My boyfriend sold my kidney to save his best friend without consent. They got engaged in my hospital room until I found out she paid him 200k for it. They’re both in a cell. The kidney failed. My name is Briana Walsh and I was 26 years old when I woke up in a hospital bed with a fresh surgical scar and absolutely no memory of agreeing to any operation.

The fluorescent lights above me were blinding. My mouth felt like sandpaper and there was this deep throbbing pain radiating from my lower back that I couldn’t explain. I tried to sit up but the pain was so intense that I immediately collapsed back against the pillow. That’s when I heard his voice. Hey, hey, take it easy. You’re okay.

Everything went perfectly. Tyler was standing at the foot of my bed holding a bouquet of grocery store roses, the kind you grab at the last minute because you forgot something important. He was smiling, but it was that tight smile he always had when he was nervous about something.

I opened my mouth to ask what happened, but before I could speak, the door swung open and she walked in. Veronica, Tyler’s so-called best friend since college. The woman who always seemed to need something from him. The woman who called him at 2:00 in the morning with emergencies. the woman who gave me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach every single time I saw her.

She looked different. Her skin had this yellowish tint to it, and she looked thinner than usual, fragile, but her eyes lit up when she saw Tyler, and she practically floated across the room toward him. “It worked,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “Tyler, it actually worked.” The doctor said the transplant was successful.

“Trplant? What transplant?” I tried to speak again, but my throat was so dry. Tyler finally noticed me struggling and handed me a cup of water. I took a few sips and then managed to croak out the question that was burning in my mind. What’s going on? Why am I here? What transplant? Tyler exchanged a look with Veronica.

That look, the one that people share when they have a secret they don’t want you to know about. I’d seen that look between them before countless times. And I’d always dismissed it. I’d always told myself I was being paranoid. That Tyler loved me. That he would never do anything to hurt me. God, I was so stupid.

Bri, Tyler said, sitting down on the edge of my bed and taking my hand. You had an accident. A car accident. You h!t your head pretty hard and you’ve been unconscious for almost 2 days, but you’re okay now. Everything’s going to be okay. I tried to process what he was saying. a car accident. I didn’t remember any car accident. The last thing I remembered was going to dinner with Tyler at our favorite Italian restaurant downtown.

We’d split a bottle of wine. I’d had the chicken parmesan. He’d had the seafood linguini. And then nothing. My back, I said, reaching behind me and wincing at the pain. Why does my back hurt so much? The accident, Tyler said quickly. Too quickly. You had some internal bleeding. They had to do emergency surgery to stop it.

Something wasn’t right. I could feel it in my bones. The way Tyler kept avoiding eye contact. The way Veronica was standing there with her hand pressed against her side, right where a kidney would be. The way the nurses kept giving me these sympathetic looks every time they came in to check my vitals. But I was exhausted.

The pain medication was making everything fuzzy around the edges. So, I closed my eyes and let myself drift back to sleep, telling myself that I’d figure everything out when I woke up. That was my first mistake. I should probably give you some background because this story doesn’t make any sense without it. I met Tyler Richardson at a coffee shop 3 years before all of this happened.

I was 23, fresh out of college with a degree in graphic design and absolutely no idea what I was doing with my life. He was 25, working at his father’s real estate company, and had this confidence about him that I found irresistible. He spilled his iced coffee all over my laptop, completely ruining the freelance project I’d been working on for a week.

I should have been angry. I should have demanded that he pay for a new computer, but he had these green eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. And when he offered to buy me dinner to make up for it, I said yes. Our relationship moved fast. Within 6 months, we were living together in a small apartment in downtown Minneapolis.

Within a year, he was talking about engagement rings and wedding venues and how many kids we were going to have. I was happy, really happy. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had found my person, the one who understood me, who supported me, who made me feel safe. And then Veronica came back into his life.

She’d been his roommate’s girlfriend in college, and they’d stayed close even after the relationship ended. She was always around, always texting him, always calling him with some crisis or another. Her car broke down. Her landlord was being difficult. Her cat was sick. Her job was stressful. Her therapist moved away.

There was always something and Tyler always dropped everything to help her. At first, I tried to be understanding. I told myself that this was just who Tyler was. He was a good guy, a loyal friend, the kind of person who showed up for the people he cared about. But the more time that passed, the more I started to notice things.

The way his phone would light up with her name in the middle of the night. The way he’d take her calls in another room with the door closed, the way he’d come home smelling like her perfume and make up some excuse about how she’d given him a hug. I confronted him about it once about a year into our relationship. I told him that I felt uncomfortable with how much time he was spending with her, that I didn’t trust her intentions. He made me feel crazy.

Bri, come on. You know there’s nothing going on between us. She’s like a sister to me. I’ve known her for years. Are you seriously going to ask me to choose between you and one of my oldest friends? I backed down. I always backed down because I loved him and I didn’t want to lose him. And I kept telling myself that if he wanted to be with her, he would be with her. He was with me.

He chose me. That had to mean something. But looking back now, I can see all the red flags that I ignored, all the warning signs that I explained away, all the moments when my gut was screaming at me that something was wrong, and I just didn’t listen. When I woke up the second time, my mom was there.

She was sitting in the chair next to my bed, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, flipping through a magazine she wasn’t actually reading. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she’d been crying. “Mom.” She looked up and her face crumpled with relief. “Oh, sweetheart. Oh, thank God you’re awake.

” She rushed to my side and grabbed my hand, squeezing it so tight that it almost hurt. “What happened?” I asked. Tyler said, “I was in a car accident, but I don’t remember anything. Something flickered across my mom’s face. Something that looked a lot like anger.” “That’s what he told you?” “Yeah.” He said, “I h!t my head and had internal bleeding and they had to do surgery.

” My mom took a deep breath, then another. I could tell she was choosing her words carefully, which was unusual for her. My mom had never been one to sugarcoat things. Briana, honey, I need you to stay calm. Can you do that for me? The heart monitor next to my bed started beeping faster. Mom, you’re scaring me.

What’s going on? She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper, a medical document of some kind. She handed it to me and I unfolded it with shaking hands. It was a surgical consent form with my signature at the bottom, but the signature wasn’t right. It was close to mine, but the letters were too neat, too careful.

I always signed my name in a quick, messy scroll. This looked like someone had practiced copying it. And above the signature, in black and white, were the words that changed everything. Consent for kidney donation. I read it three times, convinced that I was misunderstanding something. Convinced that there had to be a mistake.

I didn’t sign this, I whispered. I know you didn’t, baby. I would never. I didn’t even know. I pressed my hand against my lower back where that throbbing pain was still radiating. Mom, they took my kidney. The doctors thought you were a living donor. The paperwork was all in order. They had bl00d tests showing you were a perfect match for the recipient.

They had your consent form. They had everything they needed, but I didn’t consent. I was crying now, the tears hot and angry on my cheeks. I never agreed to this. Who did they give it to? My mom’s jaw tightened. That woman, Tyler’s friend, Veronica. The room started spinning. I thought I was going to throw up. She needed a kidney transplant.

My mom continued. Apparently, she’s been on the waiting list for over a year. Her condition was deteriorating rapidly. She was running out of time. But how? I couldn’t form a complete sentence. My brain couldn’t process what I was hearing. How did Tyler? The door opened. And speak of the devil. There he was. Tyler walked in with that same tight smile, holding a bag of food from the hospital cafeteria. Hey, you’re awake.

I brought you some. He trailed off when he saw the paper in my hands. When he saw the look on my face, et screamed it so loud that nurses came running. Tyler held up his hands like he was surrendering, backing toward the door. You need to calm down. You just had surgery. You need to rest. I need to rest because you cut out my kidney while I was unconscious.

I need to rest because you forged my signature. I need to rest because you violated my body. The nurses were checking my vitals, trying to get me to lie back down, but I was inconsolable. I kept screaming until security came and escorted Tyler out of the room until the nurses gave me a sedative that made everything go soft and quiet around the edges.

The last thing I remember before I passed out again was my mom stroking my hair and whispering, “I’m going to make this right, sweetheart. I promise.” The next few days were a blur of doctors and lawyers and police officers. Turns out Tyler had planned the whole thing meticulously. He drugged my wine at the restaurant, then driven me to a private medical facility in Wisconsin that specialized in organ transplants, the kind of place that didn’t ask too many questions if you had enough money.

He’d forged my consent form using samples of my signature that he’d collected over the years. Birthday cards, rental agreements, the lease for our apartment. He’d practiced until he got it right and then he’d handed it over to doctors who were either complicit or too negligent to notice.

Veronica had been waiting at the facility. Her surgery had been scheduled months in advance. Apparently, they’d just been waiting for the donor to arrive. The whole operation took less than 4 hours. By the time I woke up in that hospital bed, my kidney was already inside Veronica’s body, and Tyler was standing there with his grocery store roses acting like nothing had happened.

The police were involved within 48 hours. I gave my statement while still hooked up to monitors and drainage tubes. The detective who interviewed me was a woman in her 50s named Detective Rosario with kind eyes and a nononsense attitude. “This is one of the most disturbing cases I’ve seen in 20 years,” she told me.

“We’re going to nail them, Miss Walsh. I promise you that.” But here’s where the story takes its first twist. Tyler and Veronica didn’t just disappear into the night like you might expect. They didn’t try to flee the country or destroy evidence or cover their tracks. Instead, they came to visit me in the hospital together. I was alone in my room when they walked in.

My mom had gone home to shower and change clothes and the police officer who was supposed to be stationed outside my door had stepped away to use the bathroom. Tyler was dressed in a suit like he was going to a business meeting. Veronica was wearing a white sundress and she had a small velvet box in her hands.

Briana, Tyler said, his voice smooth and calm. We need to talk. I have nothing to say to you. Get out before I call security. Just hear us out. 5 minutes. That’s all we’re asking. I should have pressed the call button. I should have screamed for help. But there was a part of me, a stupid naive part of me that still wanted to understand, that still wanted to make sense of how the man I’d loved for 3 years could do something so horrific.

Fine, 5 minutes, then you’re gone. Tyler pulled up a chair and sat down. Veronica stood behind him, her hand resting on his shoulder in a way that felt possessive, intimate. I know you’re angry, Tyler said. And I know you feel betrayed, but you need to understand something. Veronica was dying. She had months to live, maybe weeks.

The waiting list for a kidney is years long. She would have d!ed waiting, so you decided to steal mine. I decided to save the woman I love. The words hung in the air between us. The woman I love, not me, her. We’ve been together for two years, Tyler continued. We didn’t want to hurt you, Bri. We really didn’t, but we couldn’t be together openly.

Not while Veronica was sick. Not while she needed the transplant. If we broke up, you would have never agreed to be her donor. So, you drugged me. You violated my consent. You took a piece of my body. It’s just a kidney, Veronica said, speaking for the first time. People live perfectly normal lives with one kidney.

You’ll barely notice it’s gone. I stared at her in disbelief. This woman who had spent years pretending to be my boyfriend’s platonic best friend. This woman who had smiled at me at dinner parties while secretly sleeping with the man I thought was going to marry me. This woman who was standing in my hospital room wearing a white dress that made her look like some kind of twisted bride. “You’re insane.

” I said, “Both of you. You’re completely insane.” Tyler reached for the velvet box in Veronica’s hands. He opened it, revealing a diamond ring that glittered under the fluorescent lights. Then he got down on one knee right there in my hospital room and turned to face Veronica. Veronica Hayes, I’ve loved you since the day we met.

You are my everything, my soulmate, my reason for living. Will you marry me? Veronica pressed her hands to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Yes, yes, of course I’ll marry you. They embraced. They kissed. And then Tyler turned to look at me with something like triumph in his eyes. We’re going to be happy, bruh.

We’re sorry you got caught up in this, but we’re going to have the life we always dreamed of. And honestly, you should feel good about this. You saved a life. Isn’t that what everyone wants? To make a difference. I reached for the call button and pressed it. Within seconds, security was rushing into the room, followed by my mom and the police officer who had been guarding my door.

“Arest them,” I said. “They just confessed to everything, Tyler’s smile faded. “What are you talking about? We didn’t confess to anything.” I pointed to the small camera mounted in the corner of the room, the one that fed directly to the nurse’s station, the one that had been recording everything. “You just proposed to your accomplice in the room of the victim,” Detective Rosario said, appearing in the doorway with handcuffs in her hands while on camera while bragging about how you drugged and assaulted her. “This might be the

stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire career.” The look on Tyler’s face when he realized what had happened was almost worth everything I’d been through. Almost. The next few months were a whirlwind of court dates and depositions and media attention. Turns out Tyler and Veronica’s case made national news.

Boyfriend steals girlfriend’s kidney for secret lover was apparently the kind of headline that news outlets couldn’t resist. My face was everywhere. My story was everywhere. I hired a lawyer named Patricia Conir, a fierce woman in her 60s who had spent her career fighting for victims of medical malpractice.

She was the one who discovered the second twist. Briana, I need to tell you something. she said during one of our meetings. We’ve been digging into Tyler’s finances and we found something interesting. What kind of something? Tyler received a payment of $200,000 3 months before your surgery. The money was transferred from an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. I frowned.

Where did it come from? That’s what took us so long to figure out. The account was registered under a shell company, but we eventually traced it back to its source. Patricia paused, letting the tension build. The money came from Veronica’s family. Her family. Her father specifically. Leonard Hayes.

He’s a real estate developer in Florida. very wealthy, very connected. I tried to wrap my head around what she was saying. So, Veronica’s father paid Tyler to what? Date me? Groom me for this? That’s exactly what it looks like. According to the timeline we’ve reconstructed, Tyler met Veronica about 6 months before he met you.

They started dating almost immediately. But Veronica’s kidney disease was already advanced at that point, and she was already on the transplant waiting list. She needed a donor, I said slowly. And Tyler was supposed to find one, not just find one. He was supposed to cultivate one. someone healthy, someone compatible, someone who would trust him enough to let her guard down.

I felt sick. The entire foundation of my relationship with Tyler had been built on a lie. Every date, every kiss, every whispered, “I love you.” It had all been part of a plan to harvest my organs. “How did they know I would be compatible?” I asked. That’s the disturbing part. They didn’t. Tyler dated several women before you.

We’ve identified at least three others who were in relationships with him during that period. None of them were matches for Veronica, but I was. You were. When Tyler started dating you, he found a way to get a sample of your bl00d. We’re still not sure how. A toothbrush maybe or a cut that he helped bandage.

Once he had the sample, he had it tested for compatibility. When you came up as a match, you became the target. The room was spinning. I had to grip the arms of my chair to keep from falling over. 3 years, I whispered. He spent 3 years with me, knowing the whole time that he was going to do this. I’m sorry, Briana.

I really am. The trial was brutal. Tyler and Veronica were charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy, fraud, and about a dozen other offenses that I couldn’t even keep track of. The private medical facility where the surgery took place was shut down and three doctors lost their licenses. I had to testify.

I had to sit in that courtroom and describe in detail what had been done to me while Tyler and Veronica sat at the defense table, stone-faced and unrepentant. Their lawyers tried to paint me as a willing participant who had changed her mind. They produced fake text messages that Tyler had created, making it look like I had agreed to the donation and then backed out.

They brought in character witnesses who talked about what a wonderful, caring person Veronica was. They played to the jury’s emotions, showing photos of Veronica hooked up tois machines, looking frail and sick. But Patricia was relentless. She systematically demolished every lie they told. She proved that the text messages had been fabricated.

She brought in handwriting experts who confirmed that the consent form was a forgery. She showed the jury the video from my hospital room where Tyler and Veronica had confessed while proposing to each other. In the end, it wasn’t even close. Tyler was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Veronica got 12 with the possibility of parole after eight.

The judge called it one of the most egregious violations of bodily autonomy she had ever seen in her courtroom. I thought that would be the end of it. I thought I could finally start putting the pieces of my life back together. I was wrong. 6 months after the sentencing, I got a phone call from Detective Rosario. Briana, I thought you should hear this from me before it hits the news. My heart dropped.

What happened? Veronica Hayes is in the hospital. The kidney is failing. I didn’t know how to feel. Part of me wanted to laugh at the cosmic irony. Part of me wanted to cry for all the pain and suffering that had been caused for nothing. And part of me, a small and petty part that I’m not proud of, felt satisfied. What happens now? I asked.

She’ll need another transplant or she’ll need to go on dialysis for the rest of her life, but she’s in prison, so her options are limited. Is there any chance they’ll let her out for medical reasons? Not a chance. The judge made it very clear that she’s to serve her full sentence. If she d!es in prison, I thanked Detective Rosario for letting me know and hung up the phone.

Then I sat there in my apartment staring at the wall trying to process what I was feeling. This should have made me happy. The woman who had stolen a piece of my body, who had conspired with my boyfriend to violate me in the most intimate way possible, was now suffering the consequences. Poetic justice, karma, whatever you want to call it.

But I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel relieved. I just felt empty. I should tell you what happened in the years that followed because this story isn’t really over yet. I moved back in with my mom for a while. I couldn’t afford my apartment anymore, and I couldn’t stand being in the space that Tyler and I had shared. Every corner held a memory.

Every piece of furniture reminded me of the life I thought I was building with him. My mom was incredible. She cooked for me, held me when I cried, drove me to my doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions. She never once said, “I told you so.” Even though I know she had always had reservations about Tyler.

Slowly, I started to heal, not just physically, but emotionally, too. I found a therapist who specialized in trauma survivors, and she helped me work through all the complicated feelings I had about what had happened, the anger, the betrayal, the grief for the relationship I thought I’d had. I also had to deal with the physical reality of living with one kidney.

For most people, this isn’t a big deal. Like Veronica said, you can live a perfectly normal life with one kidney, but I wasn’t most people. About a year after the surgery, I started having complications. My remaining kidney was showing signs of strain. My doctor said it was probably stress related, that my body was struggling to adjust to the trauma it had been through.

I had to make lifestyle changes. No more alcohol, limited sodium, regular bl00d work, and checkups. I had to treat my one remaining kidney like the precious resource it was. And every time I thought about it, I felt that anger rising up again. Tyler hadn’t just stolen a piece of my body. He’d potentially compromised my long-term health.

He changed my life forever and I was the one who had to live with the consequences while he sat in prison. Two years after the trial, I got another phone call. This time it was from Patricia Conir. Briana, I have some news. Leonard Hayes is dead. Leonard Hayes. Veronica’s father. The man who had paid Tyler $200,000 to find a kidney donor for his daughter.

What happened? Heart attack. Apparently, he’d been in poor health for a while. The stress of Veronica’s trial and imprisonment took a toll on him. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Neither am I. But there’s more. Leonard left a will. A very interesting will. Patricia explained that Leonard Hayes had been one of the wealthiest real estate developers in Florida.

He’d accumulated a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And in his will, he’d left everything to Veronica. But here’s where it gets complicated. Veronica was in prison, convicted of multiple felonies. Under Florida law, she couldn’t directly inherit from someone if she’d been convicted of a crime against them or their property.

But Leonard wasn’t the victim of her crime. I was. So Veronica inherited everything. All those hundreds of millions of dollars. That doesn’t seem fair, I said. It’s not, which is why I’m calling you. Patricia’s voice took on that fierce tone I’d come to associate with her. I want to file a civil lawsuit against Veronica Hayes.

We couldn’t do it before because she didn’t have any assets worth going after, but now she does. How much can we sue for everything she has? And given the severity of what she did to you, I think we have a very strong case. I thought about it for a long moment. Part of me was tired. I’d spent the last 2 years trying to move on with my life, trying to put this nightmare behind me.

Did I really want to drag it all back up again? But then I thought about my medical bills, my therapy sessions, the ongoing monitoring I’d need for the rest of my life because I was living with one kidney instead of two. I thought about the three years I’d wasted on Tyler, the dreams I’d had for our future together.

All of it built on lies. Do it, I said. Sue her for everything. The civil lawsuit took another two years to work its way through the courts. Veronica’s lawyers tried every trick in the book to delay and obstruct. They argued that she was too sick to participate in legal proceedings.

They claimed that the money was protected by various trusts and holding companies. They even tried to argue that I was partially responsible for what happened because I should have noticed something was wrong. But Patricia was relentless. She hired private investigators to trace every dollar that Leonard Hayes had ever moved.

She brought in financial experts who untangled the web of shell companies and offshore accounts. She built a case so airtight that Veronica’s lawyers eventually gave up trying to fight and started negotiating a settlement. In the end, I was awarded $52 million. $52 million. I remember sitting in Patricia’s office when she told me the final number. I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t speak. It was more money than I had ever imagined having in my entire life. This doesn’t make up for what they did to you, Patricia said. Nothing can make up for that. But it’s something. It’s a recognition of the harm you suffered, and it’s going to give you freedom. The freedom to live your life however you want. I cried.

I cried so hard that I couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except let all the pain and anger and grief pour out of me in waves. When I finally composed myself, I asked Patricia one question. What happens to Veronica now? She still has money. She’s not going to be destitute, but she’ll never have the fortune her father built.

Most of it will go to legal fees and the settlement. By the time she gets out of prison, she’ll have to start over from scratch. There was a certain satisfaction in that. Not joy exactly, but something close to it. I used some of the settlement money to buy a house, a small cottage on the coast of Maine overlooking the ocean.

It had a garden where I could grow vegetables and a porch where I could sit and watch the waves. I used more of it to pay off my mom’s mortgage and set up a college fund for my nieces and nephews. I donated a significant amount to organizations that supported organ donation awareness and victims of medical malpractice.

and I kept the rest. Not because I was greedy, but because I knew that my medical needs might increase as I got older. That one remaining kidney was my lifeline, and I needed to be able to afford whatever care it required. I thought that was the end of the story. I really did. I thought I could finally close this chapter and move on.

But life has a way of surprising you. 4 years after the original incident, I got a letter in the mail. It was from a woman named Danielle Porter, and it contained information that made me question everything I thought I knew. Danielle explained that she had dated Tyler 3 years before I did.

She was one of the other women that Patricia’s investigators had identified. one of the potential donors who hadn’t been a match for Veronica. But here’s the twist. Danielle hadn’t just dated Tyler. She had gotten pregnant with his child. She’d had a daughter. A daughter that Tyler had convinced her to give up for adoption, claiming that he wasn’t ready to be a father.

Danielle had been young and scared and in love and she’d believed him. But after reading about our case in the news, Danielle had started to wonder. She’d hired her own investigators and they’d discovered something horrifying. Tyler hadn’t convinced her to give up their daughter because he wasn’t ready to be a father. He’d done it because the daughter wasn’t a match for Veronica.

They had tested the baby’s bl00d without Danielle’s knowledge or consent, just like they would later test mine. When the results came back showing that the child wasn’t compatible for kidney donation, Tyler had suddenly lost all interest in being a father. “I’ve been in therapy for years,” Danielle wrote. Trying to come to terms with the choice I made, trying to forgive myself for giving up my daughter, and now I find out that it was all part of their sick plan that they used me and my baby and threw us away when we weren’t useful anymore. I read

the letter three times, my hands shaking more with each pass. Tyler wasn’t just a criminal. He was a serial predator. He had systematically targeted vulnerable women, used them, tested them like livestock, and discarded them when they didn’t meet his requirements. And suddenly, $52 million didn’t feel like enough.

I reached out to Danielle, and we started talking regularly. She introduced me to the third woman that Patricia’s investigators had identified, a woman named Helen Marchetti, who had dated Tyler for 6 months before I did. Helen’s story was similar to mine. Tyler had been charming and attentive and seemingly perfect. He’d found a way to get a sample of her bl00d.

And when it turned out she wasn’t compatible, he’d suddenly become cold and distant, eventually breaking up with her with some excuse about needing to focus on himself. The three of us became close. We called ourselves the Survivors Club, and we met every month to share our experiences and support each other through the ongoing trauma of what Tyler and Veronica had done.

It was Helen who suggested that we write a book, tell our stories, warn other women about the signs of predatory behavior. I was hesitant at first. I’d spent years trying to stay out of the spotlight, trying to rebuild my life in private. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that our story could help people.

that there might be other women out there right now being targeted by people like Tyler. That if we could reach even one of them, if we could help even one person escape before it was too late, then all of our pain would mean something. So, we wrote the book. It took a year with the help of a ghostwriter who specialized in true crime.

We titled it Stolen, and it told the full story of Tyler’s crimes from the perspective of all three of his victims. The book was published 2 years ago. It became a bestseller. We did interviews and podcasts and speaking engagements. We started a foundation to help victims of organ trafficking and medical coercion. And through it all, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something else to go wrong.

For another twist in this seemingly endless nightmare, I didn’t have to wait long. Last year, I got a phone call from a journalist named Marcus Chen. He was working on an investigative piece about our case, and he discovered something that the police and the lawyers and everyone else had missed. Briana, I need to meet with you in person.

This is too sensitive to discuss over the phone. I agreed, though I was nervous. I’d had my fill of surprises, and I wasn’t sure I could handle another one. We met at a coffee shop in Portland. Marcus was young, maybe late 20s, with an intensity about him that reminded me of Patricia. “I’ve been investigating the medical facility where your surgery took place,” he said.

“The one in Wisconsin that got shut down after your case. What about it?” It wasn’t the only one. Marcus slid a folder across the table. Inside were documents, photographs, financial records, evidence of a network of black market organ trafficking that spanned multiple states and multiple countries. “The facility in Wisconsin was just one node in a much larger operation,” Marcus explained.

They’ve been doing this for years, decades maybe. Targeting vulnerable people, forging consent forms, harvesting organs, and selling them to wealthy patients who don’t want to wait on official transplant lists. I felt the bl00d drain from my face. How many victims are we talking about? Hundreds, maybe thousands. It’s hard to know for sure because most of them never reported what happened.

They woke up with unexplained surgical scars and no memory of what had been done to them. Some of them probably don’t even know their missing organs. I thought about the months I’d spent unconscious after my surgery. The cover story Tyler had told about a car accident. If my mom hadn’t questioned it, if she hadn’t demanded to see my medical records, would I have ever known the truth? What does this have to do with Tyler and Veronica? I asked.

That’s where it gets interesting. Marcus pulled out another set of documents. Leonard Hayes wasn’t just a real estate developer. He was an investor in this network. He helped fund the facilities. He provided connections to wealthy patients who needed organs. And when his daughter got sick, he used his position to move her to the front of the line.

So, the $200,000 was payment for a service. Tyler wasn’t just paid to find Veronica a donor. He was paid to participate in an ongoing criminal enterprise, and the money came from the profits of that enterprise. I sat back in my chair trying to process what I was hearing. The scope of what Tyler and Veronica had done was so much bigger than I’d realized.

They weren’t just two criminals who had targeted me. They were cogs in a machine that had been destroying lives for years. What happens now? I asked. I’m publishing this story next week. It’s going to blow the whole thing wide open. Federal investigators are already involved. There are going to be arrests, trials.

People are finally going to be held accountable. And what do you need from me? Marcus met my eyes. I need you to tell your story again on the record as part of a larger piece about the victims of this network. You’re the most visible survivor we have. If you speak out, others might find the courage to come forward, too. I thought about it.

I thought about all the pain and trauma I’d been through. About how hard I’d worked to rebuild my life, about how much I wanted to just close this chapter and move on. But I also thought about those hundreds of victims, the people who had woken up with unexplained scars and no answers, the families who had lost loved ones and never understood why. I’ll do it.

I said, “Whatever you need.” The story dropped two weeks later. It was everywhere. Front page of major newspapers, lead story on network news broadcasts, trending topics on every social media platform. Within days, dozens of people came forward with their own stories. Victims who had been too scared or too confused to speak up before.

Families who had always suspected that something was wrong with how their loved ones had d!ed. Medical professionals who had witnessed unethical practices and been too intimidated to report them. The federal investigation expanded rapidly. 15 people were arrested in the first wave, including doctors, nurses, administrators, and facilitators.

More arrests followed as investigators climbed higher up the chain. And then 3 months ago, they arrested the person at the top. His name was Richard Fontaine, and he was a billionaire pharmaceutical executive who had been running the Oregon Trafficking Network for over 20 years. He had connections to organized crime, corrupt politicians, and some of the most powerful people in the country.

The evidence against him was overwhelming. Financial records, witness testimony, physical evidence from dozens of victims. He was charged with racketeering, conspiracy, kidnapping, assault, and dozens of other offenses. His trial is scheduled to begin next month. I’ve been asked to testify. I’m writing this from my cottage in Maine.

It’s early morning, and the sun is just coming up over the ocean. I have a cup of coffee in one hand and my laptop open in front of me, and for the first time in years, I feel something like peace. Tyler is still in prison. He’ll be there for at least another 7 years, probably more once the federal charges are added.

I heard through the grapevine that he’s not doing well, that he’s lost weight, lost friends, lost whatever charm he once had, that he spends most of his time in isolation because he’s afraid of what the other inmates will do to him when they find out what he did. I can’t say I feel sorry for him.

Veronica is still in prison, too. Her kidney failed completely about 6 months after it was transplanted. She’s been on diialysis ever since, hooked up to a machine for hours every day, watching her health slowly deteriorate. She’ll probably spend the rest of her life in prison, and that life might not be very long. I can’t say I feel sorry for her either.

The money I received from the settlement has allowed me to build a life I never could have imagined. I travel when I want to. I give generously to causes I believe in. I support my family. And most importantly, I have the freedom to focus on my health, to give my one remaining kidney the care and attention it needs.

But the money isn’t what brings me peace. What brings me peace is knowing that I survived, that I didn’t let Tyler and Veronica destroy me, that I took the worst thing that had ever happened to me and turned it into something meaningful. The book has helped countless people recognize the signs of predatory behavior. The foundation has provided support to dozens of victims of organ trafficking.

And the investigation that Marcus Chen launched has dismantled a criminal network that was causing immeasurable suffering around the world. None of this erases what was done to me. Nothing can erase that. I will carry the scars, both physical and emotional, for the rest of my life.

I will always have to monitor my health more carefully than most people. I will always have moments when the anger and the grief come rushing back, overwhelming me with their intensity. But I’ve learned that surviving isn’t about erasing the past. It’s about finding a way to live with it, to carry it without letting it crush you, to use it as fuel for something better. And that’s what I’ve done.

There’s one more thing I should tell you. One final twist in this long and complicated story. Remember how I mentioned that Danielle, one of Tyler’s other victims, had a daughter? The daughter she gave up for adoption after Tyler convinced her she wasn’t ready to be a mother. 6 months ago, that daughter found her. Her name is Emma.

She’s 19 years old. And she had spent years searching for her biological parents. When she finally tracked down Danielle, she had no idea about Tyler or Veronica or any of the horror that had surrounded her birth. Danielle told her everything, the whole truth about who her father was and what he had done.

She didn’t hold anything back, even though it meant revealing the darkest chapter of her life to this young woman she barely knew. Emma took it all in. She cried. She asked questions. And then she said something that made Danielle collapse into tears. Mom, none of that was your fault. You were young and scared and you were manipulated by a monster.

But you gave me life. You brought me into this world. And even though we lost 19 years together, we have the rest of our lives to make up for it. Danielle and Emma have been inseparable ever since. They’re building the relationship that Tyler tried to take from them. They’re healing together, supporting each other, proving that even the deepest wounds can eventually close.

I’ve met Emma a few times. She’s smart and kind and resilient, and she reminds me of her mother in all the best ways. She’s studying nursing at a university in Boston because she wants to help people who have been through medical trauma. She told me once that she thinks everything happens for a reason. That maybe Tyler and Veronica’s evil had to exist so that Emma could eventually find her mother.

So that I could become an advocate for victims so that Marcus could expose the trafficking network so that hundreds of victims could finally get justice. I don’t know if I believe in fate or destiny or any of that. But I do believe that good can come from evil, that light can emerge from darkness, that the worst moments of our lives can become the foundation for our greatest purpose.

Tyler and Veronica are both in prison. The kidney they stole from me failed. The network they were part of has been destroyed. And I’m sitting here in my cottage by the ocean, healthy and free and at peace for the first time in years. That’s not just poetic justice. That’s the whole point of surviving. But wait, there’s something else.

Something I’ve never told anyone before. About a year ago, I received a letter from Tyler’s mother. Her name is Barbara Richardson, and she had been notably absent throughout the entire trial and investigation. I’d always assumed she was either complicit in Tyler’s crimes or too ashamed to face the consequences of what her son had done.

The letter told a different story. Barbara wrote that she had been estranged from Tyler for almost 10 years before he met me. They’d had a falling out when Tyler was in his early 20s, and she hadn’t spoken to him since. I knew something was wrong with him from the time he was a child. She wrote, “He was always manipulating people, always lying to get what he wanted.

He could turn on the charm whenever he needed something, but there was a coldness behind his eyes that terrified me.” Barbara explained that Tyler had been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder when he was 18. A psychiatrist had told her that Tyler lacked the capacity for genuine empathy, that he viewed other people as objects to be used rather than human beings with their own thoughts and feelings.

I tried to get him help. Barbara continued, I spent thousands of dollars on therapy and treatment programs, but nothing worked. He just learned to hide it better, to mimic the emotions he was supposed to feel, to play the part of a normal person so convincingly that even I sometimes believed him. When Tyler started getting into legal trouble in his early 20s, Barbara had finally cut ties with him.

She’d given up trying to save him and focused on protecting herself and her other children from his manipulation. “When I saw what he did to you on the news, I wasn’t surprised,” Barbara wrote. “I was horrified, but I wasn’t surprised. I always knew he was capable of something like this. I just hope that he would somehow avoid crossing that line.

Barbara ended her letter with an apology. I know that nothing I say can make up for what my son did to you. I know that I failed as a mother. I should have done more. I should have warned people. I should have found a way to stop him before he could hurt anyone else. I will carry that guilt for the rest of my life. I read that letter a dozen times trying to figure out how I felt about it.

Part of me was angry. If Barbara had known that Tyler was dangerous, why hadn’t she done more to warn people? Why hadn’t she gone to the police? Why had she let him roam free, targeting and hurting innocent women? But another part of me understood. Barbara had been dealing with her own kind of trauma. The realization that your child is a monster, that the person you raised and loved is capable of unimaginable cruelty, must be devastating beyond words.

Her choice to cut ties with Tyler had probably been the hardest thing she’d ever done. I wrote back to Barbara. I told her that I didn’t blame her, that Tyler was responsible for his own choices, that no mother should have to bear the weight of her child’s crimes. We’ve been corresponding ever since. Barbara has become another member of our unofficial support network, a woman who understands the particular pain of being connected to Tyler’s crimes, even though she was never his direct victim.

There’s one more twist, and I promise this is the last one. Remember how I mentioned that Richard Fontaine, the billionaire who ran the Oregon Trafficking Network, was arrested? His trial is coming up, and the prosecution has been building their case for months. Last week, I received a call from the lead prosecutor. She wanted to inform me of a new development before it became public knowledge.

Briana, we’ve discovered something in our investigation that directly concerns you. My heart started racing. What is it? When we seized Richard Fontaine’s records, we found documentation of every organ harvest his network facilitated over the past 20 years, including yours. Okay, I said.

Not sure where this was going. The documentation includes correspondence between Richard Fontaine and Leonard Hayes, negotiations over the price for your kidney, discussions about how to identify and groom you as a donor. I knew about Leonard’s involvement. My lawyer traced the payment from his offshore account. Yes, but there’s more.

The correspondence also includes discussions about what would happen if the transplant failed. The prosecutor paused and I felt a chill run down my spine. Briana, there was a contingency plan. If Veronica’s body rejected your kidney, Richard Fontaine was prepared to provide another donor and another.

As many as it took to keep her alive. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. We’ve identified at least two other women who were being groomed as backup donors. Women who Tyler was instructed to pursue if you didn’t work out or if Veronica needed additional transplants. Who are they? I can’t share their names yet.

They’ve been notified and they’re working with victims advocates. But I thought you should know that your testimony, your visibility, your willingness to speak out may have saved their lives. When Tyler and Veronica were arrested, the contingency plan fell apart. Those women were never harmed. I hung up the phone and sat in silence for a long time, processing what I’d learned.

Somewhere out there are two women who have no idea how close they came to disaster. Two women who might have ended up in hospital beds with unexplained scars and no memory of what had been done to them. Two women whose lives were saved because I refused to stay quiet. Because I fought back. Because I told my story. I don’t know their names.

I may never meet them, but knowing that they’re safe, that they get to live their lives without the trauma that Danielle and Helen and I carry, gives me a sense of peace that I can’t really put into words. So, that’s my story. Or at least that’s the story so far. Tyler and Veronica are in prison, probably for the rest of their lives.

The kidney they stole from me failed. The network they were part of has been dismantled. Richard Fontaine is about to go to trial, and the evidence against him is overwhelming. I’m living in my cottage by the ocean, surrounded by people who love me, doing work that gives my suffering meaning. My health is stable.

My one remaining kidney is functioning well. And every morning I wake up to the sound of waves crashing against the rocks. And I remind myself how far I’ve come. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if there are more twists waiting for me around the corner. But I’ve learned that I can handle whatever comes.

I’ve survived the worst thing a person can do to another person. And I’m still standing. That’s not a moral lesson. It’s not a philosophical conclusion. It’s just the truth. Some people would ask me if I have any regrets. If I wish I’d noticed the signs earlier, if I wish I’d trusted my instincts when they told me something was wrong with Tyler.

The answer is complicated. Of course, I wish I’d never been hurt. Of course, I wish I’d seen through Tyler’s lies before it was too late. But I also know that what happened to me wasn’t my fault. That Tyler and Veronica were predators who targeted me specifically because I was kind and trusting and wanted to believe the best in people. Those aren’t weaknesses.

Those are some of my best qualities, and I refuse to let what they did to me change that. One final thing. Last month, I got an email from Veronica. I don’t know how she got my contact information. Prison email is supposed to be monitored and restricted, but somehow she found a way. The email was short, just three sentences. I’m dying.

The dialysis isn’t working anymore. I wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I read it once and then deleted it. I don’t need her apology. I don’t want her apology. An apology doesn’t give me back my kidney. It doesn’t erase the years of trauma and medical complications. It doesn’t undo the violation of having a piece of my body stolen without my consent. Veronica made her choices.

She knew exactly what she was doing when she conspired with Tyler to drug me and harvest my organ. She stood in my hospital room wearing a white dress and accepted a proposal while I lay there suffering from what they’d done. She doesn’t get my forgiveness. She doesn’t get my sympathy. She gets to live with the consequences of her actions, however long she has left.

And me, I get to keep living my life. I get to keep telling my story. I get to keep helping other people who have been through similar horrors. That’s not revenge. It’s not spite. It’s just survival. And honestly, survival is enough. The trial of Richard Fontaine begins next month. I’ll be there sitting in the gallery watching justice unfold.

Marcus Chen will be covering it for his publication. Patricia Caner will be consulting with the prosecution. Danielle and Helen will be there, too, along with dozens of other victims who have come forward. We’re not just witnesses anymore. We’re a movement, a community of survivors who refuse to be silenced. And when the verdict comes in, when Richard Fontaine is convicted and sent to prison to join Tyler and Veronica, we’ll be there to see it, to bear witness to the end of an empire built on human suffering.

Then, we’ll go home. We’ll hug our loved ones. We’ll tend our gardens and watch the sunset and remind ourselves that the darkness doesn’t win forever. Because it doesn’t. It never does. Light always finds a way through. Now I live in a cottage by the ocean in Maine. I have one kidney, a lot of scars, and a story that still doesn’t feel real sometimes.

But I’m alive. I’m healthy. I’m surrounded by people who love me. And Tyler and Veronica are both in prison. The kidney they stole failed. The network they were part of is destroyed. That’s not just an ending. That’s justice.