If you could save someone's life, would you? Anyone's? Ali's older brother has a swastika tattooed on his knuckles, a prison ID number for nearly beating an immigrant to death, and spent his teenage years ruthlessly persecuting Ali for being gay. Blood may be thicker than water, but Ali has spent most of his life desperate to prove he is nothing like Tony. A committed vegetarian, charity-supporter, and blood donor, Ali would do anything for anyone. Ali may share parentage with Tony, but he’s determined not to share anything else if he can help it. So when Tony contracts leukaemia, and Ali is the only match for the urgently-needed bone marrow transplant, Ali is caught between two equally awful choices: to refuse and condemn a man to death, or to donate. And in donating, save the life of the man who nearly murdered Ali's Iraqi boyfriend?

Thicker Than Bone

And Dr Jayaraman was not a woman to beat around the bush. “It’s leukaemia.”


“What?” Ali whispered at his elbow.


Yazid blinked as the room tilted for a sharp second. There was a roaring in his ears. Leukaemia. Leukaemia.He had cancer?


“I’ve sent your samples up to oncology for further testing and I will be consulting with Dr Williams this afternoon to start a treatment plan for you,” she said briskly. “But the lab were quite adamant that was what they found.”


“Yazid.” Her sharp demeanour softened. “I appreciate this is by no means good news, but there is a good element to it. Your symptoms are not advanced or severe, and you are in very good physical health otherwise. You are at an immediate advantage over the majority of cancer patients.”


Yazid wanted to hear her, but his brain felt stuck on that word. Leukaemia. He had leukaemia? That was crazy, he was twenty-five years old!


Chapter 93