Never Broken (The Unchained #1)

by Everly Claire

And her father would lead me to Max Langer, and Max Langer would lead me to my sister.

My plan had been to feel her out, soften her up, and if she was receptive, have a little fun with her in anticipation of getting what I needed—not to let her voice cast some bizarre hex on me where I couldn’t chase it out of my head no matter what I did.

But I’d never done anything this dangerous: Flirting with my master’s daughter not because I wanted something, but because I wanted her.

Besides, if anyone was going to be watching Louisa strip naked, it was going to be me. Full stop.

What was I doing? I’d held her and been seconds away from kissing her. We both knew it.

“How do you know about my sister?” I finally asked. “Two reasons. First, I looked at your file.” The file. Always the fucking file, my life history laid out as if I were a used car. With a deep breath, I resigned myself to hearing whatever she had to say next. “And second?” “Second,” she continued, “because I sent her a message on my computer this morning. And tonight, I got a reply. Her name is Maeve, by the way.”

“One word. If you had to describe this boy in one word,” my mother said, pleased with herself, her slow, sly grin reappearing in the circle of light the lamp made, cutting through the blanket of darkness that hung over the house, silent except for the mantel clock. “What would it be?” One word, and this could end. It came to me instantly, of course. “Brave.”

Slowly, I gaped down at the tiny, intact steel chain with its ID tag, etched with a number only slightly less familiar than my own, looking exactly how I remembered it on Maeve’s slim wrist—except for the fresh blood smeared messily across the surface, drying and crusting in the grooves. “Courtesy of Max Langer.”