prologue

There’s always that one moment that splits your life in two, the before and the after. For me, it wasn’t a car crash or a death or some tragic accident that made the world stop spinning. It was betrayal. Quiet, deliberate, intimate betrayal.

They say betrayal feels like a knife in the back.

But that’s not true.

Betrayal is quieter than that. It’s the slow realization that the person you trusted the most has already left you bleeding, and you didn’t even know it. It’s the sound of silence when you’re waiting for a call that never comes. It’s standing in front of the mirror, trying to recognize yourself in the girl they left behind.

That was me.

Lexie Stevens. Twenty-four. Nursing student. Quiet. Loyal. Maybe a little too loyal. Maybe a little too forgiving. But never the type of girl who begged for love or played games to keep someone’s attention. I always thought that love, real love, would never ask me to lower my standards or offer pieces of myself I wasn’t ready to give.

I waited. I told him I wanted to wait. And he said he understood.

He lied.

Rafael Joedan wasn’t just my boyfriend. He was my future. My comfort zone. My biggest mistake. He told me he loved me with the same mouth he used to kiss my cousin. He told me I was enough with the same hands that held Amanda while I was asleep at night, dreaming of a life we were never really building.

He got her pregnant.

He’s marrying her.

And the worst part?

They don’t even look guilty.

I wish I could say I walked away gracefully. That I burned his things, cried for a week, and moved on. That I found peace and healing and all those things self-help books promise you. But no.

I didn’t want peace.

I wanted war.

The kind that tears through your chest and makes you feel something again. The kind that makes your name taste like smoke in their mouths. I didn’t just want Rafael to regret losing me, I wanted him to suffer for it. And if that made me toxic, if that made me reckless, then so be it. I’d been the good girl long enough.

So I did something I never imagined I’d do.

I set my sights on Ram Jordan.

Rafael’s uncle. Older. Colder. Built like sin and carved from smoke. The kind of man who doesn’t smile unless he’s amused by someone’s pain. He wasn’t soft like Rafael. He didn’t pretend to be noble or charming. He was blunt, distant, untouchable.

And that made him perfect.

Because he could never hurt me like Rafael did, not if I used him first.

It started as a thought, a whisper in the back of my head. But pain has a way of turning into obsession. And before I knew it, I was at that restaurant, waiting for him like it was fate and not a trap I’d carefully set.

He didn’t even seem surprised to see me.

Maybe he already knew what kind of girl I was becoming.

We talked. I flirted. I pretended it was casual while my heart roared in my chest. He called me a kid. Said he didn’t hang out with college students. Mocked my age, my intentions, my boldness. He told me I was too young.

But I wasn’t too young to be betrayed.

I wasn’t too young to be replaced.

And I wasn’t too young to decide who I gave my body to.

So I didn’t flinch. I didn’t blink. I looked him in the eye, straight into those sharp, unreadable eyes that had seen far too much and cared too little—and I said it.

Loud. Bold. Unapologetic.

"If you won’t go on a date with me, then just sleep with me."

He nearly choked on his coffee.

And in that moment, I knew I’d crossed a line I could never uncross.

But maybe… that’s what I wanted all along.

But then he laughed and said...

"I can’t even go out on a date with you… how much more fuck you?"