Chapter 1The Heart That Witnessed My Death

My sister officially recognized a bionic experiment as her brother in front of a swarm of flashing cameras, declaring she would leave her entire estate to him.

She did it for one reason: to flush me out of hiding.

She had already filed a lawsuit against me over a heart transplant, claiming I’d defrauded her by swapping her ten-million-dollar mechanical heart for a defective biological one. But when the court date arrived, I was a no-show.

Desperate and furious, she tracked down my last known place of employment—a sprawling, grease-stained graveyard of a factory on the industrial outskirts of the city. She grabbed the first person she saw and demanded to know where I was.

the floor manager looked at her, his face a mask of bewilderment. "You mean Emmett? Lady, Emmett died three years ago. Sudden cardiac arrest."

He paused, a grimace flickering across his features. "It was a mess. He got pulled right into the intake of one of the heavy presses. There wasn't enough left of him to bury."

All of this happened in the seventh year since I had "exchanged" hearts with my sister’s prized bionic project. For seven years, the experiments had been failing due to rejection issues. And for seven years, my sister had laid every ounce of blame at my feet, cursing me for "hiding" the fact that my own heart was diseased from the start.

* * *

Vicky froze for a split second, then waved her hand dismissively, her face twisting into a mask of impatient scorn.

"If you're going to lie to me, at least make it logical," she snapped. "I personally designed that mechanical heart. With regular maintenance and charging, it’s built to beat for over a hundred years. It doesn't just 'stop.'"

She let out a sharp, cold laugh, her eyes sharp with disbelief. "Emmett is such a drama queen. Faking a job in a dump like this to play the victim is one thing, but hiring an actor to tell me he’s dead? That’s low, even for him."

The manager shifted uncomfortably, rubbing his grease-stained hands together. "Ma'am, I’m not joking. Emmett is gone. I don't know what he was to you—did the kid owe you money or something?" He hesitated, then added in a hushed tone, "A few debt collectors came by a while back, looking to squeeze him for cash. But once they saw the police report, even they had to give it up."

Vicky’s brow furrowed when she heard him call me a "kid," but the second half of his sentence set her temper ablaze.

"What exactly are you implying? That he was into loan sharks?" Her face darkened instantly. "I wired him nearly a million dollars a month for living expenses. How could he possibly burn through that and end up owing collectors?!"

She spun around, shouting at the empty, echoing rafters of the factory. "Emmett! Get out here right now! Did you pick up some disgusting habit? Is that why you’re hiding? A son of the Stanley family, hunted for debts—don't you have any shame?"

When only the rhythmic clanking of machinery answered her, she lunged forward, grabbing the manager by his collar. Her eyes were feral. "Stop the act. I’m his sister. Tell him to get out here this second!"

"The heart he gave Sam is failing. It’s causing Sam constant pain. He needs to answer for what he did in court, right now!"

The manager gasped for air, his face turning a mottled purple. "Ma'am... please... let go... I’m telling you the truth. Emmett is dead!"

Vicky shoved him away with a disgusted grunt. "Enough. Take me to where he stayed. I want to see exactly how long he thinks he can keep this charade up."

Resigned, the manager led her deeper into the bowels of the plant. They moved past deafening workstations and rows of dilapidated employee housing that looked more like shipping containers than homes. Vicky held a silk handkerchief to her nose, her eyes scanning the squalor with elitist disdain.

"Hiding in a hole like this just to avoid a deposition... you’ve really grown a spine since I last saw you, Emmett," she muttered under her breath.

Finally, they stopped near a literal heap of scrap metal and refuse. The manager pointed to a few dust-covered cardboard boxes tucked into a corner.

"There. That’s everything he left behind. Nobody ever came to claim it, so we just piled it here."

Inside the boxes were a few faded t-shirts, a pair of sneakers with soles peeling off like dead skin, and some rusted tin lunchboxes. Vicky looked at my meager belongings, a smirk playing on her lips.

"The commitment to the bit is impressive. You even got the props right." She kicked one of the boxes over. "Do you really take me for a fool? As a Stanley, he had insurance on every hair on his head by the time he was five. You expect me to believe he’d touch this trash?"

The old clothes spilled into the dirt. A sneaker rolled into a muddy puddle. A lunchbox clattered across the concrete, its lid popping open to reveal a few crawling beetles.

Vicky’s jaw tightened. "Emmett, if you don't show yourself in the next ten seconds, don't bother calling me your sister ever again!"

She screamed into the void, but the only response was the indifferent roar of the machines.

Just then, a gust of wind swirled through the alleyway, carrying the faint, sweet scent of sandalwood incense. Vicky paused, her nostrils flaring. She followed the scent, her heels clicking sharply against the cracked pavement, until she reached a tiny, sagging shack behind the dormitories.

She pushed the door open. The space was barely six feet wide. There was a cot made of plywood and a scarred wooden desk.

On the desk sat a black-and-white photograph in a simple frame. In the picture, a young man was smiling—a peaceful, gentle expression I hadn't worn in years.

It was my funeral portrait.