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My stepbrother, Booker Harvey, saved me from a life of abuse. He was my protector, my teacher, and my first love. For two years, our small apartment was a sun-drenched dream. Then he went on a business trip. I called him, pregnant with our child, only for another woman to answer his phone. He hung up on me. Later, his stepmother put him on speakerphone so I could hear him laugh off our entire relationship. "Tell her it was just for fun," he said. "She shouldn't take it so seriously." Just for fun. The words shattered me. I got rid of our son, took the hush money, and vanished. The girl who loved him died that day. In her place, I became "Nine," a ruthless operative forged in betrayal. Now, five years later, an explosion has left me with "amnesia." When the police ask who will be my guardian, I point to the man who broke my world. "Him," I say with a shy smile. "He's the most handsome."
Contents
Chapter 1
My stepbrother, Booker Harvey, saved me from a life of abuse. He was my protector, my teacher, and my first love. For two years, our small apartment was a sun-drenched dream.
Then he went on a business trip. I called him, pregnant with our child, only for another woman to answer his phone.
He hung up on me. Later, his stepmother put him on speakerphone so I could hear him laugh off our entire relationship.
"Tell her it was just for fun," he said. "She shouldn't take it so seriously."
Just for fun. The words shattered me. I got rid of our son, took the hush money, and vanished.
The girl who loved him died that day. In her place, I became "Nine," a ruthless operative forged in betrayal.
Now, five years later, an explosion has left me with "amnesia." When the police ask who will be my guardian, I point to the man who broke my world.
"Him," I say with a shy smile. "He's the most handsome."
Chapter 1
Jane Bradley POV:
My father told me I was born with a heart of stone, but stones don' t break. Mine did. It shattered into a million pieces the day my mother chose my crying sister over her silent daughter.
The fighting always started after I was in bed. Or, at least, after they thought I was. The sound of my father's heavy footsteps on the wooden floor was the first warning. Then came the clink of a glass, the slosh of whiskey, and finally, my mother' s voice, tight as a wire.
"Johnston, not again."
"A man's entitled to a drink in his own home, Jannie."
I would press my ear to the thin wall, my small body rigid under the covers. Their words were a venomous tide, rising and falling, sometimes murmurs, sometimes shouts that rattled the cheap prints on my bedroom wall.
I learned early on that sound was a weapon. Crying was a shield. Silence was a crime.
I tried crying once. When I was five, my father slapped my mother, the sound a sharp crack in the already tense air. I let out a wail, a genuine cry of terror that scraped my throat raw.
My father turned on me, his face a thundercloud. "What are you crying for? This has nothing to do with you. Go to your room."
My mother, her cheek already turning red, didn't look at me. She just said, "Stop that noise, Jane. You're giving me a headache."
So I learned to be quiet. I learned to be invisible. I would sit on the stairs, a small ghost in pajamas, and watch them tear each other apart. My silence was my sanctuary, but they saw it as apathy.
"Look at her," my mother would hiss, pointing a trembling finger at me. "She doesn't even care. Cold, just like you."
Then Kallie was born.
Kallie came into the world screaming, and she rarely stopped. But her screams were different from mine. Her cries brought my parents running. Her tears were kissed away. Her sobs were met with cooing and rocking and promises of a better world.
She was a perfect, pink, noisy little creature, and they adored her for it. She was everything I wasn't.
One night, the shouting reached a new peak. The sound of shattering glass made me jump. I found Kallie in her crib, her face red, her mouth a perfect 'O' of distress. I watched her, mesmerized. She had a power I could never possess. With a single, sustained shriek, she could stop the war downstairs.
And she did.
The door flew open. My mother rushed in, scooping Kallie into her arms. "Oh, my sweet baby, did the scary noises frighten you? It's okay, Mommy's here."
My father appeared in the doorway behind her. "See, Jannie? We're upsetting the baby."
They looked at each other over Kallie's hiccupping form, a fragile truce declared. Neither of them saw me, standing in the corner, a silent statue of a girl.
The divorce was inevitable. It came when I was seven. The final argument wasn't even a shout. It was a cold, quiet conversation in the kitchen while I pretended to do my homework at the table.
"I'm taking Kallie," my mother said, her voice flat.
"Like hell you are," my father shot back. "She's my daughter."
"She needs her mother."
"She needs a stable home, not one where her mother can't hold down a job."
They fought over Kallie like two dogs over a bone. They listed her virtues, her needs, her future. My name was never mentioned. It was as if I didn't exist. As if I would simply evaporate when the house was sold.
Finally, a choked sob broke from my throat. It was a small, pathetic sound.
Both their heads snapped toward me.
"For God's sake, Jane," my mother snapped. "What is it now?"
I wanted to say, What about me? Where will I go? But the words were stuck, a hard lump in my throat. I just pointed a shaking finger from her to him, then to myself.
"She's being dramatic," my father grumbled, turning away.
Beside me, Kallie, who had toddled into the kitchen, started to cry in sympathy, a loud, theatrical wail.
"Oh, my poor baby," my mother cooed, instantly scooping her up. "Look what you've done, Johnston. You've upset her." She glared at me. "And you, stop that sniveling. You're a big girl."
In the end, the court didn't care about love or neglect. It cared about age. Kallie, at two, was deemed to need her mother. I, at seven, was old enough to be handed over to my father. An afterthought. A package deal he didn't want.
The day my mother left is burned into my memory. She packed her car with her things and all of Kallie's things. The pink blankets, the stuffed animals, the tiny dresses. She strapped Kallie into the car seat, kissing her forehead.
I stood on the porch, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. She was leaving. She was taking the only source of light in that house and she wasn't even going to say goodbye to me.
As the car door slammed shut, I found my voice.
"Mommy!" I screamed, the word tearing from me. I ran down the steps. "Mommy, wait!"
The car started. I could see Kallie's face in the back window, a pale, curious oval. My mother's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror for a single, fleeting second. There was no sadness in them. Just impatience. Annoyance.
She didn't stop. She didn't even slow down.
I kept running, my small legs pumping, my lungs burning. "Mommy!"
The car turned the corner and was gone. The sound of its engine faded, leaving only the sound of my own ragged sobs in the empty street.
My father came out of the house, a duffel bag in his hand. He didn't look at my tear-streaked face.
"Get in the car, Jane," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion. "I'm taking you to your grandparents'."
He drove me two hours out of the city, into the countryside where the air smelled of manure and damp earth. My father's parents, whom I'd met only a handful of times, lived in a small, weathered farmhouse.
My grandmother looked me up and down, her lips pursed in a thin, disapproving line. "So, Jannie finally left him. Good riddance." She looked at my grandfather. "At least he kept the Bradley blood." Her gaze flickered back to me, cold and assessing. "She looks like her mother, though. Scrawny."
My father didn't even get out of the car. He handed my duffel bag to my grandfather. "I'll send money when I can. I have to get my life back on track." He looked at me through the open window, his expression unreadable. "Be a good girl, Jane. Don't cause them any trouble."
Then he drove away, leaving me on a gravel driveway with two strangers who already resented me for existing.
I learned quickly. My grandparents were pleased the marriage was over. They'd never liked my mother. They saw me as her lingering shadow, a burden they were forced to bear. To survive, I had to be useful. I had to earn my keep.
"I can help," I told my grandmother one morning, my voice small. "I can do chores."
She looked surprised, then a slow, calculating smile spread across her face. "Is that so?"
She led me to the laundry room, a damp, cold space in the basement. A mountain of my grandfather's and father's old, mud-caked work clothes sat in a pile.
"You can start with these," she said, her tone indicating this was not a one-time task. "Don't think you're getting a free ride here, girl. A roof over your head and food in your belly costs."
So, at seven years old, I began my servitude. For two years, I scrubbed floors, washed clothes until my hands were raw, and served two bitter old people who saw me not as their granddaughter, but as the price of their son's failed marriage.
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