Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
COPPER
One year ago
“What the fuck?” I bellowed just before I launched myself at my father.
He’d been hurting my sister.
And not just hurting her physically with his fists and feet. He’d been touching her.
The sight of his hands on her body…
I hit him harder.
Eventually, the fighting back stopped, but the rage inside of me only ratcheted higher and higher.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh was like music to my ears.
I…
“Clayborne!”
I instantly woke up, never sleeping too deeply in this place.
That was the fastest way to get yourself killed.
I blinked open my eyes and stared at the guard at the door, my heart in my throat.
“You’re going home.”
My fuckin’ heart, the poor, abused thing that I swear to God felt like it was broken, never to be fixed again, gave a small pulse. “What?”
“You’re going home. Get your things.”
It took me five minutes to get my things.
It took me thirty-five to get processed out.
And the moment that I stepped outside and saw my little sister, the reason that I was in that hellhole in the first place, my fuckin’ broken heart mended itself.
At least partially, anyway.
She ran at me, and I swung her up into my arms, holding her tight.
“I’m out,” I whispered into her hair.
She started to sob in my arms. “Best day ever.”
Prologue II
Please be patient with me. I’m from the 1900s.
—Whispered thoughts from Baker to Holt
BAKER
“I think you’ll have about two more pushes left,” my doctor exclaimed. “Come on, let’s do this.”
“Um,” I heard that dreaded voice say. “You were supposed to call me when you went into labor.”
I looked up and my eyes went wide, because they didn’t just meet the green eyes that I’d once thought I loved.
They also met another set of eyes, these blue, belonging to someone I’d never met before.
Someone that was staring at me in horror as she stared at my vagina that was in full view of anyone that rounded the curtain blocking the door.
My stomach hurt.
My asshole felt like it was on fire.
And I was supposed to be okay with the man that was supposed to love me bringing another girl to the birth of our son?
No.
No, no, no.
But still, I stared at the man filling my hospital doorway with a look of complete shock.
He’d told me he wasn’t going to come.
He’d told me that he wasn’t seeing anyone, either.
Yet, there he was, standing there looking shocked at the sight of our son being born, with a girl staring in disgust standing next to him.
“Get her out!” I screamed.
My brothers, who’d been outside, yanked both him and her out of the door, uncaring if the move hurt them or not.
I just loved my brothers.
“What the actual fuck?”
That was my sister, Marcie.
My other sister, Gwen, was staring in disgust at the door where the couple had just disappeared.
“I don’t know what you ever saw in him,” Gwen hissed.
That’s when I started crying.
It was all too much.
I couldn’t do this anymore.
I couldn’t…
Another contraction hit, and I screamed.
I screamed and I screamed and I screamed, and all of a sudden, my baby boy, my perfect baby boy, was lying on my chest wailing.
It was the best and worst moment of my life.
COPPER
I was pissed.
Pissed, and hurt, and honestly, betrayed.
But not because I’d just walked in on my brother sleeping with the girl who was once my best friend, Reign.
But because my brother didn’t heed my warnings.
He’d picked up where I’d left off.
I’d come to the hospital with Keely to pop in for lunch with my brother, Chevy, thinking that I’d get some sibling time in—something that I fucking loved after not having it for the last fifteen years.
But then I’d jumped onto the bed that I’d assumed Chevy was sleeping alone in, only to find Reign there with him.
What would it fucking take to get him to see that she was a fucking nut case?
Honestly, it was likely my fault.
None of my siblings had known exactly how bad Reign was.
But I knew.
I’d spent the last fifteen years reading her letters and watched the degradation over the years.
When we’d been teens, she’d been eccentric.
Her mom had turned her into this hypochondriac that worried about anything and everything.
Over time, and after a lot of research—because I had a lot of free time on my hands and nothing to do with that free time—I’d decided that she had Munchausen’s.
Eventually, I’d had Apollo—our resident computer genius—look into her and found out that in her confidential medical files, my findings were the same as professionals.
I’d intended to keep an eye on her during my time in prison through Apollo, but shit had gone down with Apollo’s son, and Apollo had a lot on his mind to the point where I didn’t want to add to his load.
Though, if I had kept an eye on her, I would’ve noticed her sinking her needy claws into Chevy.