My Billionaire Alpha Took My Kidney for His First Love

My husband took my kidney.

The woman who received it was my own sister and my husband's first love.

When I refused to give it, he started looking at me like a cold, vicious stranger.

Four days later, he poured me a glass of red wine with his own hands, and I thought we were finally making up.

When I opened my eyes again, silver straps had locked me to an operating table.

Three days earlier.

"She's in here," Kellan said.

He pushed open the door to the top-floor suite of Voss Private Hospital. His family's name was carved into the lobby wall downstairs, and every nurse we passed had nodded at him like he owned the air.

My sister lay in the bed.

Odette Hale. Pale as paper, an IV needle taped to the back of her hand, dark hair spread neatly across the pillow. She looked like a painting of a dying saint.

"Maren," she whispered. "You came."

I didn't move from the doorway. "Kellan didn't tell me where we were going."

"Because you wouldn't have come." My husband shut the door behind us. "Odette has severe kidney failure. Stage five. She needs a transplant."

My stomach dropped. "And?"

"And you're a match."

I turned to stare at him. "When did I get tested?"

"Your annual pack physical." He didn't even blink. "I had the lab run it."

"You had them run my blood without asking me."

"I'm asking you now."

He took my hand. His palm was warm, and his thumb traced my knuckles the way it did on lazy Sunday mornings. That was the worst part. It felt like love.

"I'll get the best surgeons in the country," he said softly. "I'll take time off. I'll take care of you myself until you're fully healed. I swear it, Maren."

"No."

The word came out flat and fast.

His thumb stopped moving.

"No?" he repeated.

"No."

A sob broke from the bed. Odette pressed her free hand over her mouth, tears sliding down her cheeks.

"I told you, Kellan. I told you she'd say that. I don't want to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt my little sister. I'd rather just—" She gasped and clutched at her chest. "It hurts. Kellan, it hurts—"

He dropped my hand like it had burned him.

Two long strides, and he was at her bedside, gathering her into his arms. He wiped her tears with his thumb. The same thumb.

"Breathe, Dette. I'm here. Just breathe."

Dette.

I'd heard him call her that once before.

At our engagement party.

Odette had walked in late, wearing white, and the second she saw Kellan, she froze. So did he. The champagne glass in his hand tilted until wine spilled over his fingers. She started crying right there in the middle of the room.

Later that night, he sat on the edge of our bed and explained.

"We dated when we were young. It ended peacefully. It was nothing, Maren. You're the one I love."

At our wedding, Odette cried again in the front row. Kellan held my hands at the altar, and they wouldn't stop shaking.

I married him anyway. I believed him.

After that, we moved away from the city where the Hale family lived. We only saw Odette on holidays. She and Kellan were polite and distant, almost strangers. Slowly, I stopped watching them.

Now I watched him rock her like something precious.

And I was eleven years old again, hungry.

"Do you want to know what she did to me?" I asked.

Kellan looked up. "Maren, not now."

"Our parents sent me money every month for food. Odette took it. All of it. She bought cigarettes and cheap vodka and told them I was eating fine."

"That's not true," Odette choked out.

"I passed out in the girls' bathroom at school." My voice stayed level, which surprised even me. "When I woke up, she made me finish her homework before she'd give me her leftovers. Cold rice. That was dinner."

"Stop lying!" Odette's face crumpled. "You've always been jealous of me. Always. Kellan, tell her—"

"Enough." Kellan's voice cracked like a whip. He rose from the bed, eyes hard. "She might be dying, and you're standing at her bedside humiliating her? Over childhood grudges?"

"They're not grudges. They're facts."

"They're stories you've been telling yourself for twenty years."

I laughed.

I hadn't meant to. It just came out, short and ugly, and both of them stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

"My body belongs to me," I said. "Nobody gets to claim my organs. Not her. Not you."

I walked out before either of them could answer.

That night, Kellan moved his things into the guest room.

He didn't slam doors. He didn't yell. He just stopped seeing me. At breakfast, he read his phone. When I said good night, he walked past like I was furniture.

Inside me, my wolf paced. She whined low and constant, a sound only I could hear. She wanted her mate. She wanted me to bow my head and fix this.

No, I told her. Not this time.

On the third night, I found him standing in the doorway of the guest room, one hand braced on the frame. The hall light carved shadows under his eyes.

"I'll ask you one last time," he said quietly. "Would you really rather watch her die?"

My wolf whimpered.

I lifted my chin.

"I won't cut my body open for her lies."

Something shifted in his face. Not anger. Something colder and quieter, like a door locking from the inside.

"Then you're colder than I ever imagined, Maren," he said. "Heartless."

He shut the door.

I stood alone in the dark hallway, listening to my wolf howl.

And from behind that door, very softly, I heard him pick up his phone.

"It's me," he murmured. "She won't do it willingly. Get the room ready."