Chapter 6: The Guardian Heart
1179 Words
The phone screen dimmed within seconds, but the words on it felt permanently burned behind my eyes.
The only remaining heart available for donation.
I placed the phone back on the nightstand with violently trembling hands. Beside me, Adrian shifted slightly in his sleep. His muscular arm, veins prominent, was still wrapped around my waist, locking my body in an embrace that once felt like passion but now felt like a deadly grip.
I held my breath, staring at the face of the man who had just given me heavenly pleasure and a death sentence at the same time. How could a face carved like an angel’s hide a plan so monstrous? All this time, I had thought his obsession with me was a form of twisted love or distorted revenge. But the truth was far worse.
I was nothing more than a walking spare part.
Slowly, I pushed his arm away. I had to get out of this room. I had to find out who needed my heart.
I slipped out, wearing only a silk robe, and headed toward Adrian’s study, the room I had glimpsed yesterday. The hallway of the apartment felt colder and quieter, like a hospital corridor at midnight. The ticking of the wall clock sounded like a countdown to my death.
The study wasn’t locked. Adrian was too confident, believing I would never dare to defy him again after what happened last night. I stepped inside, inhaling the scent of sandalwood that had become his signature, and went straight to his large desk. I began rummaging through the drawers. Empty. Only business documents I didn’t understand.
Then my eyes fell on a small safe hidden behind my painting—the one he called his “collection of souls.” I tried to think. My birthday? Wrong. Our wedding date? Wrong.
Ten years ago.
I entered the date of the accident he often mentioned.
Click.
The safe opened.
Inside, there were no stacks of money or gold bars. Only a dark blue medical folder and a small unlabelled medicine bottle. I opened the folder with a pounding heart—ironic, the very heart that might soon be harvested.
A photo of a middle-aged woman was attached inside. Her face looked strikingly similar to Adrian’s.
Elena Vance. His mother.
But what almost made me scream was the note beneath it:
End-stage heart failure. Requires immediate transplant.
Tissue compatibility 99.9%: Elara Pramudya.
“So, you’ve found what you were looking for, Elara?”
The voice came from the darkness in the corner of the room.
I jolted, dropping the folder as its papers scattered across the marble floor. Adrian stood there, leaning against the door that was now tightly closed. He was wearing only black trousers, his broad chest exposed, revealing an old scar that now looked like a warning.
“Y-you… you married me just to kill me?” My voice broke. Tears of rage welled up in my eyes. “All those kisses, all that attention… you only wanted to make sure my heart stayed healthy for your mother?”
Adrian stepped closer slowly, like a predator unhurriedly cornering its wounded prey. He didn’t look remorseful. His face was cold as ice.
“This world is about exchange, Elara,” he said, his baritone voice calm—which somehow made him a thousand times more terrifying. “Your family regained money and status. Your mother returned to her luxurious life. And in return, I get what I need.”
“This is murder!” I screamed, trying to run past him, but Adrian swiftly grabbed my arm and slammed me against the wall. He pinned my body, his face only inches from mine.
“Murder?” Adrian let out a dark chuckle. “To the world, you’ll die in a tragic accident or commit suicide because of marital depression. No one will question it, Elara. Not even your parents—especially after I paid off all their debts. They already sold you to me completely.”
I punched his chest with my weak fists. “I hate you! I’d rather die now than give you anything!”
Adrian caught both my wrists and pressed them against the wall above my head. He stared at me with a gaze that was no longer just obsession, but pure madness.
“You don’t have a choice. But there’s one thing you got wrong.”
He leaned his lips close to my ear, his hot breath sending chills down my spine.
“I have no intention of killing you that quickly,” he whispered hoarsely. “My mother still has a few months. And during those months, I intend to enjoy every inch of you. I want to make sure that before you die, you truly become mine—body, soul, and every heartbeat you’re so proud of.”
He kissed my neck roughly, sucking at my skin as if marking his territory for the last time. I struggled, but every touch now felt like a surgical blade slicing slowly.
“Why not now?” my sobs burst out. “Just take it now! Don’t make me love you only for you to destroy me!”
Adrian froze. He pulled back slightly and stared into my tear-filled eyes. For a fraction of a second, I saw a flicker of doubt—or perhaps pain—in his gaze. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by an impenetrable cold mask.
“Because I’m selfish, Elara,” he said, brushing away my tears with his rough thumb. “I spent ten years searching for you. I’m not letting you go to the operating table before I’m satisfied with owning you. You are both my cure and my poison.”
He released his grip and neatly picked up the medical folder from the floor.
“Go back to your room. Starting today, my personal doctor will monitor your diet and activities. Don’t try to run. Every step you take is being watched. If you try to hurt yourself, I’ll make sure Bella dies first before your heart stops beating.”
I stood frozen in the magnificent study, watching his back as he walked out. I realized that I was no longer a wife, no longer even a prisoner—but a fragile object guarded carefully so it would remain intact until the moment it was destroyed.
I touched my chest, feeling the heartbeat that now felt like a ticking bomb. Adrian Vance didn’t just want my body.
He wanted the organ that gave me life.
And the most terrifying part was… in the middle of all this fear, I could still feel the lingering warmth of his kiss on my skin. His obsession had begun to poison my sanity.
I had to get out of here. If I couldn’t save my heart, I had to make sure that when Adrian finally took it, there would be no trace of love or life left in it for his mother.
I would become the most bitter heart he had ever tasted.
- Writer
