The Monster They MadeFor ten years, I loved my stepbrother. When I confessed, Julian called me filthy and sent me to a psychiatric hospital to “fix my brain.”
For three years, they starved me, beat me, locked me in darkness, and stripped away every piece of the girl who had once begged him to come back.
When Julian finally collected me, he complained that I looked thin. My mother prepared dinner for his pregnant girlfriend. My family praised me for learning not to overstep.
They were right about one thing: I had been cured.
I no longer wanted Julian's love. I no longer wanted a place in the Sterling family. And I no longer believed any of us deserved a happy ending.
Now Julian is kneeling for the heart he ordered others to destroy—but the only man I trust is waiting by the ocean, and my final escape may cost all of us everything.The Call He Never AnsweredMy daughter had a sudden heart attack at school. By the time I arrived, I saw only her cold body.
I held her in my arms, frantically calling Arthur Sterling.
He was busy at the hospital with his first love and ignored my calls.
Later, when I told him of our daughter's death, he mocked me bitterly. 
