The CEO's Deadly Rebirth

Right before they wheeled me in for the kidney transplant, the doctor ran through the final checklist. "No infectious diseases?" he asked, pen hovering over his clipboard.

I started to shake my head. Beside my preop bed, my mother grinned. "Doctor, do dirty diseases count as infectious?" The heart monitor beside me spiked.

My breath hitched in my chest. I had survived months of absolute agony, vomiting bile until my throat bled, just waiting for this exact donor match.

And now, just to steal the spotlight, my mother was throwing out another one of her twisted jokes. She knew the absolute timeline.

She knew that without this surgery, my organs would shut down in exactly three days. Acid burned the back of my throat.

I gripped the metal bedrails, opening my mouth to defend myself. But she moved faster.

She yanked down the collar of my hospital gown and pointed a finger right at the fresh, red allergic rash on my neck. "If you're sick, you're sick!

Why are you hiding it?" She clicked her tongue. "You never listen, always so stubborn." The doctor stepped back.

His brow furrowed as he let out a heavy sigh. "Kendall, I need you to come with me for a full screening." All the blood drained from my face.

My fingers went numb against the metal rails. A full screening took at least thirty minutes.

The donor kidney, flown in on ice from two states over, only had fifteen minutes of viability left. Chapter 1 My mother turned to me.

A familiar, sickening smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. Growing up, she always used me as the punchline to her twisted jokes just to command a room.

She never cared about the collateral damage. Even when the price was my very life. I froze. For thirty agonizing seconds, all sound dropped out.

The doctor's voice finally pierced the static ringing in my ears. "Kendall, let's go get that screening." He paused, pity softening his features. "Unless… do you have anything else to prove a clean bill of health?" "I do… I do!" I lunged for my tote bag, ripping the zipper open to find the physical exam report from three days ago.

But with my life on the line, my fingers spasmed. Come on… come on! I sucked in harsh, jagged breaths, fighting to steady my hands.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught my mother leaning against the stark white wall. A smirk played on her lips.

She was practically drinking in the frantic, pathetic mess her little joke had reduced me to. Acid burned the back of my nose. Heat rushed to my face.

I grabbed the bottom of the bag and dumped everything onto the linoleum floor. Keys clattered. Pens rolled. Lipsticks scattered.

The medical report was gone. "No, no, that's impossible!" I dropped to my knees, frantically digging through the mess. Nothing. Nausea clawed at my throat.

I dryheaved, but my hands didn't stop tearing through the scattered papers. Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall.

My dad shoved the door open, reeking of the nervous cigarettes he'd been chainsmoking outside. He took one look at me trembling on the floor, his jaw clenching hard.

He whipped his head toward my mother. "Before we left, you said the report was vital.

You said you had to hold onto it personally!" His voice dropped into a harsh hiss. "Kendall is literally rolling into surgery!

What the hell are you hiding it for?!" My mother shrugged, entirely unbothered.

She reached into her pocket, pulled out the crumpled medical report, and tossed it onto the floor in front of me. "It was just a joke. Why is everyone so wound up?

It's not like I wasn't going to give it to her." My hands shook as I snatched the crumpled paper. I smoothed it out and shoved it toward Marcus. "Marcus… look! I'm clean.

I'm healthy!" Marcus took the report, his eyes scanning the lines before giving a firm nod to the head surgeon standing by. "The incubation period for STDs isn't this short.

That redness on her neck is likely just contact dermatitis.

We are clear to proceed—" "Ah…" Before Marcus could even finish his sentence, my mother let out a sharp, interrupting noise. The smirk on her face stretched wider.

Chapter 2 Dad knew her twisted games better than anyone. His jaw tightened. "Enough! Kendall is rolling into surgery right now. I am begging you.

Drop the damn act." Dead silence swallowed the hallway. The smirk wiped clean off my mother's face. The whispering onlookers started to scatter.

Dad fell into step beside my gurney as the medical team pushed me toward the OR doors. My mother stayed rooted to the spot. My back was to her.

But the weight of her predatory stare bored right into my spine. I counted the seconds in my head. One. Two. Three. Right on cue. On three, a sharp scoff cut through the quiet.

She didn't look up, just casually picked at her bloodred manicure. "If you ask me, some people are just pure venom." She lifted her chin, closing the distance between us.

She jabbed a manicured finger right at the medical report in Marcus's hand.

Her voice echoed off the linoleum. "Relying on her brother Preston being a doctor here to forge the charts!

Trying to trick the surgical team when she's crawling with a dirty disease!" "Is Kendall's life the only one that matters?!

What about the doctors?!" She pointed straight at the raw redness on my neck, a sneer twisting her lips. "That rash flared up hours ago.

Did you think I didn't see you hiding in your room, plastering foundation over it? If you weren't guilty, why the coverup?!" Her voice climbed, bouncing off the walls.

Dad grabbed her arm. She violently shoved him off. A crowd had formed again, a ring of pointing fingers and disgusted glares. "Covering up an STD? Throw her in jail!" "Seriously!

If she infects the surgical team, she can't pay that back in a million lifetimes!" "Can't blame the mother for exposing her.

I'd disown a kid like that on the spot!" The insults rained down. My expression didn't shift. A dry, hollow laugh scraped its way out of my throat. My eyes burned.

I locked onto her. "I can smell it, Mom." The smugness froze on her face. A dangerous chill replaced it as I kept speaking. "You bathed in jasmine perfume today.

I'm severely allergic to jasmine. This is hives." "An allergic reaction. And you knew exactly what you were doing, didn't you?" The trap snapped shut. But she didn't flinch.

Not a drop of embarrassment. She threw her head back and laughed. "Kendall, you're the CEO of Wanhe. And you can't take a tiny joke?" "I just saw how tightly wound you were.

I wanted to lighten the mood. Help you relax." "Didn't I teach you better? You have to smile if you want things to go right!" A joke. Always a joke.

She could burn my world to the ground, and as long as she slapped the word "joke" on the ashes, the slate wiped clean. Just like the day I turned eighteen.

The day the bullying finally broke me. My chest tightened. The sterile hospital smell vanished, replaced by the suffocating humidity of a locked bathroom.

I remembered sliding down the porcelain tub. The cold metal of the razor against my wrist. Crimson ribbons blooming through the bathwater.

The agonizing, stinging fire eating through my skin, wrapping around my veins like barbed wire. And the dark, heavy blanket of absolute relief pulling me under.

Chapter 3 But I never expected what would happen next. When I finally woke up in that sterile hospital bed, the very first thing that hit my ears was my mother’s laughter.

She was leaning over the privacy curtain, casually chatting with the middleaged woman in the next bed. "Oh, kids these days. Attempting suicide so young!

It’s just because she plays around with all those boys at school. Just the other day, I caught her sneaking into our bedroom to steal condoms!" "What?! No way.

Your daughter doesn't look like that kind of girl!" My eyelids fluttered open. I met the absolute disgust plastered across the other patient's face. Two sentences.

Two sentences, and my freshlyeighteenyearold self was branded a total slut. She burned my entire reputation to the ground with the cadence of a punchline.

And years later, when I finally clawed my way to the top and confronted her about it? She just waved a manicured hand. "I don't remember. It was just a joke.

Let the past stay in the past." The burning behind my eyes clawed its way back. The head surgeon checked his Rolex, his jaw ticking.

His peripheral vision stayed glued to the steel cooler holding the kidney. Ten minutes left before total organ death. "We have absolutely no time left to stall!

Once that tissue dies, not even God can save it!" The surgeon waved a hand toward the OR doors. "If this is all a misunderstanding, we proceed.

Now!" I shot my mother one final, deadeyed glare and pivoted on my heel. But a murmur rippled through the crowd of onlookers.

Someone pointed a finger. "Wanhe Group… wait, the Wanhe Group that just went public?!

That’s Kendall, the CEO!" My mother nodded, a bright, beaming smile lighting up her face. "That's right!

If my Kendall wasn't the CEO, she wouldn't have the cash to buy her way to the front of the transplant list." That sentence was a lit match in a powder keg.

Every single eye in the corridor snapped to me. Half of this crowd consisted of desperate family members waiting for their own miracles.

Every organ on that list was paid for in blood and time. The one thing they despised more than death was a linecutter.

And right in the middle of the rising tension, my mother actually giggled. She nudged a glaring man next to her. "My daughter runs the whole show.

If you need a kidney, I'll just have her snap her fingers and get you one! Kendall always says waiting in line is for poor people.

And poor people deserve to die!" The air pressure in the hallway snapped. The furious families swarmed.

They boxed me and the surgical team in, a suffocating wall of shouting mouths and shoving shoulders. Someone reached the surgical cart. A flash of silver whipped through the air.

A scalpel. Aimed straight at my face. My breath hitched. I squeezed my eyes shut. Clatter. No pain. I snapped my eyes open.

Preston stood in front of me, his white lab coat billowing around his knees.

His grip was locked like a vice around the attacker's wrist, twisting just enough to force the fingers open. The blade hit the linoleum floor. Preston shoved the man back.

He turned to our mother, his face a mask of absolute disbelief. "Mom! What kind of sick joke is this?! Do you have any idea how long my sister waited for this kidney?!

How could you do this to her?!" Preston's authority in his white coat slowly talked the crowd off the ledge. The shouting died down into a low, venomous simmer.

But they didn't leave. They just stood there, burning holes into my skull.

The head surgeon let out a long, heavy exhale. "If this kidney was procured by jumping the line, protocol dictates we cannot perform this operation." He looked at me.

His gaze dropped as a heavy sigh left his lips. "I'm sorry, Kendall." "Between the STD allegations and the linecutting accusations, there is simply no way we can clear this up in the timeframe we have left." He turned his back.

He motioned for the surgical team to pack it up. Chapter 4 Dad’s eyes were bloodshot.

His knees buckled, dropping heavily toward the linoleum floor. "My daughter would never do this!" He swayed, his voice cracking and raw. "Doctor, please.

I am begging you to save my little girl. If she doesn't get this kidney, she…" The words died in his throat. But the silence screamed the truth. Without that cooler, I was dead.

He was never a man of many words. Right now, stripping away his dignity was the only way he knew how to fight for my life.

Preston stepped in front of the surgical team, using his own body as a barricade. "Jared.

Marcus." He looked between his colleagues, his jaw set. "I swear on my medical license, my sister is not that kind of person." "Everything I have achieved is because of her.

The disease accusation is pure slander." He pleaded. "She's the CEO of Wanhe. She keeps her circle tight.

There is zero chance she caught anything like that!" Heat rushed to my eyes. Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. My mother offered an exaggerated shrug.

She threw her hands up, the picture of perfect innocence. "Alright, alright. Maybe I misremembered. You all take everything so seriously. It was just a joke!" Marcus scoffed.

He fixed a hard glare on her. "Ma'am, there is a line with jokes. If you cost your daughter her window for this transplant, there is no coming back from it.

Thankfully, we still have a few minutes." A massive, shuddering breath left my lungs. The tension holding my spine together went slack. We were going in.

Then, my mother looked at me. A heavy, theatrical sigh slipped past her lips. "Kendall. I taught you to be honest." Her voice was soft, sickeningly sweet. "The jokes earlier?

That was me giving you an out. Giving you a chance to confess. But since you want to lie… don't blame me for doing the right thing." She pulled her phone from her purse.

She tapped the screen. A video started playing. Heavy, wet breathing echoed down the corridor. A man, completely drenched in sweat, was pinning a woman down.

And the woman writhing underneath him, her hair plastered to her face… was me. "Did you think being a CEO meant you could cover this up?!" she shouted, making sure the entire crowd heard. "The subordinate you forced into your bed just tested positive!

It's an absolute fact!" A collective gasp ripped through the onlookers. Even Marcus, who had just defended me, went rigid.

The pity in his eyes curdled into absolute disgust. "Do you have any idea how dangerous occupational exposure is?!" he demanded. "If we went into that OR blind, my entire team could have been infected!

You are gambling with our lives! Were you trying to kill us?!" I stared at the bright screen. My throat seized.

I violently shook my head. "No… that isn't me!" "Not you?!" My mother shoved the phone inches from my face. "The company party last week.

Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn't go?!" The company party last week? My head snapped up. I locked eyes with Preston. The air finally rushed back into my lungs.

I wasn't at that party! That exact night, Preston had proposed to his girlfriend, Genevieve! I was there. I stood right beside them and watched him put the ring on her finger.

All he had to do was open his mouth. All he had to do was tell the truth, and this nightmare would end. "Preston…" My voice cracked. He looked at me. His eyes were dead.

Slabs of cold, unfeeling ice. "Kendall," he said flatly. "So you really did sneak into someone else's hotel room that night." Chapter 5