Two months before the baby was born, an electrical fire destroyed their small house. They lost everything. When they went to the city for emergency housing, Eleanor Miller used her influence to block their application. Homeless and desperate, Martha and Sarah moved two states away to live with a distant relative.
They lived in a shack near the tracks, where Sarah gave birth to Leo. He became her whole world. She stopped thinking about Mike, realizing his mother would never let them be together. Rick was the biological father, a thought that made her sick, so Leo was hers and hers alone.
But the bad luck didn’t stop. The relative passed away, and then Martha suffered a massive stroke from the stress of working long hours as a seamstress to keep them afloat. For the last year, Sarah had been working three jobs while caring for her paralyzed mother and a toddler. The money just wasn’t enough.
That morning, she’d realized they had no food left and no money until her next paycheck in three days. Desperation had driven her to the station to ask for help. She had swallowed her pride for her son, and that’s when she ran into Mike.
Mike sat there, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white. He could see the truth in her eyes. She was the same girl he’d loved, just battered by a world that had been incredibly cruel to her.
The realization hit him like a physical blow: his own mother had orchestrated the destruction of the woman he loved. She had used a predator to “protect” her son from a girl she deemed unworthy. He felt a wave of nausea and a burning, righteous fury.
