Tangled in His Obsession



Before her tenth birthday, Seraphina's life was a picture of stability and contentment.

Her father, Carney, was a struggling artist whose paintings barely paid the bills for her and her mother, Magdalen. They sometimes had to make do with the simplest of meals, but Carney and Magdalen shared a bond so loving that Seraphina, their only child, grew up without knowing the slightest hint of sorrow.

Everything changed when Carney passed away.

Seraphina could still vividly recall the winter of her tenth year, when illness had whittled her father down to bones, and he spent his days in a hospital bed, fighting a losing battle.

Magdalen, once a woman whose hands had never been marred by household chores, transformed overnight into the epitome of a devoted wife and mother. She was a constant presence at Carney's bedside, her tears shed in silence, her heartache cloaked in stoic resolve.

Despite her efforts, Carney didn't make it through the winter.

He departed this world just before New Year's Eve, leaving them in the cold sterility of the hospital room. After handling Carney's funeral all by herself, Magdalen set out to find work.

But years of domestic life had left her with few marketable skills beyond her beauty, and decent job prospects were bleak. Still, she persisted, her breakdowns reserved for the darkest hours of the night when she would clutch Seraphina and cry until there were no tears left.

Seraphina knew why her mother wept - they had both lost the man they thought would be their rock for a lifetime.

With Carney's departure, their world had collapsed. And no matter how hard she tried, Magdalen couldn't support it single-handedly.

After one particularly harrowing night, Magdalen took Seraphina back to their hometown of Sunburst City and left her with the Reynold family, before she herself vanished to Starhaven, not to return for many years.

"That night, something must have happened," Seraphina whispered into Leandro's embrace. "Someone must have lied to her, made her believe I was the child of Dad and Adelina. That's why she broke down, why she resented Dad, why she abandoned me..."

The only ones who knew the truth were Simon and those close to him. Seraphina didn't remember meeting Simon as a child, but he had told Andrea that he had seen her once, many years prior, when he went to Summitville to honor the memory of a woman he had loved.

By chance, he encountered Carney and little Seraphina at the cemetery. Despite just having visited a grave, she was full of life, her laughter and playful tugs at her father's arm painting a beautiful picture of father and daughter.

Simon passed them by, but the image of Seraphina's smiling face haunted him - she bore an uncanny resemblance to the girl from his memories. When he reached the grave he intended to visit, he noticed the fresh flowers and offerings. Turning back, Carney and Seraphina were already gone. Back in Sunburst City, Simon had someone investigate Seraphina's origins. The conclusion he was given stated that Seraphina was indeed Adelina's daughter, but Carney was her father. Clearly, someone had tampered with the truth, and Seraphina suspected it might have been Simon's wife, Helena.NôvelDrama.Org copyrighted © content.

If Helena had indeed altered the records, then she knew the truth and harbored a deep-seated hatred. For a man like Simon, the notion that his beloved bore another man's child would be a humiliation too great to share. And for Helena, who already despised Andrea, adding Seraphina to the mix would be an unbearable insult.

Unable to touch Andrea, who lived under Simon's watchful eye, Helena likely saw an opportunity to strike at Seraphina, whom Simon believed to be another man's child.

So, Helena fed a fabricated "truth" to Magdalen, perhaps intending to take Seraphina for herself and exact her vengeance. But she hadn't accounted for Magdalen's decision to entrust Seraphina to the Reynolds.

From then on, the Reynolds family became Seraphina's sanctuary. Her identity as one of their own was her greatest protection...

Simon only mentioned to Andrea that after seeing me, he was struck by how much I resembled Adelina, his lost love. So he dug into my background. Clearly, what he found out about where I came from was both shocking and infuriating to him. But because I reminded him so much of the woman he cherished, he was willing to let me be." Seraphina continued, her voice steady but with an undercurrent of distress. "But what about my dad? Could he really have no hard feelings towards my own father?"

Leandro listened in silence before finally speaking. "When did he see you?"

"In October," Seraphina replied slowly. "Not long after that, Dad suddenly got admitted to the hospital. Two months later, he was gone." Throughout this revelation, Seraphina's voice remained calm, but her hand involuntarily gripped Leandro's with a vice-like strength.

"What was the illness?" Leandro asked further.

"I can't remember clearly," Seraphina confessed. "At that time, both he and Mom didn't want to worry me, so they never discussed his condition in front of me. All I recall is that it was something gastrointestinal, and the attending doctor was that Garrison we met before... Such a short time to go, it must have been some kind of late-stage cancer, right? But Dad had always been healthy, he showed no signs of sickness, how could it suddenly be terminal cancer? He was only in the hospital for two months, and he got thinner and thinner. Towards the end, I barely recognized him... I don't know if he was really sick, or if someone was tormenting him behind the scenes."

Leandro, upon hearing her fears, gently lowered his head and pressed a kiss to Seraphina's forehead.

"I'll get to the bottom of this," he murmured in a serious tone. "Unearth everything."