Part 1The Broken Heiress Destroys the Girl Who Stole My Life

It was Christmas Eve, and I was pushing my cart, selling roasted fish & chips outside an upscale preschool in Astoria.

A luxury car, a Rolls-Royce Ghost, glided past my stall. When I recognized the custom license plate—the one he’d always been so annoyingly proud of—I instinctively pulled the brim of my wool cap lower.

But the small boy in the back seat rolled down his window. He pointed a chubby finger at my stall and yelled, “Daddy, I want those chips!”

Marcus Sterling pulled the car over. I knew the moment he took a step toward me, pulling his son along, that I couldn't hide. The streetlamp cut through the snow flurries, catching my face.

He froze. “Sera. Seraphina, is that really you?”

His voice was a strained whisper, quickly hardening. “I thought you died in prison.”

Chelsea Hayes, draped in a mink coat that had likely cost my father’s entire year’s salary before everything, rushed to his side. Her face turned icy. “Marcus, she’s a felon, a convicted killer! Her mind is twisted. What if she hurts our baby?”

Marcus snatched his son up and took a panicked step back, his disgust a palpable wave. He bundled the child into the car and sped away, leaving only exhaust fumes and fresh snow.

I remained rooted in the flurries, my voice mechanically calling out to passersby.

Once, I would have thrown myself in front of a moving train for Marcus Sterling. Now, I felt nothing. The five years in confinement had scraped away every last speck of love, leaving behind only polished, brittle glass.

Chapter 1

It was Christmas Eve, and I was pushing my cart, selling roasted fish & chips outside an upscale preschool in Astoria.

A luxury car, a Rolls-Royce Ghost, glided past my stall. When I recognized the custom license plate—the one he’d always been so annoyingly proud of—I instinctively pulled the brim of my wool cap lower.

But the small boy in the back seat rolled down his window. He pointed a chubby finger at my stall and yelled, “Daddy, I want those chips!”

Marcus Sterling pulled the car over. I knew the moment he took a step toward me, pulling his son along, that I couldn't hide. The streetlamp cut through the snow flurries, catching my face.

He froze. “Sera. Seraphina, is that really you?”

His voice was a strained whisper, quickly hardening. “I thought you died in prison.”

Chelsea Hayes, draped in a mink coat that had likely cost my father’s entire year’s salary before everything, rushed to his side. Her face turned icy. “Marcus, she’s a felon, a convicted killer! Her mind is twisted. What if she hurts our baby?”

Marcus snatched his son up and took a panicked step back, his disgust a palpable wave. He bundled the child into the car and sped away, leaving only exhaust fumes and fresh snow.

I remained rooted in the flurries, my voice mechanically calling out to passersby.

Once, I would have thrown myself in front of a moving train for Marcus Sterling. Now, I felt nothing. The five years in confinement had scraped away every last speck of love, leaving behind only polished, brittle glass.

* * *

The ground was slick with smashed fish fillets where a child had trampled them.

Each piece was a five-dollar loss.

A shame.

I crouched down, scraping the pulpy mess into the slop pail, my movements slow and deliberate.

“Oh my God, did you see that? That was the ex-fiancée of Marcus Sterling, the CEO!”

“I heard she killed a man, right? News said she got five years!”

“A killer? She’s a killer, and she’s selling food outside a school? That’s insane! She must be mentally unstable.”

“Keep your kids close, close. Who knows what kind of vendetta a person like that might be nursing…”

The parents collecting their children hadn’t dispersed yet. They eyed me, whispering behind gloved hands. I calmly tended to fry my chips, acting as if the subject of their morbid fascination was someone else entirely.

Five years ago, I was Seraphina Jones: the shining talent at the Astoria Conservatory, the Golden Girl, and the fiancée of Marcus Sterling, heir to Sterling Global.

Marcus, back then, would charter a jet to bring me to the Swiss Alps just because I'd casually mentioned I wanted to see fresh powder. I genuinely believed we were untouchable, until Chelsea Hayes arrived.

Chelsea was the impoverished student I'd mentored and financially supported for four years. After graduation, I used my influence to get her a junior position at Sterling Global. I never imagined she would repay me by sliding into my bed—or rather, Marcus’s bed—and then, while I was locked away, marrying him and bearing his child.

Once the crowds finally thinned, I packed my cart and pushed it toward my sub-level studio. I struggled to lock the cart near the stairwell entrance. As I turned, I saw the man standing at my door.

The motion-sensor light in the hall had been broken for months, but I recognized the silhouette instantly: Leo Maxwell.

He was the younger brother of a woman I’d met inside—a tough woman who became a reluctant protector. He was also my only neighbor.

He was holding a small plastic bag containing a few tubes of medicated ointment. By the faint sliver of light escaping my cracked door, he saw my hands.

The fresh, raw blister where I'd fumbled by the hot oil, the panic of pulling my cap down—it stood out starkly against the landscape of old, thick scars that already covered my skin.

Leo's brow instantly furrowed, and the old, jagged scar running above his left eyebrow twitched, giving his face a look of rugged severity. To me, it was the only source of warmth I had in this frozen world.

“What happened to your hand?”

His voice was deep, raw, like sand and gravel.

I automatically tucked my hand into my sleeve, forcing a strained smile. “It’s nothing. Just a small burn. What are you doing here?”

Leo said nothing. He simply stepped forward, took my wrist, and pulled me inside. “Let’s go.”

My basement unit was an icebox—no heat, just damp concrete. Leo, with a strange sort of domesticity, flipped on the switch of my tiny space heater. The rusty coils began to glow a muted orange, casting a meager halo of warmth.

He made me sit on the unit’s only folding chair, then knelt on the cold floor in front of me. He twisted open a tube of ointment and carefully began to dab it onto the burn with a cotton swab. The medication was cool, mentholated, and it finally stifled the throbbing, raw heat.

I looked down at him. He was a man of few words; we’d exchanged maybe ten sentences since I moved in. But I knew, with absolute certainty, that without his silent help—an extra blanket, a shared meal, a word with a sketchy landlord—I might not have survived that first month out of the system.

“I saw him today. And her,” I admitted, the sentence hanging unfinished in the cold air.

Leo’s body went rigid. He didn't look up, but his voice was tight. “You haven’t let it go, have you, Sera?”