The Day He Donated My Heart, I Reset the World Chapter 01

The Day He Donated My Heart, I Reset the World Chapter 01 He Watched Me Die
The day my husband cut out my heart and handed it to the woman he’d always loved, I was chained to an abandoned cruise ship and raped on a livestream, tossed from one man to the next while the phones filmed.
When he found me, my eyes had been gouged out. My guts had been ripped free and looped around the railing—round and round, the way you’d spool a hose. My arms and legs had been snapped at right angles—each limb bent at a clean hard corner like the skeleton was trying to claw its way out and had given up halfway.
I was barely holding on when Cassian Hayes’s thoughts cut through the dark.
“You think you get to touch Celeste? You’re nothing but a hole with legs.”
A pause.
“Heart? You are just nothing but a warm place they line up for. You think being the main character means something? It means you get used. That’s it.”
I pressed my hand to my chest. The ache went deeper than the wounds.
The artificial heart inside me was stuttering. Each beat thinner than the last.
Get used? If I go down, this whole goddamn world goes with me.
…
I thought I was hallucinating. Hearing Cassian’s thoughts in my head—that had to be my mind breaking.
Then his voice came from outside the hull. Real. Not inside my head. And another man with him, quiet, pleading.
“Boss, you sure? She’s gonna fucking die—”
Cassian cut him dead.
“Shut up and do what I said. You didn’t have a problem sticking it in her before.”
The man fell silent.
A beat later, his thoughts crawled into my skull.
“If I didn’t have to game her to stay alive, I never would’ve spent three years simpin for this bitch. Made me sick. This is a warm-up. Some impostor made Celeste cry, and she thinks this is punishment? Cute. She doesn’t know what I’ve got waiting for her.”
I stared into nothing. Tears? Or blood broke from the cavities where my globes had been—seeping past the severed nerves, hot and copper-bright.
Three years. Turned out the man who swore he loved me more than his own life had been lying from the first word.
I wasn’t a person to him. I was a mission. A checkmark on the system’s list. Every touch, every word—all of it was calculated.
The man in charge spat on the floor. His eyes stayed glued to the blood pooling under my chin.
“Fuck. She’s bleeding again.”
He leaned in. Breath hitting my face.
“Those holes are giving me the creeps. Jam something shiny in there. Make it fun!”
He didn’t even finish the sentence before two hard gems were jammed into my hollow eye sockets.
White hotness shot through my spine. My body arched off the deck, muscles seizing—then the sound came.
A scream I didn’t choose. It just tore out of me, raw and ragged.
The guy watched blood sheet over the gems and wrinkled his nose.
“Shit. This rich bitch is tougher than she looks.” He cracked his neck. “Fine. We get creative.”
He knotted a white ribbon over my face, mashing the silk into the wet mess underneath.
“Please,” I choked. “Please, just let me go.” My body was shaking so hard the zip ties cut deeper into my wrists.
Nobody answered. Nobody even looked at me.
The cloth went next—ripped off like it meant nothing, like I meant nothing. Cold air hit bare skin, and I couldn’t even cover myself because my hands were already tied. Then weight. Just—weight. And I knew what came next.
“No—don’t—it’s too big. You’re tearing me— Get off—”
Hands. Heat. Pressure. A blade opened me up—slow, lazy—and the wax came right behind it, hitting every line he’d just made.
The pain swallowed my voice whole. I seized against the restraints.
“There we go,” a voice said above me. “Nothing better than watching a rich bitch learn she ain’t shit.”
Someone laughed. The knife dragged again. I felt it catch on a rib and skip.
I was right on the edge—consciousness slipping, the pain finally starting to blur—when the wax hit the fresh cuts and yanked me straight back under.
Then Cassian’s voice slid through the dark one more time.
“You stupid bitch. After everything you put Celeste through? I’m going to make sure everyone watches you fall. Not just fall—break.”
Everything clicked. He’d been watching those guy torture me outside the room the whole time.
Watching them fuck me apart, piece by piece. Watching every second of it.
He was the one who pulled me out of the dark. And now—he’s the one who pushed me back in. The same hands.