevator. When he saw me in my wheelchair, there was undisguised disgust on his face.

“Get her out of here!

“My sister is mentally unstable from the trauma of losing her leg. She’s no longer capable of making rational decisions. No one is allowed to let her touch any of the company’s property or documents!”

My eyes were bloodshot as I gripped the handles of my wheelchair.

“Caleb! My medical records are in the safe. They can prove that everything I said is true!”

Caleb’s expression immediately darkened.

He sneered and ordered someone to retrieve the file.

I breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he opened it, he would know the whole truth and realize that I was innocent.

But Caleb didn’t open it.

Instead, right in front of me, he threw the file into the shredder beside him.

The machine roared to life, shredding the papers into tiny pieces.

I lunged toward it like a madwoman and fell hard onto the tiled floor, my injured leg dragging across the ground and leaving a streak of blood behind.

“No!”

I reached out desperately, trying to grab the shredded papers, but Caleb stepped on the back of my hand.

“Natalie, have you had enough?

“No one would joke about their own life.

“Besides, a debt of gratitude for saving someone’s life outweighs everything.

“If you cause another scene today, I’ll consider myself an only child.”

The security guards dragged me outside.

Standing in the rain, I remembered Isla’s words. I begged the hospital aide to take me back to the apartment in the city.

As soon as we stepped out of the elevator, I found the front door wide open.

Several construction workers were tearing apart the living room I had carefully decorated.

Isla was sitting openly on the sofa, directing them.

“Take down that awful wedding photo on the wall and throw it straight into the trash outside.

“And that old wooden cabinet that looks so tacky? Get rid of it too.”

But that cabinet had been custom-made for me by my mother. It was my most precious wedding dowry.

My eyes widened with fury as I pushed my wheelchair forward and blocked the workers.

Isla turned around. When she saw me, she immediately put on a pitiful expression.

“Natalie, I’m very weak right now. I can’t stand seeing all these old, shabby things. Adrian said he’d replace them for me.”

Knowing that Adrian had allowed this, I stopped moving.

My heart went completely cold toward the man I had loved for five years.

I wheeled myself straight toward the storage room.

I needed to retrieve my identification documents and private savings. I had to find a way to stay alive first.

Isla immediately followed me.

“Natalie, you have trouble getting around. Let me help you.”

She reached out as if she were going to support me.

The moment she turned around, she deliberately kicked over a toolbox on the floor.

Hammers and wrenches scattered everywhere.

Isla let out a scream and deliberately fell backward into the mess.

“Ah! Natalie, why did you push me?”

At that exact moment, the front door was pushed open, and Adrian rushed inside.

He completely ignored my pale face. His attention went entirely to Isla, who was clutching her ankle and crying.

When he saw the bruising on her ankle, he completely lost his reason.

In a fit of rage, Adrian kicked my wheelchair hard.

“You vicious woman! How dare you hurt her!”

The wheelchair lost its balance.

I went tumbling down several steps with it.

My body slammed against the wooden floor, and the freshly stitched wound on my injured leg split open.

Blood gushed out, quickly soaking into the floorboards.

When Adrian saw the blood covering the floor, he hesitated for a split second.

Isla immediately clutched her chest and pretended to feel dizzy and nauseous as she collapsed into his arms.

“Adrian... I feel so dizzy. Am I going to die?”

Adrian snapped back to reality.

Without the slightest hesitation, he scooped Isla into his arms.

As he turned around, he warned the workers nearby,

“None of you interfere!

“Call security and have them throw this crazy woman pretending to be dead out of the complex!”

The security guards hauled me up and dragged me to the roadside outside the residential complex.

Rain poured down in torrents.

My phone had been smashed when I fell down the stairs and was completely dead.

Lying helplessly in the muddy water, I closed my eyes in despair.

Chapter 4

A kind passerby took me to a small clinic on the outskirts of the city.

The elderly doctor cut open my pant leg and sucked in a sharp breath.

The wound from my amputation was horribly infected, with torn flesh and exposed tissue.

“Miss, the infection is far too severe. You need to be transferred to a major hospital immediately. I can’t treat this here!”

But my bank accounts had been frozen, and I didn’t have a single penny on me.

With trembling hands, I placed the small cross my mother had left me on the table.

“Doctor... I don’t have any money left. Please take this as collateral. I don’t want to be transferred.

“Please, just give me some antibiotics first. Help me bring down the fever.”

The television in the clinic was broadcasting breaking news.

Isla was lying in a hospital bed at the city hospital with an oxygen tube under her nose, crying to the cameras.

“I just wanted to spend my final days in peace.

“But my best friend cruelly destroyed my last wish.”

The footage then cut to Adrian, dressed in his white coat, openly making a statement.

“As a doctor, I will never tolerate such reprehensible behavior.

“I will fully cooperate with the police in investigating the severe emotional and physical abuse Natalie inflicted on a terminally ill patient.”

The host then abruptly interrupted with another piece of breaking news.

It was a statement Caleb had posted in the family group chat.

“Effective immediately, Natalie Whitaker is officially removed from the family registry! Even if she dies out there, she brought it upon herself. No one is allowed to help her!”

I leaned against the wall.

I watched the older brother who had once kissed my face and promised to protect me for the rest of my life.

Despair burned my heart to ashes.

I borrowed the clinic’s landline and called the medical records department at the city hospital.

A staff member’s cold voice came through the receiver.

“I’m sorry. Your request for your medical records was denied by your attending physician, Adrian Cole.”

The phone slipped from my hand.

At that moment, the elderly doctor walked out holding the test results he had rushed through.

His brows were tightly furrowed.

“Miss, you have a severe infection, but you also have late-stage cancer. However, there’s no record of any cancer treatment in the system.”

I suddenly looked up.

The elderly doctor turned the diagnostic system screen toward me.

It showed that my follow-up appointment for my cancer treatment had already been canceled.

The note read:

[Family member signed on the patient’s behalf. Patient refused treatment.]

The employee ID of the person who made the change belonged to Adrian.

No wonder my condition had gotten so much worse without the hospital ever notifying me.

Adrian had known about my terminal illness all along.

He was the one who truly wanted me dead.

That night, the infection in my amputated limb spread, triggering sepsis.

During the final ten minutes before I lost consciousness, I sent an email containing all the evidence I had gathered to Jenna.

After that, I grabbed the elderly doctor by the sleeve and pointed to the small cross I had left as collateral on the table.

“If I die... please make sure you send this cross to Jenna.”

A faint green light flickered from the base of the cross.

After saying those final words, I collapsed onto the metal-framed bed and breathed my last.

Meanwhile, Adrian was sitting in a bridal shop in the city center, accompanying Isla as she tried on wedding dresses.

His phone rang.

Seeing the familiar number, he answered impatiently.

“Natalie, what are you trying to pull this time? I’m warning you—”

“Mr. Cole.”

The elderly doctor’s voice on the other end was cold.

“This is a clinic on the outskirts of the city. Your wife, Natalie Whitaker, has died from sepsis caused by a severe infection in her wound.

“Please come and claim her body.”

Adrian suddenly went rigid.

Just then, a nurse from the city hospital hurriedly arrived at the bridal shop by taxi and handed him a document that had been laminated again.

“Dr. Cole! The diagnostic report that Ms. Mercer brought with her—the stains along the edges have been cleaned off!”

Adrian lowered his head.

Clearly printed on the late-stage cancer diagnosis were three words:

Natalie Whitaker.