Continuing on a TBR/Beat-The-Backlog kick (and ignoring my ARCs kick). Here's "The Lies We Believe" by Skyla Raines. It's the second novel in her Without Limits series.
["He was my safe place.
My protector.
My home.
River
Unwanted. Broken. Used.
I spent my childhood bouncing through foster care until I finally ran away, only to end up in the hands of a devil disguised in elegance. She promised me dreams spun in gold, but beneath the surface, they were nothing but sweet lies.
Now, I was trapped in a life where my worth was measured by others' desires, my screams unheard, my tears falling silently in the dark. The only thing stopping me from wishing it would all end was the thought of a boy from my past, the one with mismatched eyes—one like a clear summer’s sky, the other deep and shadowy like a forest. He was a fleeting spark of hope in a world that had none. A dream I never thought I’d hold on to.
The lies we clung to never came true... until they did. And when they did, they mocked us with their cruelty.
Bane
My world shattered the day my family was taken from me, plunging me into the foster system. I was lost and broken until I found solace in a boy with deep emerald eyes. He became my anchor, pulling me from the edge with his quiet smiles and steady presence. For two years, he was my everything, the one thing keeping me together.
After that loss, I vowed to make a difference—to fight for the innocent, protect the vulnerable, and bring justice to those who had none. I never thought the biggest case of my career would bring me face-to-face with the boy who had once seen straight through me. And I never expected the flood of emotion that would follow.
He was no longer the boy I remembered. He was hurt, broken, twisted by the cruelty of the world. I needed him for the case, but all I wanted was to shield him, to keep him for myself. I was torn between my duty to the greater good and the deep pull of a heart I didn’t even know I had."]
Well THAT was all kinds of painful. Like all kinda of painful. You start to feel like you can uncurl and let the blanket fall from your face a bit, and then booooom, more pain. So basically River, River's life, River's trauma, River's pain. The small bits of safety were Bane (and Shadow), but the life, the trauma, the pain, the reality (or the lies we believe (see what I did there)) demand attention.
Which made their progress and their successes and their happily ever after all the more sweet.
Trigger Warnings: child abuse (mental, psychological, physical, sexual), abuse, mental health rep, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, loss of loved ones, sex work/trafficking, drug use, sexual assault/rape, stalking, physical assault, attempted murder, murder, manipulation, homophobia, and more.
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