Chapter 3

By the time I was wheeled into the exam room, my fingers were shaking uncontrollably. The electrode pads were ice-cold against my skin; the sharp chill reached my bones. The lines on the monitor were still a mess.

Quentin was restrained out in the hallway. His white coat was smeared with dust, and his gaze was fixed on me. "Geraldine, hang in there."

I tried to force a smile but couldn't manage it. It felt like a thousand thin wires were cinched around my chest, tightening ring by ring.

The rehab center's director rushed in, his hair completely rumpled. He shoved a tablet in front of Mandy. On the screen were two sets of data. One was my own heart-rate waveform, and the other was the remote output from Aiden's artificial heart. The timestamps, the peaks, the instability pattern—every last detail was a perfect match.

He said shakily, "From the moment you removed Geraldine's monitoring pads, Mr. Ziegler's readings started going haywire. When you cut off the backup server, that's when he blacked out for the first time.

"Right now, Geraldine's heart rate is still in constant arrhythmia. Mr. Ziegler's artificial heart has already entered a state of critical risk."

For a second, Mandy's expression darkened. Then, she smiled mockingly. "Data can be faked."

The director was taken aback.

Mandy tossed the tablet onto the table. "This entire rehab center is staffed with Aiden's people. It'd only take a word from him for all of you to help Geraldine spin a lie, wouldn't it?"

The director cried anxiously, "Ms. Sutherland, we're talking about human lives!"

"That's exactly why I intend to get to the bottom of this." Mandy turned and motioned for the lawyer to hand something over. Then, she shoved a pen into my hand. "Sign this."

I looked down at the document. It read, "Voluntary Statement of Admission to Medical Fraud and Misappropriation of Special Medical Resources."

According to it, I had been faking my illness for years, colluding with doctors at the rehab center to scam the Ziegler family's medical resources.

I let out a hoarse laugh. My throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper. I croaked, "Mandy Sutherland."

She stared straight at me.

I lifted my head and enunciated, "You're not punishing me. You're personally destroying Aiden's heart."

Her face frosted over. "Threatening me, are you?"

My fingers shook so hard around the pen that I could barely hold on. "I'm not threatening you. I'm trying to save his life."

Mandy suddenly leaned down and clamped a hand around my wrist, gripping it viciously. The pen tip ripped across the paper, slicing through it and into the pad of my finger.

"Save him? Who do you think you are?" She sneered. "What Aiden needs is a top-tier medical team and the most advanced artificial heart technology in the world. He doesn't need some piece of trash picked up from an orphanage."

She let go of me and turned to a nurse. "Give her a stimulant."

The nurse turned deathly pale. She didn't dare move.

The director hurried forward to stop her. "You can't do that! Her primary frequency is already in chaos. If you inject a stimulant, it'll trigger complete cardiac collapse!"

Mandy picked up the syringe and walked over to me. She said icily, "You're good at putting on an act, aren't you? Show me just how steady your heartbeat really is, then."

I went rigid the moment the needle pierced my vein. The icy medication flooded my bloodstream. A few seconds later, it felt like someone had grabbed my heart and hurled it into a vat of boiling oil.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I could hear my own heartbeat losing its rhythm, pounding so wildly that it felt like it was going to smash through my ribs. The monitor let out a piercing shriek.

The director lunged toward me, but the security guards tackled him. Out in the hallway, Quentin struggled against the guards restraining him, his eyes bloodshot. "Mandy Sutherland, you're insane!"

I slid off the exam chair. My knees slammed onto the floor, but I couldn't feel the pain. My vision kept going dark around the edges.

In the haze, I suddenly remembered the first time I'd met Aiden all those years ago. He'd been in a wheelchair, his face as white as a sheet and his chest covered in tubes and wires.

The doctor said my heartbeat could keep him alive, but all he did was lower his head and ask me, "Will you do it?"

I'd been so young then. I'd asked him, "What if I say I won't?"

He'd been silent for a long time before finally saying, "Then forget it."

But in the end, I'd stayed. Because that day, even when he'd been on the brink of death, he hadn't forced me to do anything.

And now, someone else was doing the job for him. They were forcing me to die.

…

At the same time, in an emergency room in Iropa, Aiden briefly opened his eyes. The doctor was about to fit an oxygen mask over his face when he shoved it aside.

His chest heaved violently. The alarm from the artificial heart was shrill enough to split eardrums.

Sam leaned over him. "Mr. Ziegler, you can't move!"

Aiden's voice was hoarse. "Prep the jet. We're going home."