Alpha Ruined My Family After Giving Him My Heart

ten years ago, I thought Ethan Calloway and I were bound forever, our love sealed tight.​

The day I brought him home to meet my parents.​

First, he forced my dad, James, to his knees and taped his mouth shut with industrial duct tape, pinning his arms behind his back with zip ties that bit into his skin.

Right in front of him, Ethan ripped my clothes to shreds, his hands cold and cruel.​

He dragged my mom, Susan-who'd been battling Alzheimer's and barely recognized her own reflection-over to the fireplace, where he'd stacked old newspapers and kindling earlier.

He struck a match and tossed it in, then wedged a chair under the doorknob of the study where he'd locked her in.

The smoke alarm wailed as flames licked the curtains, her confused cries muffled behind the door.​

I can still see her silhouette pressing against the frosted glass, the way it warped and blackened before the window shattered in a shower of sparks.​

Dad, still restrained, watched it all-watched me being humiliated, watched Mom burn.​

His screams tore through the house as he gnawed through the zip ties with his teeth, blood streaming from his gums.

He didn't run for the fire extinguisher.

Instead, he grabbed the antique bronze letter opener from the dining table-Mom's favorite heirloom-and drove it into his own chest.​

The metal clanged when it hit the hardwood, his body crumpling over the dining room chandelier's chain. It snapped under his weight, sending the crystal fixture crashing down.

Shards of glass mixed with his blood on the floor, glinting like sick diamonds in the firelight.​

In one night, I lost both my parents.

I knelt in the blood-soaked ground, choking out a single word to Ethan: "Why?"

He grabbed my chin, his sneer cutting deeper than any knife.

"Claire, you really thought I loved you? This is revenge."

Ten years back, a medical mishap on my dad's operating table took Ethan's father, Arthur.

His mom, Catherine, took her own life soon after.

So Ethan spent ten years weaving a love story, a cruel trap just to make me feel the agony of my family, gone.

After that, he kept me caged by his side, tormenting me.

I tried to end it all 200 times, and 2pp times he dragged me back from the edge.

"We'll torture each other till we're old and gray," he said.

What he didn't know was that during our deepest year of love, when he needed a heart transplant to survive, I'd secretly signed a donor agreement.

Now, an artificial heart ticks in my chest, and it's got ten days left before it gives out.

I stood outside Ethan's villa, clutching the diagnosis paper, the words "artificial heart failure" burning my eyes.

The healer's voice echoed in my head: "ten days at most. Get your affairs in order."

Taking a shaky breath, I pushed open the door.

The laughter in the living room died instantly.

Ethan reclined on a shadow - cloaked