The regular observation room was on the third floor of the rehab center. There were no soundproof walls or temperature control.

I curled up on the hospital bed. My fingers dug into the sheets, my chest feeling so tight that I couldn't make a sound.

The door flew open. Quentin Stark rushed in, his white coat hanging open, every button undone. He was Aiden's attending physician and the only person in the entire center who knew the whole truth.

The moment he saw the empty patches on my chest where the monitoring pads were supposed to be, his face went completely white. He spat, "Who said you could rip off her monitoring pads?"

Mandy was sitting on the couch, flipping through my chart. She didn't even look up.

"Dr. Stark, I'm the acting director of this center." She pushed a board authorization letter onto the table. "While Aiden is away, this facility answers to me."

Quentin didn't spare it a glance. He came straight toward me, saying, "Geraldine can't stay here."

He reached out to reconnect my portable synchronizer, but two security guards stepped in front of him.

"Move!" Quentin barked.

Mandy stood up. "Why are you so protective of her? She's under suspicion for medical fraud, and you're guarding her even more fiercely than Aiden does."

He clenched his jaw so hard that it trembled. He knew that he couldn't tell her the truth. Aiden's artificial heart relied on the calibration of my primary frequency. It was the Ziegler family's highest-level secret. If that ever got out, Aiden would instantly become a walking target for the entire capital market.

All Quentin could do was force out hoarsely, "Her sync can't be interrupted. If something happens to her, Mr. Ziegler will die."

Mandy laughed. "So if anything happens to Geraldine, Aiden's life will be in danger?"

She walked to my bedside and looked down at me. "You really are something. Even Dr. Stark is willing to lie for you."

I opened my mouth, but the pain in my chest was so overwhelming that I couldn't squeeze out a single word.

The last traces of color drained from Quentin's face. "Ms. Sutherland, this is my last warning. If you stop now, I can still fix this."

"Fix this?" Mandy's smile turned icy. "What needs fixing is the money that she's scammed the center out of over the years."

She pointed at Quentin. "Take his badge."

The security guards grabbed him and dragged him toward the door.

"Mandy Sutherland, you're going to regret this!" he shouted.

She ignored him and turned to the head of the tech department. "Is the backup sync server on the top floor still running?"

He instantly blanched. "Ms. Sutherland, that can't be shut down. It's tied to Mr. Ziegler's remote artificial heart calibration parameters. If you cut that—"

"Aiden again." She cut him off, the look in her eyes darkening with every passing second. "Every single one of you is using him to pressure me."

She picked up a walkie-talkie. "Shut it off."

The tech head lunged for her, but a guard kicked him to the floor.

A few minutes later, the entire rehab center flickered into darkness for a split second. The monitor by my bed screeched with static as the heart-rate line went haywire. I clutched my chest and arched off the mattress, my whole body convulsing.

Out in the hallway, Quentin was pinned to the floor, the veins at his temples bulging. "Mandy, he'll die! Aiden really will die!"

Mandy stood at the foot of my bed, motionless as she watched me seize and twitch. "He can die as I watch, then."

Her phone rang. An encrypted number flashed on the screen, labeled with a single word—Iropa.

She answered.

Aiden's assistant, Sam Grant, sounded out of control. "Ms. Sutherland, Mr. Ziegler suddenly collapsed in the middle of a meeting. His artificial heart has gone into emergency protection mode! Did something happen at the rehab center?"

For a split second, Mandy's expression shifted. She looked down at me, taking in the cold sweat that drenched my hairline and my ragged breathing.

Whatever flicker of doubt she'd felt vanished from her eyes, replaced by open mockery. "This is a whole performance, isn't it?"

Sam was still shouting on the other end of the line. "Ms. Sutherland? Can you hear me?"

She hung up, turned off her phone, and tossed it back into her bag. "Aiden has an entire Iropan medical team with him. He doesn't need some con artist to save his life."

I lay on the cold, hard bed and listened to my heartbeat, feeling my heart sink with every brutal thud.

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."

By the time Mandy convened a hearing, I could no longer stand. I was brought into the rehab center's first-floor conference hall in a wheelchair.

Every seat was filled. Board representatives, legal counsel, the head nurse, the head of security, and even a compliance consultant they'd rushed in at the last minute were present. Their eyes were filled with pity, scrutiny, and disgust as they landed on me.

Mandy stood in front of the main screen, looking perfectly made up and without a single wrinkle in her dress.

Meanwhile, my hospital gown was soaked with cold sweat. The skin beneath my collarbone was raw and inflamed from the monitoring pads being ripped off and reapplied over and over.

She turned on the screen.

"Thank you all for coming. We're here today to deal with an ugly scandal that's been festering in this rehab center for years," she said.

So-called rebate agreements and offshore transfer records flashed onto the display.

Her voice was clear and steady. "Geraldine Lane, an orphan. She's not an employee of Ziegler Group, nor is she part of any medical or R&D team. Yet, she has occupied the highest-level suite in this rehab center for an extended period, enjoying Ziegler Group's private medical resources.

"Preliminary findings indicate that she colluded with equipment suppliers, fabricated a medical condition, and embezzled special project funds."

A low murmur swept through the crowd.

"So that's why she's always on the top floor."

"I heard she doesn't have to do anything at all. She just lies there all day."

"Did she manage to scam Mr. Ziegler somehow?"

I kept my eyes lowered and stayed silent. There was no point in explaining anything. Mandy wasn't looking for the truth. She just wanted me convicted.

She turned to the nurses. "Tell everyone what Geraldine usually does up on the top floor."

The head nurse stood first. She glanced at Mandy, then said in a low voice, "Ms. Lane doesn't participate in any treatment work."

Another nurse chimed in. "She spends most of the day resting. There are dedicated staff handling her food, environment, and medication."

A third nurse said bluntly, "We don't really understand why she has access to such high-end equipment."

At the door, Noelle was held back by two security guards, crying as she shouted, "That's not how it is! Ms. Lane's monitoring data is directly linked to Mr. Ziegler's system!"

She didn't manage to get any further. The guards dragged her out.

A satisfied smile played on Mandy's lips. "You all heard the truth."

I slowly lifted my head and looked at the people who had just testified. I committed their faces to memory, one at a time. It wasn't for revenge—I was just afraid that no one would know what they had done after I died.

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the entrance. Quentin was brought in. There were bruises on his face, and his eyes were bloodshot. Still, the first thing he did was look at me.

"Geraldine!" he shouted.

Mandy smiled pleasantly. "You're just in time, Dr. Stark."

She pointed to the spot beneath my collarbone. "You previously stated that Geraldine has a Ziegler Group core medical chip implanted in her body, correct?"

Quentin's expression shifted drastically. "She didn't steal that. That's a synchronization chip personally approved and signed off by Mr. Ziegler. It can't be removed. Whoever removes it will be held responsible for the consequences."

That was exactly what Mandy had been waiting for. She turned back to the room. "You all heard that, right? She's not an employee of Ziegler Group, yet she has the company's highest-level medical chip embedded in her body. This isn't simple fraud anymore. It's theft of core technology."

Quentin roared, "Mandy Sutherland! That chip is connected to—"

"Shut him up."

The security guards moved instantly, pinning him down and gagging him.

Mandy sauntered up to me, leaned down, and gently straightened my messy collar. She said softly, "I gave you a chance, Geraldine. You're the one who refused to admit your guilt."

She raised her hand. "I'm removing the chip right here and now so that it can be sent for analysis."

My eyes widened. "You can't do that."

For the first time, I truly struggled. "Mandy, the chip can't leave my body."

She held me down by the shoulders. "Scared now?"

My breathing turned ragged. "He's already on his way."

She was taken aback for a second before she laughed. "Even if Aiden comes back, he'll only thank me for getting rid of a fraud like you."

I was strapped onto an operating chair. No anesthesia was administered.

Quentin was gagged, leaving him unable to do anything but watch, his eyes bulging so badly that they looked like they would pop out of their sockets.

When the cold scalpel pressed against the skin beneath my collarbone, every muscle in my body stretched tight.

The first cut broke the skin, immediately drawing blood. Pain coursed through me; I clenched my teeth so hard that they nearly shattered.

Forceps probed into the wound, clamping down on the synchronization chip buried under my skin. At the same time, the monitoring screens all around the hall all flared red.

[Risk of primary frequency interruption. Warning: Remote artificial heart shutdown imminent.]

Mandy didn't even look at them. She kept her eyes locked on mine and gave a vicious yank. In that instant, my vision went dark.

But right before I blacked out, I heard the rehab center's doors slam open. Someone burst into the conference room, pushing a wheelchair.

Aiden sat in the wheelchair, his face as white as a sheet. His gaze locked onto the bloody incision beneath my collarbone.

The next second, the alarm on his artificial heart went off at maximum volume. He clutched at his chest and toppled out of the wheelchair, collapsing right at Mandy's feet.