Step taken with heavy heart in prison (5)
I believe the answer is:
stair
'step' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'heavy heart in prison' is the wordplay.
'heart' says to take the centre.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'prison' becomes 'stir' (informal term for prison).
The middle letter of 'heavy' is 'a'.
'a' going inside 'stir' is 'STAIR'.
'taken with' is the link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for stair that I've seen before include "single step in a series" , "One of a 15" , "Step in house" , "that's between levels" , "One step in a series" .)