Part 3The Broken Heiress Destroys the Girl Who Stole My Life

I grabbed the phone like a lifeline, screaming and pounding on the glass partition.

“Marcus! Our baby is gone! They kill our baby!”

“It was Chelsea! She must have bought people inside to hurt me! Marcus, you have to help me!”

He looked at me with a deep, crushing aversion.

“Sera, what are you doing to yourself? Why have you become this person?”

He shook his head, his face etched with disapproval. “Compulsive lying. Hysteria. Chelsea is the kindest soul I know. She wouldn't harm an insect. Why would she hire someone to hurt you?”

“Are you so desperate for sympathy that you’d fabricate a pregnancy? Why don’t you just say you have cancer next?”

“I’m not lying! You can check the medical records…” I choked out, desperately.

“Enough.” He cut me off, cold and final. He stood up and adjusted his expensive cufflink.

“Just serve your time. You’ll be out soon. I’ll make it up to you with a spectacular wedding.”

He walked away. He never looked back.

That was the moment I died inside.

Back in the cell block, the queen-inmate, seeing my shattered expression, cackled savagely.

“Still calling out for your Prince Charming? We must have been too soft on you.”

“I heard these hands were meant for the piano. Such beautiful hands. A real tragedy.”

Then came a sickening snap.

My right index and middle fingers were stomped on, deliberately.

Without proper treatment, the bones fused crookedly. The joints twisted and knotted, resembling the brittle branches of a dead tree. Now, I couldn't even hold a pair of chopsticks without a tremor of pain when the weather changed, let alone touch a piano key.

“Done.”

Leo’s voice pulled me back to the cold present.

My hand was carefully bandaged. The stark white gauze glowed faintly in the dim orange light of the space heater.

I realized Leo was watching me intently, an emotion I couldn't quite place churning in his dark eyes.

“You’re shaking,” he stated.

I looked down at my disfigured, knotty fingers. He was right. I was shaking because Marcus had broken his promise. The promised "short stay" had turned into the full five years.

And my parents… they didn’t want me back.

The few chances I had for a call home were always met with a busy signal. The one time the call connected, it was Chelsea.

“Sera, stop calling. Mom and Dad get chest pains whenever your name comes up. Their bodies can’t take the stress.”

Mom and Dad? My mind went blank.

My mother quickly snatched the receiver. “You have the gall to call this house? You disgraced the Jones name!”

“Drunk driving, manslaughter… how did we raise an animal like you?”

“Mom, no, I did this for—”

“Shut up! Don’t call me that!”

My father’s voice, thick with disgust, cut in. “We don’t have a daughter named Seraphina. Never call us again. You can rot in there for all we care.”

Then, Chelsea’s sweet, cloying voice: “It’s okay, Mom, Dad, have some tea, calm down. I’m sure Sera will reform herself eventually.”

“Oh, Chelsea is such a good girl,” my mother sighed, her voice instantly softening. “If only Sera was half as sweet as you. From now on, you are our daughter. That failure, she can stay in jail.”

The line went dead. I held the receiver, listening to the hollow dial tone, a ghost abandoned by the entire world.

She hadn't just stolen my fiancé and my freedom. She’d stolen my parents, my home, my entire identity.

After that, I never called again. I couldn't bear to hear the tenderness they reserved for her, or the venom they saved for me.