Sitting in a freezing interrogation room, the devastating truth about Nigel’s real activities finally began to dawn on her. He had been secretly using her unassuming apartment to store his illegal goods. When the law finally closed in, the dirtbag completely escaped the consequences. His highly influential relatives quickly swooped in and protected him. Together, they meticulously orchestrated a narrative that made it appear as though Mia was the sole mastermind involved in possessing and selling the illicit substances.
No one in the precinct believed her desperate, sobbing protests of total innocence. The detectives relentlessly pressed her to reveal her non-existent accomplices, promising a significantly reduced sentence in exchange for her full cooperation. But Mia truly knew absolutely nothing. Nigel, meanwhile, played the part of the horrified, innocent boyfriend to perfection, even taking the stand and testifying for the prosecution against her.
Mia couldn’t fathom how her beloved could orchestrate such a monstrous betrayal. She had trusted him completely, yet he had used her as a convenient shield and ruined her entire life without a single ounce of hesitation or remorse. Her exhausted, state-appointed lawyer made absolutely no attempt to mount a real defense, and the grim-faced judge swiftly sentenced the innocent girl to five grueling years in a general regime colony.
Once locked inside the concrete walls of the prison, Mia entirely lost her will to live. Deceived, trampled, and viciously slandered. Why had the universe done this to her? There were so many agonizing questions, but the iron bars offered no answers.
If it hadn’t been for the gritty support of one particular fellow prisoner right at the very beginning, who knows how her tragic story would have ended. The woman’s name was Lena. She was serving hard time for theft and had a young son living on the outside with his grandmother. Despite the suffocating gloom of their circumstances, Lena maintained a fierce optimism and kept grabbing Mia by the shoulders, telling her that she had to survive—she had to live on, if only in spite of all her enemies.
“When you get out, then you’ll settle the scores,” Lena would tell her fiercely. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Mia would only nod weakly in response. Revenge? She couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t be able to. She just knew she couldn’t bear being locked up in a cage for so many agonizing years.
And then came the utterly unexpected, life-altering news. Mia was pregnant.
The stern prison doctor discovered it during her next routine medical examination and immediately asked the terrified girl if she planned to keep the child.
“I do,” Mia answered firmly, her voice steady.
A tiny, fragile ray of hope suddenly flickered in her devastated fate. She was no longer completely alone in this vast, terrifying world of lies and deceit. Against all overwhelming odds, she swore she would endure whatever hell they threw at her just to raise her baby. Lena fiercely supported her young friend’s brave decision. There was a very real possibility of parole on the horizon. The law stated Mia could potentially live with her baby for up to three years, though it meant being transferred to a completely different colony equipped with special maternal facilities.
They would have to part ways, which broke Mia’s heart, but it was a manageable sacrifice. The prison administration began drawing up the paperwork to transfer the expectant mother to the new facility, but bureaucratic red tape kept delaying the process week after agonizing week.
They delayed the transfer until she reached her fortieth week of pregnancy. And so, bouncing violently in the back of a freezing transport truck on a heavily rutted road, Mia had gone into hard labor. Thankfully, the desperate guards had encountered this rural maternity hospital along the way.