Prologue
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you. Also, don’t trust the guy that asks you to drop the soap.
—Copper’s secret thoughts
COPPER
One year ago
“What the fuck?” I bellowed just before I launched myself at my father.
He’d been hurting my sister.
And not just hurting her physically with his fists and feet. He’d been touching her.
The sight of his hands on her body…
I hit him harder.
Eventually, the fighting back stopped, but the rage inside of me only ratcheted higher and higher.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh was like music to my ears.
I…
“Clayborne!”
I instantly woke up, never sleeping too deeply in this place.
That was the fastest way to get yourself killed.
I blinked open my eyes and stared at the guard at the door, my heart in my throat.
“You’re going home.”
My fuckin’ heart, the poor, abused thing that I swear to God felt like it was broken, never to be fixed again, gave a small pulse. “What?”
“You’re going home. Get your things.”
It took me five minutes to get my things.
It took me thirty-five to get processed out.
And the moment that I stepped outside and saw my little sister, the reason that I was in that hellhole in the first place, my fuckin’ broken heart mended itself.
At least partially, anyway.
She ran at me, and I swung her up into my arms, holding her tight.
“I’m out,” I whispered into her hair.
She started to sob in my arms. “Best day ever.”
