LIE - NOUN AN INTENTIONALLY FALSE STATEMENT Some days I didn't know where the lies finished and the truth began. It happened with one innocent lie and before I knew it I'd created a whole web of lies. Nobody likes a liar. But. What if you had to lie? To protect yourself and your child? If those lies were revealed, I would be a shell of my former self. Fractured into a thousand tiny pieces. I just hoped I could be put back together. \\WARNING\\ This book contains scenes that readers might get upset about. This book does have a cliffhanger.

SECRET ~ NOUN SOMETHING THAT IS KEPT OR MEANT TO BE KEPT UNKNOWN OR UNSEEN BY OTHERS Keeping a secret was hard. Especially from the one person you never wanted to keep secrets from. When that secret turns up out of the blue, bringing back all the painful memories. What would you do? Reveal your secret? Or keep it as long as you could? I thought, what she had done to me was unforgivable, but that was nothing to what she had planned. A storm was brewing, about to rain down everything that I had kept locked away. Once all the secrets were revealed, would it bring me and Kay closer? Or tear us apart for good? \\WARNING\\ This book may contain scenes which some readers will find upsetting.

One… Two… Three… I’m a prisoner in my own mind. Four… Five… Six… The painful memories hold me captive. Seven… Eight… Nine… He turned me into this, leaving my body riddled with scars. Ten… Eleven… Twelve… I don’t want to be this person anymore. Thirteen… Fourteen… Fifteen… I want to be free. Sixteen… Seventeen… Eighteen… But I’m afraid that I’ll never be. Nineteen… Twenty…. Twenty-One… I’ll never be good enough. Twenty-Two… Twenty-Three… Twenty-Four… Never be normal. Twenty-Five… Twenty-Six… Twenty-Seven… There’s only one good memory scattered with all the painful ones. Twenty-Eight… Twenty-Nine… Thirty… My savior… My hero… Corey. \\WARNING\\ This book contains scenes that readers will find upsetting.

Addiction ~ NOUN The fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance or activity. I’m a strong woman. Or at least, I think I am. I used to be so sure about that. I trained everyday, making sure I could take down anyone that I needed to. Mixed martial arts, kickboxing, self-defense, karate. You name it, I’ve done it. I prided myself on being not only physically strong but mentally too. I knew mind games, I knew how to put on a front. I may be small in size but I like to think of myself as a pocket rocket. Quick thinking, fast reflexes. When I was younger, I was known as the delicate little flower, the person people needed to protect, to not let get hurt. I hated it. I didn’t want someone who was paid to protect me, I wanted to be able to do that shit myself and that started with leaving home at eighteen with only a couple of hundred bucks and a bag full of clothes on my back to get away from my father. But I never expected to meet him along the way. The person whose eyes were full of sadness and heartbreak. The person who turned my world upside down and my heart inside out. The problem? He only wanted someone to warm his bed at night, and that was okay for a while. Until I wanted more. Competing with someone who didn’t exist anymore was impossible, and that’s exactly what I was doing when it came to him. There was a time when I thought I could pull him out of the darkness but now I know that won’t happen, not while I’m slipping into that darkness myself and especially not while I’m in a love affair with those pretty little pills. They gave me relief, calmed my body and soul, all the while destroying everything that I worked to become and all that I am. Now? Now it’s just me and them.

Reboot—Verb To restart by loading the operating system; boot again. Ninety-nine percent of the time you can right your wrongs. Sometimes all it takes is a simple apology. But what about that one percent? The wrong that you can’t make right. The wrong that will haunt you. The wrong that seemingly defines the very core of you. Starting over and putting the past behind me is all I want to do. But girls like me—with pasts like mine—are fated to live in the shadows of their mistakes. So what happens when you’re given that second chance? At life… at love? Do you take it? Or do you stay in the shadows? Good people who do bad things deserve second chances. Don’t they?

ILLUSION—NOUN A deceptive appearance or impression. Life is an illusion. A mirage of what you want people to see. I’ve perfected mine. I let people judge me for who they think I am, not willing to bare my true self. But perception isn’t reality. Reality is painful, full of sorrow and sins. I keep my secrets guarded closely, not willing to let them free. But it only takes one person to see you—the real you—for your mask to evaporate. One look. One promise. Life will never be the same again.