She watched me carefully. "I used a donor."
A chill crawled up my spine. "Whose face am I wearing?"
Her piercing gaze locked onto mine. "My daughter’s."
The room spun. "Your… daughter?"
She nodded, her composed expression cracking ever so slightly. "Kristie. My only child."
Dread settled in my stomach. "What happened to her?"
Her jaw tightened. "She was murdered. By her ex-fiancé. Gabriel Carson."
My entire body stiffened.
Gabriel. A name from my past. A name I once trusted.
A name that belonged to my ex-husband.
Damn. I never imagined he could do something like this.
Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating. I stared at Dr. Chelsea, struggling to process the horror of it all.
I had the face of a murdered woman.
"Why would you…?" My voice trembled, but she cut me off.
"I couldn't save Kristie," she said, her voice cold yet fragile with emotion. "But I could save you. Her face gave you another chance at life."
I swallowed hard, the weight of her actions pressing down on me.
"You're alive because of her," she continued, her gaze drilling into mine. "But survival isn’t enough."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Gabriel is free. He walks the world unpunished while Kristie is gone."
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
"You owe her," she said, unwavering. "You owe me. I didn't save you for nothing."
My hands trembled as I raised them to my bandaged face. Beneath the gauze, I felt the contours of someone else's skin—Kristie’s skin.
"What are you asking me to do?" My voice wavered.
Her expression darkened. "You have her face now. In a way, you are her. And I need you to finish what she couldn't. I need you to make him pay."
A jolt of fear surged through me. She wasn’t asking for justice.
She was demanding revenge.
I struggled to breathe as her words sank in. I didn’t just owe my life to her daughter—I was now bound to her past, to her pain.
Dr. Chelsea glanced down at a paper she held. "Your name is Kelsey Walton," she said. "But now, you’re also Kristie. Gabriel Carson is a multimillionaire with secrets rotting beneath his empire. Together, we’ll bring him down."
I stared at her, my heart pounding. I didn't know what terrified me more—the idea of confronting Gabriel… or the woman standing in front of me, who had saved my life at such a devastating cost.
But how could I tell her that Kristie’s murderer—her ex-fiancé—was the same man who had once shattered my life?