Too bad Ell was perfectly fine with running in heels. Jeff took one look her way and walked faster. Exactly the man she’d been waiting for.Įll rose to her feet after nodding at Donnie, her way of assuring him she’d handle it. The creaking of a door caught Ell’s attention, and sure enough, Jeff Jadzen walked out of his office.
#To the kid in the corner trapped in the shadows of doubt how to#
It was like his path had been made for him before he’d ever been born, and no matter how hard she tried, she had no idea how to get him off it. Well, he didn’t take no very well.”Įll set her hand on his back and rubbed, knowing there wasn’t much she could do for him. When they did? I told them to fu-I told them no. “Someone wanted me to do a job, but they didn’t tell me the real job. He held it in his mouth for a long moment, as if thinking, then swallowed. He let out a long breath before taking a sip of the drink. So for this to happen, you had a good reason.” You wouldn’t be out there attacking random, innocent people. “I’m just saying, I know you have a good heart.
“I’m not trying to find out who it was,” she pressed, gesturing at his split lip and his black eye, all signs he’d taken a hell of a beating. Then again, he was going to have to go back to that life, to those streets, and the sorts of people who existed in that world didn’t forgive betrayal. The color leeched from his lips as he pressed them together, the universal signal for ‘I’m no snitch’ that he got whenever she questioned anything. “I know you-if you got into this fight, you had a good reason, right?” You shouldn’t have to waste your time cleaning up my messes.”Įll shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize.” Ell took her seat beside him. “I’m sorry,” he muttered softly, holding the cup between his hands. Even still, she couldn’t help but see the kid he’d been when she’d first met him. She still smiled each time he went to respond with cursing but stopped himself, as if he knew it wasn’t appropriate to say in front of her.Īt fourteen, Donnie stood taller than her and had started to put on more bulk. While other case managers had had trouble with him-they claimed he lied and was disrespectful and labeled him a lost cause-Ell had taken to him right away. He took the hot cocoa and offered a rough thank you. It had broken her heart to see him like that, to know he’d lived a life where he’d needed that hard edge. She could still remember walking in to see him, black eye but ready to take on anyone he needed to to survive. Which was exactly why Ell handed a closed cup of hot cocoa to the boy sitting on the bench in one of the many long hallways.ĭonnie Denton, the first case she’d ever been assigned on her own. Would they hand her over to her mother? Her father? Some relative she’d never met who wanted good karma points for taking in the poor, destitute child? Or would she take the gamble that was foster parents? She recalled sitting beside a social worker, trembling, never sure how it would go or what that meant for her. Being there as an adult was different, gave a person a sense of power, but as a kid? However, another part of her remembered coming as a child and the crushing disappointment that happened no matter how it went. There was never a question about what the next step should be, about what was and wasn’t allowed and about how a person went through those steps. She loved the clear rules and the regimented way it ran. There was something about the courthouse that Ell both loved and hated. Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence and abduction, and mentions of child abuse. The quartet will have to learn how to let go of their pasts and trust one another to have any hope of finding happiness-and staying alive. But there’s Ell’s trouble with trust, the men’s doubts about her commitment and mounting suspicions about the attack on her to deal with.
When Ell is attacked in her home, the men help her move into an apartment in the same complex as them, which lets them explore each other-and their own wants-that much more. However, when they see Ell there, they can’t resist the pull to the sweet, stubborn woman. When she goes to Sanctuary, a well-known BDSM club, the last thing she expects is to run into anyone she already knows, let alone three Dominants who are all too willing to mess up her perfectly ordered life.Ĭlint, Ethan and Fox have gone to Sanctuary for years, but after a bad experience with a submissive, they’re gun-shy about taking on anyone else. It will take three Dominants to drag this submissive out of her safe little rut.Īfter a chaotic childhood, Ell uses routine and order to feel safe.
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