She’s Back, and Hell’s Coming with Her novel Chapter 1

January 1st.

Snow fell thick and heavy, swirling through the air. Fireworks bloomed across the gray sky, dazzling and bright.

“Sabrina Sutton, you’re free to go.”

“Make the most of your second chance. Start again.”

Thirteen years. From age twenty-two to thirty-five, she was finally allowed to take off the prison uniform at last.

With a metallic clatter, the heavy iron doors swung open.

A figure, gaunt and frail as a wisp of smoke, stepped out into the snow.

Her hair—dry, tangled, matted—clung to her head like brittle thistles lost in a desert wind. All she could see was a world of blinding white.

The pale sunlight stabbed at her eyes, sharp and merciless.

She lifted a trembling hand to shield her face, but then, unable to resist, parted her fingers just a little, letting that glaring, intoxicating freedom pour through.

Sabrina’s lips cracked into the barest hint of a smile, hollow and sorrowful.

How was she supposed to start over?

Before prison, she’d been the envy of Port City: eldest daughter of the illustrious Sutton family, raised to be elegant, well-read, and gentle.

She’d had a younger sister, Celine Sutton—confident, radiant, effortlessly beautiful.

She’d had a fiancé she’d loved for four years, Marshall Harper.

By eighteen, Marshall was already the golden boy of Port City. The Harper family owned businesses all across Veridia. At twenty, he inherited the empire and became the youngest CEO of E-Star Group.

But on the eve of her wedding, the man she adored and the sister she trusted most joined hands to ruin her.

“Celine, did you actually see Sabrina commit the murder?”

“Yes. She’s my sister, but I can’t ignore the law…”

“Marshall, are you certain it was Sabrina who killed Stella Walker?”

In that hellish prison, she’d been singled out for “special treatment”—beaten, harassed, left bruised and broken every day.

Hatred was the only thing that kept her alive. She’d worked, suffered, and obeyed, trying for good behavior, earning her sentence down to thirteen years.

Sabrina threw back her head and laughed, her thin shoulders shaking. The laughter twisted into sobs, icy tears running down her rough, weathered face.

She was a joke, a fool, a laughingstock in everyone’s eyes.

The month she went to prison, her father, Desmond Sutton, published a notice in the paper: Sabrina Sutton, disowned by the family.

She had always wanted to ask her parents—why did you love her more?

She’d thought that if she was perfect in every way, maybe they’d smile at her the way they smiled at Celine. Maybe they’d hug her, stroke her hair.

She’d thought that if she scored top marks on every test, her parents would be proud, tell her, “You’re amazing, the most wonderful little princess in the world…”

But she was wrong. She could never outshine Celine.

To make her parents happy, she’d started failing on purpose. Every time Celine basked in their praise, Sabrina would pretend she felt loved too, just for a moment.