The Tethered Heart is a dark romantic thriller about Isabella, an orphan from Bulgaria who comes to America to rebuild her life. Working in a factory and attending college, she focuses on her dreams of becoming an entrepreneur in control of her own fate, determined to make her way in the world before looking for love. When she is laid off from the factory, her only source of income, she takes a job as an exotic dancer. There she meets Karl, an ex-Marine home from Afghanistan, investigating the mob for the murder of a dear friend. He hunts down the mob, unaware that they have the police out looking for him, only the police plan a double cross. They want to use Karl as a tool against the mob. Looking at Karl, Isabella recalls a lost childhood crush. She begins to fall for Karl and sets her mind to pursue him, but the police capture him first. They surgically implant a GPS tracking chip in his back that has the capability of giving him a heart attack if he doesn't carry out their orders. Forced to cross a horrible line, he tries to avoid her but fails. As he confesses his mission to her, she tries to plumb the depths of his troubled soul, searching for that noble heart and trying to decide whether to follow her own heart or take the safe road, something she has never known before.