Fairytales aren't meant to last forever...
In the weeks following an unanticipated attack, Brielle finds herself relying on the very men who kidnapped her for protection. Intent on helping them find her unnamed threat, she must learn to survive in a new world that has her questioning everything. Can she trade the scarring encounters she faces for the pleasure these men can offer? And if she does, what will that mean for her family, and the threats that follow her?
The Grimm Brothers, who have never known more than an idle threat, will do whatever is necessary to guarantee the safety of the woman who’s begun to enchant them. They want her. They need her. But do they deserve to keep her? Brielle wanted nothing more than normalcy, and they do not do normal.
Can they provide the perfect blend of pleasure, security, and sanity she’s searching for? Can they protect her from the man who’s hunting her? What cost will Brielle pay to help them lure him into their trap?
Explore your desires.
Strengthen your resolve.
Or be consumed trying.
General Release Date: 7th January 2025
Strangers.
“I left another message for your father…I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
I hardly register the woman’s words as she hovers in front of me, her pink scrubs too vibrant, too happy a color to belong in a night like tonight. My mother. Our mother…
“Do you need anything? I can run down to the cafeteria—”
“No.” I interrupt her with a stiff shake of my head, refusing to meet her worried gaze as she glances down at my sleeping brother.
“I’ll just be in the hallway if you change your mind,” she murmurs, her voice quieter but still nicer than I deserve. She doesn’t understand.
“Brielle? Can I speak to you for a moment?” A man’s voice draws my attention to the door, and when I look up, I see the officer from earlier standing there, watching me. I glance over at Sammy, nestled in a cocoon of blankets on the gurney in front of me, and force myself onto numb legs. I shuffle toward him, my irritated eyes burning as we enter the brightly lit hallway. People continue around us, those in scrubs oblivious to the uniformed officer in their midst, while the patients in gowns pause for a moment to stare. I feel myself shifting and stall just outside the door as I spot a well-dressed woman waiting nearby. Her hair is pulled back into a neat bun at the base of her skull, and she’s wearing a dress suit, with a white badge hanging around her neck. I can see the writing from here, big red letters that read Children’s Protective Services with her name, scrawled in black, beneath a photo of her. Susan.
“Hi, Brielle, I’m Suzie.” She smiles at me, shuffling the stack of papers in her grasp to one arm so she can extend a hand. Sensing my apprehension, she nods at the officer beside her and takes a small step toward me. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?”
My eyes track around the room before I realize what I’m doing, my body already involuntarily searching the sea of faces for the one I’ve been waiting for all night. Nothing.
Just more and more strangers.
I slowly turn my attention back to the woman, Suzie, and nod my agreement with a swallow, knowing that, although she’s asking to speak with me, I don’t really have the option of saying no. She gestures to a set of chairs behind me and moves to make herself comfortable in one of the blue plastic seats, but I hover in front of her, my mind drifting back to Samuel.
“I’ll go sit with him,” the officer, whose name I’ve forgotten, offers with a tight smile. Again, I don’t have the option of declining. He’s quick to disappear into the exam room before I can think of a rebuttal, the faint click of the door shutting, sealing my position out here, with another stranger.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Brielle?” Suzie smiles up at me, her brown eyes attempting to search mine before I have the chance to drop them to the floor.
“Am…I in trouble?” I whisper, wondering momentarily if being unable to save my mother is punishable by law.
“Why would you be in trouble?” she asks, as if my question is absurd.
I shrug, unsure of how else to answer as I lower myself lethargically into the chair beside her. I’m exhausted.
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Again, I don’t reply. What am I supposed to say? I’m sure the standard ‘it’s okay,’ or ‘it’s not your fault’ would suffice, but I’ve been through too much tonight to expend any more energy trying to console her.
“How long was your mother ill?”
Was. Past tense, because she’s… I wince and swallow around the lump that’s formed in my throat. “Two and a half years.”
Truthfully, we’d known something was wrong her entire pregnancy, but it wasn’t until after Sammy was born that the doctors discovered the mass growing in her skull.
“That’s a long time to live with a terminal diagnosis. How did your family cope?” She jots something down in her notebook and returns her expectant gaze to me, her pen poised against the paper as if already predicting my answer will be worthy of notating.
“W-we just did what we could.” I shrug again, unease churning my empty stomach. I’d probably feel nauseated if I hadn’t already thrown up everything in my system.
“What about your father? How did he cope?” Her question ignites a surge of anger through my tired brain as if she’s just dropped a bomb in my lap, and I become defensive before I even realize where this is going.
“He works a lot to try and pay for her medical bills. What’s this about?” I bristle in my chair, pressing my hands together in my lap as I lift my eyes to meet hers.
She sighs and shuffles the papers in her arms, one shoulder rising and falling half-heartedly. “We’re just trying to figure out why you were left alone with your three-year-old brother and your severely sick mother… That’s a lot of responsibility to place on a child’s shoulders.”
“I’m seventeen. I’m old enough to be left alone.” My rehearsed excuse doesn’t seem to sit well with Suzie.
She raises a brow at me and looks up from her notes with a quizzical expression. “Do you know where your father is tonight, Brielle?”
“I already told the officers that he’s at work. He has to keep his phone silenced while he’s on the clock.” Maybe if I say it enough, it’ll be true.
I know he’s not at work. If he were, the work boots he’d worn out of the house this morning wouldn’t be sitting on the closet floor back at home. I don’t know where he is, or what possible explanation he can have for leaving late at night, and dodging every single fucking phone call.
“Brielle, we called his job site, and they said he was let go a few months ago.”
I blink, unsure if I’ve heard her correctly. Let go? “That’s impossible,” I whisper as my world tips on its axis. He was fired? “He’s still getting paid, I’ve watched him cash the checks.”
She shifts, her face falling as if it pains her to see my world come apart at its seams. Where is he? Why wasn’t he home? He could’ve helped.
He could’ve saved her.
“Where are my kids? I want to see my kids!” A familiar voice booms from down the hallway, and when I glance up, I can see my father, shouting at the nurse in the too-happy scrubs by the nurse’s station. She’s flustered, I can see that from here, her face heating as she crosses her arms over her chest.
“Sir, if you have a seat in the waiting room, I’ll have someone come and talk to you—”
“No! I need to see my kids. You can’t keep them from me!” He’s causing a scene, his voice darker than I’ve heard it, and his face is puffy from crying. He can’t see me, tucked around the corner behind an empty gurney, and although I know I should run to him before he makes things worse, I stay planted in my seat. He backs up, moving away from the desk to a tray of unattended medical supplies, and knocks it over, the loud crashing disturbing the otherwise quiet hospital. People have stopped to watch as he shuffles around, and Suzie is quick to slip from beside me to grab the officer from Samuel’s room.
“Well?” My father is seething, jabbing a finger at the other medical staff who’ve stopped to listen. “Where the hell are they? Samuel? Brielle? Brielle!”
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