Chapter 494: A Heart for a Heart
After her failed attempt to run, Anna lost the last of her freedom. Vito brought her back to the White estate in Jaford, far from Snowville, far from anything familiar. Without her ID or passport, going home was impossible.
Nina had convinced herself that Anna was really Alice, and she never let her forget it. She’d show up every few days looking for a fight, dragging out old wounds. Vito couldn’t do much against his own pack’s politics, so eventually he bought a villa on the edge of the estate and moved them both out there. Guards circled the property day and night. No one could get in to hurt her, but she couldn’t get out either.
Anna had her suspicions about Wisteria’s game. What was she doing, wearing her face around like a borrowed coat? The question gnawed at her constantly, and the stress wore on her body faster than anything else could. She was fading, and she knew it. Like a flower that had already hit its peak, she was losing petals one by one.
Vito watched it happen and couldn’t stand it. He tried everything, but nothing slowed the decline.
"Anna, I’ll find a way to save you. I promise."
She held his hand. By then, she had stopped fighting so hard to stay.
"Vito, I know the Morrigans owe you. Take my life as repayment. Just don’t hurt my family."
His brows pulled together. "Anna, do you really think I went through all of this just to take your life? As for the Morrigans , I can’t make that call for the whole pack. Even if I leave them alone, the others won’t."
"But,"
He pulled her into his arms before she could finish. "Nothing is going to happen to you."
The years moved quietly. Anna turned twenty, then older, without much ceremony. By then she was running entirely on medication, waking up each morning slightly surprised to still be there. Most days she couldn’t get out of bed on her own. Vito was always close , adjusting her pillows, making sure she ate, staying through the nights without complaint.
She was genuinely grateful for him, even after everything. She felt like she’d lived an entire life already, crammed into too few years.
One afternoon he wheeled her outside to sit in the sun. She held his hand, her breathing slow and shallow.
"Vito... am I dying?"
"Don’t say that."
She smiled a little and reached up to touch his face. "You’re a good person. You’ve done everything you could to make things right. But I can feel it , I’m almost out of time. When I go, can you bring me back to the Morrigans? I couldn’t be with them while I was alive, but in death I want to go home."
"Anna,"
"I don’t hate you," she said softly. "I never did. You didn’t have a choice. But don’t waste any more time on me." She looked out at the garden, full of bright, heavy blooms. "What day is it?"
"Almost Christmas."
"It must be snowing in Snowville." Her voice went quiet. "I want to see the snow one more time. Can we go back?"
"Okay."
Vito took her home. When the plane doors opened, the winter air hit her like cold glass against bare skin. The city felt unfamiliar now, but knowing it was hers still settled something deep inside her.
Then a massive LED screen on the terminal wall caught her eye. A news broadcast. A marriage alliance between the Morrigans and the Boltons. A photo of Elena and Julian flashed briefly across the screen before the segment moved on.
Anna went rigid in her chair. Her fingertips pressed against the cold window of the car.
"It’s Elena." Her voice cracked. "Elena’s getting married."
Tears were already running down her face when she grabbed Vito’s hand. "Please. I have to be there. Let me go to her wedding. Just this once."
"Your health,"
She climbed into his lap the way she used to when she was small, arms looped around his neck, face close to his. She knew he couldn’t say no when she asked like this. She’d always known.
"Please, Vito. Just let me see it."
He let out a long breath. "Alright."
She hid herself well , a wig, different makeup, blending into the crowd of guests. All she needed was to see Elena happy. That was enough.
But the groom never came.
He left Elena standing at the front of the room alone, and the whole venue broke into urgent whispers. Elena stood up there on the stage looking lost, but she held herself together. She thanked the guests. She smiled. She managed everything calmly while her whole world caved in around her.
No. Anna thought. This isn’t right.
Elena was the one who had always told her to fight back. So why was she just standing there, swallowing it? Was this what growing up cost you?
Anna wanted to push through the crowd and hold her. She wanted to say: you’re so beautiful, you’re so much more than this, you’ll be fine. But she stayed where she was, frozen.
She didn’t know then that it would be the last time she’d see her.
Vito took her away that night, and the unease followed Anna home like a shadow. Something felt wrong in her chest, beyond the usual ache of her illness. She pressed her palm against her sternum and couldn’t shake it.
Then the fireworks started. Word spread quickly through the venue network , Julian had ordered them to celebrate his wedding elsewhere. Anna stood at the window watching the colors bloom and vanish against the dark sky, and tears fell without her even deciding to cry.
"Why are you crying?" Vito asked.
"I don’t know. I just feel sad." She pressed harder against her chest. "Vito, my heart hurts."
He wrapped his arms around her from behind, and when he spoke his voice was quieter than usual, carrying something she couldn’t name.
"Don’t worry. Soon it won’t hurt anymore."
Something about the way he said it turned her stomach.
She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant , and then everything went dark. Her body went slack all at once. Just before the black closed in, she caught his voice near her ear, barely a breath.
"I’m sorry, Anna. I had no other choice."
When she came back to herself, her head was thick and slow. The drugs, she thought. Her body had built up resistance over so many years that it burned through sedatives faster than it should have. She didn’t know how long she’d been out, or where she was.
Then she heard a woman’s voice, brisk and excited.
"Get her prepped. It’s time to replace her heart with her sister’s."
Elena’s heart.
Dizziness swept over her. She strained to lift her head and found Wisteria standing over an operating table, her back straight, her tone clinical. Anna’s vision swam, but she pushed through it , and she saw the arm. A limp arm dangling off the edge of the table.
The scar on the palm. Small and pale, the kind you get as a child and carry forever.
Elena.
Terror locked through her entire body. The sedative had drained her muscles of everything. She couldn’t move, couldn’t stand, couldn’t do anything except whisper, raw and desperate:
"No. Don’t hurt her."
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