The Billionaire's Cruelty, My Secret Daughter

The staircase smelled of cabbage and old cigarettes.

Seraphina dragged her suitcase up the third flight, her muscles screaming. She was weak. She hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours.

The key the landlord had left under the mat was sticky. She turned it in the lock and pushed the door open.

The apartment was a box. A single room with a mattress on the floor, a hot plate in the corner, and a window that didn't close all the way. The wind whistled through the crack, a mournful, high-pitched sound.

She went to the sink and turned the tap. Brown water sputtered out, coughing like a dying man before settling into a rusty stream.

She sat on the mattress. It crunched. Plastic.

She pulled out her phone to check her bank account. Julian had said there would be a stipend.

Access Denied. Account Frozen. Contact Vanderbilt Family Office.

The blood drained from her face. Frozen.

She had forty dollars in cash in her purse.

She dialed Raymond, Julian's personal assistant. She used the landline in the hallway, knowing her number was likely blocked too.

"Vanderbilt Residence," Raymond answered, his voice crisp.

"Raymond," she choked out. "It's Seraphina. My account is frozen. I can't... I have nothing."

"The allowance is contingent on good behavior, Ms. Sterling," Raymond said coldly. "Harassing Mr. Vanderbilt with phone calls violated the terms of the agreement. The funds are suspended for thirty days."

"Thirty days?" Seraphina screamed. "I'll starve! Raymond, please, I need to see a doctor. It's urgent. I'm..."

She almost said it. I'm pregnant.

But if Julian knew, would he take the baby? Would he accuse her of faking it? Or worse, would he think she got pregnant by someone else to trap him?

"Stop the drama," Raymond sighed. "You are young and healthy. Find a job. Mr. Vanderbilt is not a charity."

The line went dead.

Seraphina stared at the receiver. She was cut off. Completely.

She needed money. Fast. She needed food, she needed prenatal vitamins, and she needed a phone that Julian couldn't track or block.

She opened her suitcase and pulled out her jewelry box. Most of it had been left behind, but she was wearing her diamond stud earrings—a gift from her own parents, long gone.

She walked three blocks to a pawn shop with bars on the windows. The man behind the counter had yellow eyes and a gun on his hip.

"Five thousand," Seraphina said, placing the diamonds on the glass. "They are appraised at five thousand."

The man laughed. A dry, hacking sound. "Market's flooded, sweetie. And you look desperate. Eight hundred."

"That's robbery," she whispered.

"That's Kensington, princess. Take it or leave it."

She took the eight hundred.

She walked out and immediately went to a corner store. She bought a cheap burner phone and a prepaid card for fifty dollars. She paid the landlord three hundred for the deposit he demanded upon arrival. She paid another hundred for overdue utility bills left by the previous tenant just to get the heat turned on.

That left her with three hundred and fifty dollars. To last a month. Or a lifetime.

She went to a free clinic the next day. The waiting room was full of coughing people. She waited six hours.

When Dr. Williams put the cold gel on her stomach, Seraphina held her breath.

The screen was grainy, black and white static. And then, a sound.

Whoosh-whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh.

A heartbeat. Strong. Fast.

"Healthy," Dr. Williams said. "About eight weeks."

Seraphina started to cry. Not the pretty crying of a socialite, but the ugly, heaving sobs of a survivor.

"Is the father in the picture?" the doctor asked gently.

Seraphina looked at the screen. At the tiny bean that was half her, half the man who hated her.

"He died," Seraphina lied. "He died in the war."

She walked home in the rain. She wore a baggy hoodie she had bought at a thrift store. She kept her head down.

She walked into a diner on the corner. Help Wanted: Dishwasher.

The manager, a large man with grease stains on his apron, looked at her hands. Her manicured nails were chipped, but the skin was still soft.

"You won't last a day," he grunted.

Seraphina looked him in the eye. "Try me."

She scrubbed dishes for eight hours. The hot water scalded her skin. The steel wool tore at her fingertips. Her back ached. Her feet swelled.

At the end of the shift, the manager handed her fifty dollars cash.

She walked to the pharmacy. She looked at the sandwich in the cooler. Then she looked at the prenatal vitamins.

She bought the vitamins.

She went home, drank a glass of boiled tap water, and took a pill.

"For you," she whispered to the darkness.