More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Am I the kind of person who can handle being thrown away twice? I ask myself this, and yet, I know. I’m not. I’m not strong. I break easy, and I break hard. It’s less like a crack and more of a shatter, making the pieces of me painfully difficult to repair.
I’ve grown, yes. Learned to protect myself in ways I never imagined myself capable of. I’m not sure if that makes me strong or stupid, given that protecting myself is exactly what put me in this position.
Two minutes ago, I was devastated that the last bit of my mother that I thought may still love me was gone. Now? I wish I never loved her at all. I wish I never ignored the way she hurt me in favor of forgiving her. I wish she never pretended to care.
At this moment, hitting her as hard and fast as I can before being stopped, I wish she never existed. Even if that means I never existed either. Her face feels like I’m punching concrete, only a soft layer of skin from each of us providing any barrier between bone-on-bone contact. It’s sickening and yet I can’t end it on my own.
He takes care of his children. The declaration replays inside of my head, latching on to one word. Children. He has more than one, and that doesn’t include me.
I have siblings.
I have a...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
It’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen. So disgustingly sad—pathetic, really. Little Jade Donovan—unwanted by all. Lied to. Abused with horrid words.
I’m Dante Moretti’s daughter. I have a dad, and he’s glad to have me.
If this is a dream, I never want to wake up.
“Oh shit,” he curses, eyes going wide. “Are you about to cry?”
“Daaaad! I think I broke my sister! Help!”
“Yes, well, unfortunately for you, you’re now a part of a family full of impatient men with anger issues. If we don’t have someone to destroy for this in the next few hours, we’ll likely begin to annihilate anyone who has ever laid eyes on you. Killing potential innocents isn’t typically our thing, so.”
I’ve grown addicted to the way my family cares for me. It’s the best part about my whole new life—feeling truly cared about.
The thick wall of a man doesn’t speak but to my utter relief, nods that he’s fine. He’s not just fine because I didn’t hurt him, though. This man is fine in every sense of the word. He’s huge. At least a solid six to eight inches taller than me. And he’s broad, with shoulders so wide I could definitely use those suckers to climb up his—
Oh lord, those eyes!
No one ever taught me to do it, and when he caught me trying to learn with a YouTube tutorial on my phone, he brought in strips of leather and showed me how to practice. Once he showed me with the leather, he showed me with my actual hair. I didn’t take them out for three days since they meant so much to me, and I haven’t tried to recreate them since.
“Nico is gay,” he tells me. “He isn’t shy about it. And Armani—”
“Can speak for himself.”
“—fucks anything he find...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Armani lets out a long sigh. “Thank you for so crudely informing our sist...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“If it were Nico… he’d figure out a way to kill her, whether he could wait until the end of the semester or not. Armani might have humiliated her or threatened her, but Nico would have her on a hit list or have her writing a suicide note by the end of the week.”
Dmitri asked him to switch into this class to watch me? That probably sounds so creepy to some people, but god, I practically have to fan myself at the news.
The guy I like just handed me a friend because he worries about my safety and trusts his brother with me, and I couldn’t be happier if I tried. I have to hold myself back from reading too much into this, but it’s a great sign, nevertheless.
“It doesn’t matter. The sooner they know, the sooner they accept it.”
“It being us,”
“You could call us friends,” he says with a lift of his shoulders. “You’d be wrong, though.”
“Oh? What… what would you call us?”
“Inevitable.”
“You want a kiss?” he asks, head tilted to one side.
My head bobs, and breathily, I answer, “Just from you.”
He closes the distance between us in an instant, lips rushing forward to press into mine. I slump harder against the wall behind me, knees going weak upon first contact. What starts as crushing pressure lightens up so that he can part his lips and move them, leading me to try and follow along. My fumbled attempts don’t seem to bother him, so I keep trying to match his pace with my eyes sealed shut.
“Is this your first kiss, Jade?”
“I like being able to read you.”
“And that you’re the first one to kiss me?” I ask. “Do you like that too?”
“I like that I’ll be ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“Your first kiss was on my lips, I know you aren’t what she called you.”
Everything about Dmitri Morozov lights me up.
Oh god, him calling me baby makes me wish I was having his. How the hell does one simple word hit me right in the vagina. Seriously, am I throbbing?
“Krasotka, when I fuck you, you’ll be madly and irrevocably in love with me. It’ll be shortly after I put a ring on this little finger,”
Dmitri Morozov is the only man for me, I don’t care how soon it is to say that. I feel it in my core.
“Out of pure curiosity, what exactly does the silent Russian brute have that we don’t?”
That’s easy.
“Me.”
Leaning just a bit closer, I smirk. “Sorry, even the two of you put together aren’t my silent Russian brute.”
“Dmitri will be Pakhan, and that means who he chooses for his wife is the only person more important to keep alive than he is.”
Jade consumes nearly every second of my waking thoughts. She’s in my dreams and on my mind at a seemingly constant rate. Any second she’s out of my sight stresses me out to no end. Bumping into her on the boat was enough to sell me on Jade Moretti.
The once mysterious girl became a full-blown obsession not too soon after she looked up at me with those delicate but fierce blue eyes. I wanted her to be mine, and I made it happen. All I needed was a bit of interest from her, and she more than delivered.
When she lets me, I’ll show her just how true that is. I’ll systematically destroy any semblance of the people who have wronged her. They’ll be dust when I’m done.
Everything Jade does makes me more and more sure that she’s it for me.
