The world turned black before her eyes as Jasmine was shoved into a car, curling up trembling and hopeless in the corner.
She couldn't donate a kidney; she would die.
And she couldn't die yet.
"Jasmine, how was prison life for the past five years?" Daniel asked, peering at her shrunken figure in the corner, a far cry from the proud woman she once was. He felt a complicated emotion deep within.
Jasmine flinched, perhaps a conditioned reflex from being bullied in prison; she wrapped her arms protectively around her head in fear.
"Have you gone mute?" Daniel asked with disgust while pinching her chin. The fresh, dark red blood on her forehead stark against her pale face.
"Fine..." Jasmine's voice trembled, filled with as much hatred as despair.
Thanks to Daniel, her prison life had been a living hell.
On the day of her release, another inmate who had been bullying her incessantly finally broke down and revealed the truth—she had been paid by Daniel's men to 'look after' Jasmine during those five years.
Daniel's Adam's apple bobbed as he looked at the wounds on Jasmine's face and then pushed her away in repulsion.
Disgusting.
Jasmine numbly watched the man she had once loved her entire youth. He now failed to stir anything inside her.
She had stopped loving him a long time ago.
...
San Francisco General Hospital.
Daniel dragged Jasmine out of the car unceremoniously.
Begging for mercy, she knelt before him, pleading.
Years in prison had taught her the hard lesson of fear.
"Daniel, please, I can't donate my kidney. I don’t qualify... I'll make amends, I'll do anything you ask."
Jasmine pleaded relentlessly.
Right now, with no significant family background to her name, she was painfully aware that Daniel and the Wilsons could squash her as easily as an ant.
They wanted her life to be miserable. Sadly, she had to live an even more wretched existence than they could imagine just to cling to life, if only to buy time for her next move.
It was crystal clear to Jasmine that neither Daniel nor the Wilson family would let her off the hook.
She had to survive... she had reasons she must survive for.
Daniel stepped back subconsciously. There was a tumult of emotions in his gaze, seemingly taken aback by the sight of the once high-and-mighty Wilson family heiress reduced to such a base and abject state.
"Bro, please, with the Wilson's influence, there must be a line of people willing to donate a kidney to Serena, right? Evan, I'm begging you... you, Dad, and Mom know that my body can't take it."
Jasmine had a congenital heart condition, and even after surgery as a child, her body couldn't withstand the damage from donating a kidney.
Evan knew that, yet he watched her with chilling indifference. "This is your debt to Serena. If it wasn't for your mom swapping you with my sister, you should have been dead long ago."
Jasmine's body went rigid for a long time, eventually collapsing weakly onto the ground. "Can't I atone in some other way?"
"Do you think you deserve that chance?" Daniel sneered. "Jasmine, do you think a five-year stint in prison wipes clean the slate of your mistakes? Have you forgotten what you did to me? When you betrayed me and slept with that man? Did you ever consider you'd end up like this?"
Jasmine dared not recall the hell from five years ago, nor did she have the strength to explain.
The brother who had once vowed to protect her forever, Evan, after discovering the truth, personally delivered her to another man's bed, all to ruin her.
In Evan's eyes, Jasmine was an imposter, and by extension, her fiancé Daniel rightfully belonged to Serena.
So, Serena, with Daniel in tow, went out to catch Jasmine in the act.
It had all been orchestrated by Serena and Evan.
Everything Serena, the true victim and rightful heiress, was taken as gospel.
But the words of a thief's daughter like her carried no weight.
...
Hospital Room.
Serena was still in a coma, her complexion deathly pale.
Jasmine shivered as she bowed her head, not daring to look up.
At Serena’s bedside were the patriarch, Benjamin Wilson, and his wife, Karen Wilson, the ones Jasmine had called Dad and Mom for twenty-one years.
"Slap!" The moment Jasmine entered the room, she was greeted by Karen's slap, her emotion high and fierce.
Benjamin remained composed, a stark contrast to Karen. "Has she agreed?"
"She doesn't have the right to disagree." Daniel had already made the decision for Jasmine, forcibly bringing her to her knees beside the bed.
Trembling, Jasmine looked up at Benjamin. "Dad... Mr. Wilson, I don't meet the donor criteria, please spare me. I can make amends in other ways; I can repay my debt to the Wilson family..."
Benjamin's expression darkened with displeasure.
To Jasmine, the faces around her were alien. In her five years in prison, she even doubted if the past twenty-one years of her life had been a dream.
"Jasmine, have you forgotten? Five years ago, you shamefully got into bed with that man, had his bastard child, and then sent it away. The kid must be about five years old now." Daniel knew exactly how to strike at Jasmine's vulnerabilities.
Jasmine suddenly looked up; her eyes fixed on Daniel. He was pressuring her...