He Broke the Heart That Saved Him

Five years ago, Mia walks away from Vance. He is dying, and she is pregnant. She calls him broken and worthless so he will go back to Cloud City and accept the care his family can offer. She never tells him about the pregnancy.

Now Leo is five. He saves an old man in the lower levels and takes the impact himself. The only thing that can save him is a Sterling Group S-class biocore heart chip. Mia goes to Vance, now the head of Sterling tech and the most powerful man in Cloud City, and begs for a chip to save their son. She does not tell him Leo is his.

Vance has spent five years believing Mia left him for credits. Stella Parker, his fiancée, feeds that story. He calls Mia a bottom-feeding parasite and gives her an access key. Stella swaps it for a voided one and puts her on a citywide medical blacklist. Leo dies waiting for a chip that never works.

Mia is left with a preservation fee she cannot pay and a child she refuses to let be recycled. She takes work in a nightclub. Vance finds her there, takes Leo's necklace, and forces her to drink until she collapses. She jumps into a sub-zero waste pool to get the necklace back.

Vance is still not done. He bans her from every Sterling property and says, "The biggest regret of my life was ever knowing you."

Stella arrives at Mia's home with orders to smash everything. Mia shields one covered thing and admits to being cheap, greedy, lower-level trash. Anything to make them leave without touching it. That covered thing is all she has left of Leo.

The boy who saved Vance's father is still missing. Vance and his father are searching for him, not knowing he is already dead. Mia has carried the loss alone. The truth about Leo is coming, and Vance will have to live with what he did.