Page 1 of Coal Hearts

Ruby Tears

The Jewelry Box Series

Book One

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by

New York Times Bestseller

Pepper Winters

Prologue

Ily

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TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.

That pitiful sum changed my entire life.

It bought my entire life.

A measly ten thousand dollars, given to my boyfriend by a monster to fuck me.

He took it.

The monster took me.

And I never saw freedom again.

Chapter One

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Henri

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WHO THE FUCK WAS I kidding?

I can’t do this.

I didn’t have the morals, the self-control, the strength.

Even suggesting I try to do this was like dumping an oblivious goat into a T-Rex paddock. The goat thought he’d scored a good spot—a nice place for a snack and a snooze, only to end up decapitated and spat all over the foliage.

I honestly didn’t know if I was the T-Rex or the goat in this scenario.

Honestly, I was both.

It took all my fucking willpower to restrain myself. To smother the parts of me that were rotten and monstrous all while doing my best to be good. To be a genuinely nice guy who didn’t crave such debasement.

To be like him.

My half-brother who’d fought such urges and won. Who’d not only survived with the inherited compulsion to cause tears and get hard on pain but to also find a wife capable of leashing him.