The Burnt Heart (Toxic Hearts Book 1)

by Mae Pierce

“We’ve known each other for six years. Yet you didn’t trust me enough to fill me in on your plans. Or perhaps you think so little of me that the pain and turmoil you caused didn’t matter? What I can’t understand is how you truly think you could just stroll in, and I would take you back. You chose money over me. I was an afterthought. Someone you could coddle into submission with a few lukewarm apologies.” I looked at Jesse, horror etched over my face. The assumptions Adelaide had made were wildly incorrect, but without the full story, she could never know why. It wasn’t money we were hoping for. Ultimately, it was freedom, after six years of never knowing when one hit might be our last. This was our final desperate attempt after trying everything else. Every time her father’s men beat us in the ground they taunted us, telling us to run home to Adelaide. To have her put a stop to the attacks. There had been so many times I had wanted to be honest. Like when she’d tend our bruises or question why we were moving stiffly. They would never accept us if we told Adelaide. We knew it, they knew it. And so, we’d kept Adelaide in the dark, trying to claw our way into something her father would respect.