Introduction

I knelt on one knee, velvet box in hand, ready to propose to the woman I loved, a rising star in the theater world.

But instead of a yes, her cold voice cut through the silence: "I'm in love with someone else."

Instantly, her aunt, Nicole Johns, stepped from the wings, claiming she'd harbored a crush on me for years, and married me within a month.

Five years later, severely burned in a pyrotechnics "accident," I overheard Nicole, my wife, discussing my fate with the doctor.

She ordered my healthy skin be given to her lover, the very man my ex-fiancée left me for, Matthew Blakely, for a cosmetic procedure.

"For Ethan," she hissed, "use the experimental synthetic skin. It's cheaper."

Then, unbelievably, she tried to have me sterilized while I was unconscious, revealing she'd aborted our children because they were an "inconvenient" distraction from her affair with Matthew.

The "accident" and their fabricated story of my jealousy were all a setup.

I later learned the deepest horror: she had staged Matthew's "attack" to steal my kidney, which he openly gloated about right after receiving it.

They had a secret, sinister plan for my body.

My world shattered beyond repair.

I finally called my family' s ranch in Texas, ready to fight for my life.