Chapter 1

Seven years after my family sold me, my dead mother came to bring me home.

She stood outside the trailer in a cream cashmere coat, studying the daughter who could no longer stand without leaning against a wall.

“You needed to learn, Mara.”

I watched her mouth move. The words made sense separately. Together, they meant nothing.

“You thought being our biological daughter entitled you to everything. You pushed Blythe down those stairs. She lost her baby. We had to do something.”

Behind her, my husband stepped out of a black Escalade with my adopted sister tucked against his side.

“We staged the accident,” Mom continued. “The debts, the collectors. All of it. After what you've been through, I doubt you'll bully your sister again.”

Grant smiled at me. “No screaming? Good. You finally understand how a Mercer wife should behave.”

The man beside the trailer pulled down the bandanna covering his face.

Reid. My brother.

He had worn it the night he delivered me to this place, too.

“It's over, Mare. You've learned your lesson. Behave yourself, and you're still a Whitmore.”

That name made me flinch.

The men here used to say it when they wanted to laugh. Whitmore money couldn't save me. My family was dead. Nobody was coming.

I had tried to run three times. Now I walked with a limp and could see out of only one eye. Five pregnancies had ended in hemorrhages. Eventually, I had stopped counting the strangers.

Grant reached for me.

I dropped to my knees and fumbled with the buttons of my shirt.

“I won't run. Please don't test me again. I'll do whatever you want.”

His hand stopped in the air.

Reid crouched quickly. “Hey. Nobody's testing you. We're taking you home.”

His voice was gentle. That frightened me more.

The men had gentle days, too. Sometimes they brought food and made jokes before deciding I had smiled at the wrong moment.

“I don't have a home,” I whispered. “Please don't hit me.”

Grant gave a strained laugh. “Mara, stop. Those people were hired. They knew better than to actually hurt you.”

I bowed my head farther.

He waited for the woman who had once thrown his clothes onto the lawn after catching him with Blythe. That woman would have demanded answers. She would have fought.

I knew what fighting cost.

Mom sighed. “Take her back. We'll see how long the performance lasts.”

At the SUV, Blythe wrinkled her nose.

“Not next to me. We don't know what she could have.”

Reid hesitated, then opened the rear cargo area.

“Just for the drive. Blythe's sensitive to smells.”

I climbed in before he could change his mind. It was carpeted. Warm. Nobody locked a chain around my ankle.

For the first time in years, I nearly cried from gratitude.

Through the back seat, I heard Reid ask whether the storage room was really necessary now.

“She seems quiet enough.”

“Stick to the plan,” Mom said. “We didn't go through all this just to let her start again.”