The Discarded Heiress's Spectacular Comeback

"Sign it, or you rot in the gutter with your whore of a mother's memory!"

Rolf Gillespie slammed the torn trust fund documents directly into Alycia's pale face. The sharp edge of the thick parchment scratched a raw, red line across her cheekbone. She didn't flinch. The stinging pain was instantly swallowed by the freezing sheet of rain pouring down from the black New York sky.

The shredded pieces of paper fluttered like dead leaves, landing in the thick mud covering the driveway of the Gillespie estate.

Alycia dropped to her bare knees. The freezing mud soaked instantly through her thin cotton dress. Her hands, shaking violently from the drop in her body temperature, clawed at the wet dirt, desperately trying to piece together a small sketch of a daisy her late mother had drawn next to her signature on the shredded will. It was the only piece of her mother's warmth she had left, and now it was ruined.

A sharp, agonizing pressure crushed her left hand.

Seraphina's custom-made stiletto heel ground into Alycia's knuckles. The older woman leaned her weight onto the heel, twisting it.

"Oops," Seraphina sneered, her voice barely audible over the roaring thunder. "Looks like trash belongs with trash."

Alycia ripped her bleeding hand away and snapped her head up, her chest heaving as she pulled in jagged breaths of freezing air. Before she could scream, two massive hands clamped down on her biceps. Rolf's bodyguards hauled her off the ground, their grips bruising her skin down to the bone.

They dragged her backward. Her bare feet scraped against the rough asphalt.

"Dad! You know she forged it! You know she's stealing it!" Alycia screamed, the rain choking her throat.

The heavy wrought-iron gates slammed shut in front of her face. The metallic clang vibrated in her teeth. The deadbolt slid into place with a heavy, final thud.

Alycia grabbed the freezing iron bars. Her knuckles, already raw and bleeding from the stiletto, smeared red across the rusted metal. She stared through the bars. Rolf turned his back to her, wrapping a thick arm around Seraphina's waist, and walked toward the brightly lit mansion. He didn't look back. Not even once.

The wind howled, cutting through her wet clothes and stealing the last ounce of heat from her skin. Her teeth chattered so violently her jaw ached.

She let go of the bars. Her legs felt like lead. She turned around and dragged her soaked body toward the pitch-black highway. The fever she had been fighting for two days suddenly spiked. Her vision blurred, the edges of the dark road swimming in front of her eyes. Her stomach cramped, a sharp physical nausea rising in her throat.

A blinding white light tore through the darkness.

It hit her eyes with the force of a physical blow. The deafening screech of tires burning against wet asphalt exploded in her ears.

Alycia froze. Her muscles locked.

The massive black Rolls-Royce Phantom lurched to a violent halt, the