~VALENTINA MONROE ~

Hope was sometimes a deceptive thing. It crept into your mind when reality became too unbearable to accept. It whispered the lies you desperately wanted to believe.

Maybe things would get better. Maybe a miracle would happen. Maybe fate would intervene before it was too late. So many maybes—just enough to keep you breathing, even when some part of you already knew the truth.

Deep down, I already knew the truth. There was no miracle coming. No last-minute rescue. No trace of the man who had once loved me.

As Bill Rogers became the first man Kael handed me over to that night, I understood the depth...