The 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. 1 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?” 2 I stared at the mold and moisture staining the wall, my mind drifting back to that torrential rain five years ago. I’d received Chelsea’s frantic call. “Sera, please, I need help! I hit someone… on Seaview Drive…” I drove out immediately. When I arrived, the scene made my blood run cold. My luxury sedan—the one I’d lent Chelsea—had a crumpled hood. The bumper was slick with blood. A few yards away, an elderly man lay in the mud, lifeless. Chelsea hadn’t been hit; she was the one who had struck and killed him. She was huddled in Marcus’s arms, wrapped in his bespoke suit jacket. The air inside my car, which she’d abandoned, was thick with the cloying scent of cheap perfume and stale champagne. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened just before the accident. “Sera.” Marcus saw me. There was no apology, no shame. He strode toward me, and his first words cut deeper than any knife. “You’ll take the fall.” I recoiled. “What are you talking about? Marcus, have you lost your mind?” He gripped my wrist so hard I thought he’d snap a bone. He leaned in, screaming over the drumming rain. “Chelsea is pregnant! I can’t have my child born while its mother is in a federal institution!” I stood there, drenched and utterly stunned. My former mentee was carrying my fiancé’s child. “I won’t…” I backed away, tears mixing with the rain on my face. Marcus’s expression turned utterly vicious, a coldness I’d never seen. “Did you forget? That car is registered to you.” He lowered his voice, making the threat feel more intimate, more terrifying. “Also, your father’s company is running on fumes right now. It’s only Sterling Global’s bridge loan keeping them out of bankruptcy. And your mother’s bypass surgery? Scheduled for next week.” He pressed closer. “Do you want to wake up tomorrow morning to the news that Jones Industries has collapsed, your father jumped from the roof, and your mother’s heart medication has been pulled?” I was paralyzed. A sudden chill shot from my feet straight to the crown of my head. “Marcus! You’re not human!” I shrieked. My tears tasted bitter, salty. “I’ll get you the best lawyers, Sera.” He gently brushed the water from my cheek, a terrifying act of tenderness. “When you get out, I’ll marry you. Just take the charge for Chelsea. I have people on the inside; I promise you, I can get you out in two years, max. The Jones family funds will be transferred by sunrise.” Chelsea, hiding behind him, started to sob dramatically. “Sera, please… I can’t go to jail. I have my grad school applications, my life is just starting…” She gave me a sickening, saccharine look. “You’re different. You’re the Jones heiress. You’ll be fine, even if you do a little time.” Police sirens wailed in the distance, closer now. “You know what to do,” Marcus commanded, his voice softening to an urgent plea. Between the survival of my family’s legacy and my own freedom, he had already made the choice for me. I walked toward the squad car. Due to the severity of the death, and the way the story was handled by the media—painting me as a drunk, reckless heiress—my sentence was extended to five years. Inside, the environment was brutal. One of the hardened inmates, the self-appointed queen, despised me. Toilet duty, sleeping on soaked mattresses, cigarette burns—it was routine. The worst was the late-night beatings. The agony was so intense that I curled into a ball, feeling a hot, wet rush between my legs. When I was finally hauled to the infirmary, I found out I had been pregnant. The doctor, a callous woman, simply cleaned up the bloody tissue and told me flatly: “You lost the baby. It’ll be tough for you to conceive again.” I lay staring at the ceiling, numb, until the guard told me I had a visitor. Marcus. It was the only time he ever came. 3 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. 4 The day I was released, I stole away to my parents’ suburban home. I just wanted to see them, even from a distance. But the imposing wrought-iron gates were padlocked, and a foreclosure notice was plastered on the front door. A neighbor told me the cold facts: “The Jones family? They lost everything. Didn’t you know? Mr. Jones had a massive stroke and died on the floor of his study. His wife, she just withered away a few days later. Broken heart, I guess.” I stood in the bleak winter wind, staring at the house where I had grown up, now a sterile mausoleum. I had no family left. Every promise Marcus Sterling ever made me was a lie. “Leo,” I lifted my head, my voice dry. “How can people be so black-hearted? How do they live with themselves? How do they… sleep at night?” Leo didn’t answer. He stood, his broad back blocking the draft from the hallway. He pulled a thick bundle of hand warmers from his jacket pocket and shoved them into my lap, followed by a bag of warm, fragrant pastries. “Eat something.” He didn’t wait for a reply, turning to leave. As he reached the threshold, he paused, his back still to me, his voice low and guttural. “Sera. Don’t look back. Those kinds of vermin aren’t worth dirtying your hands over.” He paused again, turning his head slightly, and the scar on his brow was prominent in the gloom. “From now on, you have me.” The door shut. When I woke again, the morning light was a weak, pale gray filtering through the tiny basement vent. I got up to open the door, preparing for the day’s grind. I pulled the door open just a crack, and a rush of cold air, mingled with the familiar scent of an expensive, smoky cologne, hit me. My body locked up. Standing in the narrow, shadowed hallway, a figure totally out of place, was Marcus Sterling. He wore a cashmere coat, the picture of refined wealth. But his eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept, and the floor by his feet was littered with cigarette butts. Seeing me, he stubbed out the cigarette and fixed his eyes on mine. “Sera.” His voice was hoarse, tinged with an almost imperceptible tremor. I tried to slam the door shut. A large, determined hand shot out, jamming the frame. Ignoring the pain of the metal grating against his knuckles, Marcus forced his way inside. The cramped basement unit instantly became suffocating. I stumbled back, grabbing the small fruit knife from the table, my hand shaking as I pointed it at him. “Stay back! Marcus, what do you want now? I have nothing left! What more can you possibly take?!” Marcus’s pupils dilated, and a flicker of genuine pain crossed his face. He took a hesitant step closer, his voice strained. “The accident… five years ago… I had my reasons, Sera.”