Twisted Hate (Twisted, #3)

by Ana Huang

The universe had a sense of humor, all right, and it was a shitty one.

Fuck it.

A shiver rolled through me. You’re fine. You’re not that little girl anymore.

I thought I’d escaped my past, but at the end of the day, our demons always caught up with us.

“You want someone who can challenge you. Excite you. Keep you on your toes. And as for what you need…” His whiskey-scented breath gusted across my skin, peppering it with a thousand goosebumps. “You need someone to bend you over and fuck that attitude right out of you.”

There was a certain liberation in not giving a fuck what the other person thought about you.

He sighed. “It’s easy being with her,” he said after a long moment. “She understands me in a way no one else does, even if our worldviews are fundamentally different. When I’m not with her, I wish she were there. When I am with her, I want that moment to last forever. She makes me want to be a better person, and when I think about a world where she doesn’t exist…” His jaw flexed. “I want to burn every inch of it to the ground.”

Fake concern was a thousand times worse than no concern at all, because fake concern gave way to false hope, and false hope destroyed souls. It was one of the biggest lessons I’d learned in my early years. All the times I thought someone cared about me when they only wanted something from me, and when they got it, they tossed me aside without a second thought. Until, of course, they needed something again.

“What did you do?” he hissed. “I took back what belonged to me. Control over my body.”

Remember when I said I forgive you? I lied. When I said I forgive you? I lied. Forgive you? I lied. I lied. I lied.

“Who?” My calm voice belied the violence brewing in my stomach. “Who did this to you?”

Once a whore, always a whore.

“That’s it. Just like that. You’re doing so well.”