Her Heartbeat, His Cage

1 My heart beats with corpse-like steadiness. Fever, blood loss—nothing changes it. At eighteen, the Heustons locked me in their penthouse ICU. Not for love. Cindy’s one-of-a-kind bio-neural heart needed my rhythm as its core frequency. My steadiness kept her alive. Three months ago, a nurse bumped a monitor patch. Five minutes later, Cindy’s heart stopped cold in Europe. By morning, the agency was bankrupt, staff blacklisted. The penthouse elevator ran silent after that. Then Cindy left for Europe. Garrett Montgomery, her fiancé, took over. He slammed down my nine-figure medical bill. “Millions for this? A useless parasite?” He tore off my patches, killed the sync lines, and shoved me onto a treadmill. “Ten miles. Fail, and you’re out.” I gripped the rails. My heart hammered—first time ever. He killed the alarm instantly. He didn’t know. Twelve time zones away, Cindy’s heart was spiraling with mine. … Within three seconds, the treadmill belt went from a slow walk to a sprint. Two security guards grabbed my arms, pinning me to the handrails. The spot on my chest where the patch had been ripped off burned like fire. “Crank the speed up.” Garrett stood behind the glass wall, arms crossed, watching coldly. The nurse paled. “Mr. Montgomery, he cannot engage in strenuous exercise…” “The Heuston family spends a hundred million a year to maintain his heartbeat,” Garrett sneered, his eyes narrowing. “Let’s see just how precious it actually is.” The speed climbed to level ten. My knees slammed against the edge of the belt, and my vision went dark. Alarms screamed through the intercom: “Mother frequency lost. Remote synchronization risk rising.” I gripped the handrails, my knuckles turning white, my voice shredded by gasps. “Don’t… don’t cut the synchronization cable.” Garrett stepped in, leaning down to look at me. “Still acting?” He slapped a stack of annual bills against my face. Maintenance for the climate-controlled chamber, salaries for the medical team, imported drugs, dedicated servers: the numbers were staggering. He picked up a page and read it aloud. “One hundred and thirty million a year.” “What value do you bring to the Heustons?” “Nothing. You just lie there and breathe.” Cold sweat poured down my forehead, and my heart felt as though it were being squeezed by a giant fist. It wasn’t that my heart was weak; it was that if my heart rate spiraled, Cindy’s artificial heart across the globe would collapse with it. “Mr. Montgomery,” I gasped, the words catching in my throat, “stop this now… while you still can.” He slapped me across the face. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. A young nurse, Gwen, rushed forward to grab a spare monitoring patch. “Asher can’t run anymore!” With a flick of Garrett’s finger, the guards dragged Gwen away. The patch was tossed into the trash. “You’re suspended,” Garrett barked. “Say one more word, and you’ll never work in medicine again.” Gwen froze, terrified, unable to move. When the treadmill finally ground to a halt, my legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the floor. The pressure in my chest grew heavier, but the alarm suddenly cut out. Garrett had switched off the display. The room fell silent, save for my ragged breathing. He glanced toward the penthouse and smiled. “Go search his room. I want to see what kind of garbage the Heustons have been funding all these years.” Two legal consultants and guards stormed the penthouse. By the time I was dragged back up, my room was in ruins. The climate chamber was open, vials of rare medication were scattered across the floor, and the safe by my bed was forced open. A lawyer handed Garrett a stack of papers. “We found these, Mr. Montgomery.” Garrett scanned them, a slow, victorious smirk spreading across his face. “Kickback agreements with medical equipment suppliers.” He pulled out another page. “Offshore bank transfers.” He looked down at me. “What do you have to say for yourself, Asher?” I stared at the papers, a dry laugh bubbling in my throat. They weren’t mine. But I didn’t even have the strength to stand, let alone defend myself. Garrett had already written my sentence. “Colluding with suppliers, embezzling Heuston medical resources, and falsifying medical records to steal special funds.” He slapped the papers against my cheek. “As of right now, Asher’s penthouse privileges are revoked. Transfer him to a standard observation ward.” I forced my head up. “No.” The penthouse environment could not be broken. The temperature control, the silence, the servers, the patches; they were all vital. But Garrett only saw my desperation as fear. “What? Can’t survive without your luxury suite?” He knelt, gripping my jaw. “Then go ahead and die.” As they dragged me out, the central monitoring screen in the facility flashed a violent red. “Mother Frequency Lost.” “Remote Artificial Heart Synchronization Failure.” “Emergency Contact: Cindy Heuston.” Garrett looked at the screen, expressionless. With a click, he turned off the entire alarm system. At that exact moment, in a high-rise conference room in Europe. Cindy was leaning over to sign an acquisition treaty. Her pen suddenly scratched violently across the paper. In the next second, the artificial heart inside her chest let out a shrill, warning shriek. The standard ward on the third floor was loud and lacked proper climate control. I lay curled on the bed, fingers digging into the sheets, the pressure in my chest making it impossible to breathe. The door was kicked open. Dr. Alistair rushed in, his white coat unbuttoned, his face pale with panic. He was Cindy’s primary physician, the only doctor who knew the full truth. Seeing my bare chest, he turned on Garrett. “Who authorized the removal of his monitoring patches?” Garrett was lounging on the sofa, flipping through my chart. “Dr. Alistair, I am the temporary director of this facility.” He pushed a board authorization letter across the desk. “With Cindy away, I call the shots.” Alistair didn’t even look at the paper. He rushed to my bedside. “Asher can’t be in this room.” As he reached for a portable synchronizer, two guards blocked him. “Move!” Alistair roared. Garrett stood up. “Why so protective? He is a fraud, and yet you treat him like he’s more precious than Cindy herself.” Alistair clenched his jaw. He couldn’t speak. The mother-frequency connection was a closely guarded Heuston secret. If leaked, Cindy would become an immediate target in the financial markets. He forced the words out: “His synchronization cannot be interrupted. If anything happens to him, Ms. Heuston will die.” Garrett laughed. “If Asher gets hurt, Cindy dies? Dr. Alistair, I didn’t think a respectable physician like you would help a con artist spin his lies.” I tried to speak, but my lungs felt like they were filled with cement. Alistair’s face drained of color. “Mr. Montgomery, this is my final warning. Stop this now, and we can still salvage her status.” “Salvage?” Garrett’s smile was freezing. “What we need to salvage are the millions he stole.” He pointed at Alistair. “Confiscate his ID badge.” The guards pinned Alistair and dragged him out. “You’ll regret this, Garrett! You’ll kill her!” Garrett ignored the screams, turning to the IT director. “Is the backup server in the penthouse still active?” The IT director trembled. “Mr. Montgomery, we cannot shut that down. It carries the remote calibration parameters for Ms. Heuston’s artificial heart. If we cut it…” “Cindy again.” Garrett’s eyes darkened. “Every single one of you uses her name to threaten me.” He raised his walkie-talkie. “Shut it down.” The IT director lunged forward, but a guard kicked him to the floor. A moment later, the lights in the entire building flickered and dimmed. The monitor beside my bed screeched with static. My heart rate line went completely erratic. I clutched my chest, arching off the bed in violent convulsions. Outside, Alistair was pinned to the floor, veins bulging on his forehead. “Garrett! She’s going to die! Cindy is actually going to die!” Garrett stood over me, watching me convulse without moving a muscle. “Then let her.” His phone rang. An encrypted number from Europe. He answered. His assistant’s voice was frantic: “Mr. Montgomery! Ms. Heuston collapsed during the meeting! Her artificial heart has gone into emergency safe-mode! Is something happening at the facility?” Garrett’s expression flickered. He looked down at me, taking in my cold sweat and ragged, shallow breaths. Then, the hesitation vanished, replaced by cold cynicism. “They’re really playing the part well, aren’t they?” “Mr. Montgomery? Can you hear me?” the assistant screamed. Garrett hung up, turned off his phone, and threw it into his bag. “Cindy is surrounded by Europe’s finest medical minds. She doesn’t need a con artist to save her life.” I lay on the cold mattress, listening to my heartbeat slow down, beat by agonizing beat. By the time I was wheeled into the examination room, my fingers were shaking uncontrollably. The electrodes pressed against my skin felt ice-cold, and the waves on the monitor remained wild and chaotic. Dr. Alistair was pinned outside the door, his clothes covered in dust, his eyes fixed on me. “Asher, hang on!” I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face wouldn’t cooperate. It felt as though invisible wires were tightening around my chest, squeezing the life out of me. Dr. Kingsley, the chief of medicine, rushed in holding a tablet. He showed Garrett the split-screen data: my chaotic heart rate and Cindy’s remote cardiac logs. The timestamps, the spikes, and the moments of instability aligned perfectly. “The moment you ripped off his patch, her heart destabilized,” Kingsley said, his voice trembling. “When you cut the server, she collapsed. Now his heart is failing, and her artificial heart is entering critical shutdown.” Garrett smiled. “Data can be falsified. Everyone in this facility answers to Cindy. If you wanted to spin a lie to protect him, it would take you five minutes.” “Garrett, this is a human life!” Kingsley pleaded. “Which is why we are getting to the bottom of this.” Garrett forced a pen into my shaking hand. “Sign it.” I looked down. It was a voluntary confession of medical fraud and embezzlement. I managed a weak, raspy laugh. “Garrett… you aren’t punishing me. You are destroying her heart with your own hands.” His expression turned icy. “Still trying to threaten me?” “I’m not threatening you,” I whispered. “I’m trying to save her.” Garrett grabbed my wrist, forcing the pen down, scratching the paper and my finger. “You’re trying to save her? You’re just a parasite plucked from an orphanage.” He turned to the nurse. “Inject the stimulant.” Kingsley tried to stop him. “No! His rhythm is already fractured! A stimulant will trigger a complete cardiac collapse!” Garrett grabbed the syringe himself and drove it into my vein. My heart felt as though it had been dropped into boiling oil. The monitor shrieked. I slipped from the chair, knees hitting the floor, my vision fading. In the darkness, I remembered the first time Cindy met me. She was pale, hooked to machines, asking gently, “Are you willing?” I had asked what would happen if I said no. She said, “Then we won’t do it.” But I had stayed because she didn’t force me. Now, someone else was forcing me to die. At that moment, in the European ICU, Cindy opened her eyes, ripped off her oxygen mask, and gasped, “Prepare the jet. We’re going home.” By the time Garrett convened the board hearing, I couldn’t even stand. I was wheeled into the main auditorium. The room was packed with board members, lawyers, and legal advisors, their eyes filled with pity, suspicion, and disgust. Garrett stood at the front, his suit pristine. “Today, we are here to expose a massive fraud that has drained Heuston resources for years.” He projected the forged agreements onto the screen. “Asher, an orphan with no affiliation to the Heuston Group, has occupied our top-tier medical suite for years. We have reason to believe he colluded with suppliers to embezzle millions.” The room erupted into quiet whispers. Garrett turned to the nurses. “Tell everyone what Asher does in the penthouse.” The head nurse stood up. “He doesn’t participate in any research or treatment. He just rests while we cater to his every need.” Gwen tried to shout from the back of the room. “That’s because his monitoring data is directly connected to Ms. Heuston’s!” But the guards quickly dragged her out. Garrett smiled, satisfied. I looked up, committing their faces to memory. Not for revenge, but because if I died, someone needed to remember what they had done. The doors opened, and a bruised Dr. Alistair was brought in. Garrett pointed to my chest. “Dr. Alistair, you claimed Asher has a core proprietary chip implanted near his collarbone?” “That chip was authorized by Ms. Heuston herself,” Alistair spat. “It cannot be removed!” Garrett smirked. “An unauthorized civilian harboring proprietary Heuston technology. This is corporate espionage.” He stepped up to me. “Extract the chip. Send it to legal for analysis.” I panicked, struggling against the chair. “No… Garrett, don’t. She is on her way.” “Even if she returns, she will thank me for disposing of a leech.” I was pinned to the operating chair. No anesthesia. The scalpel sliced into my skin, and blood immediately soaked my shirt. The forceps reached in, grabbing the synchronizing chip near my collarbone. The main monitor flashed a violent red, warning of a complete communication failure. Garrett didn’t care. He pulled the forceps back, ripping the chip out. Just as darkness claimed me, the heavy double doors of the auditorium were blown open. Cindy, pale as a ghost, collapsed from her wheelchair directly at Garrett’s feet, her artificial heart alarm blaring at maximum volume.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455093”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel