Page 75 of Manacled Hearts

“Him?” I ask.

“Frankie B, the one who…” she trails off, swallowing nervously. “The one who separated me from my sister.”

There’s so much more to this that she’s not sharing.

“He seemed in charge. He was young, not as young as me, but not as old as you. He instructed for everyone to be taken to an assessment room… everyone but me. I don’t know,” she trails off, and I notice a slight tremor in her flesh, “I don’t know what they did there. My sister has not given many details.”

“What about you? What happened after they separated you?” I ask knowing full well I have part of the story. I wasn’t the one to find her—Maddox was. The bastard is just as quiet as she is, keeps so much to himself.

She gives up looking into my eyes but finds a spot somewhere on the wall, and she’s focused on it like it’s about to morph into something else.

“The kids’ cries still echo in my mind some nights. The fear in their screams when I was grabbed and taken away is alive inside of me. But they hit some of them to silence them, and that… I don’t think I’ll recover from my failure to protect them.”

“It’s not your failure, Evelyn.”

“I begged to let me go with them, with my sister,” she continues, ignoring my words, “but Frankie said I needed to go with him. To find out what I’m worth.”

My pulse shudders beneath my skin, and I’m not sure I manage to control my features. Because those words fill me with such rage, I don’t know if I should blame that asshole or myself.

“What else did he say?” I ask through gritted teeth. I’m failing to control my reaction.

“Umm… that he might keep me to himself.”

Motherfucker!

Evelyn is not his to keep! She is goddamn mi—

“Then he grabbed me by the hair, someone hit me, maybe it was him, and I passed out.” She takes a breath that was meant to be deep, but staggers its way down her lungs instead. “After that it’s fuzzy. They drugged me, but this time it wasn’t a sedative. I’ve never done drugs before, but I know now it was heroin.”

And here I basically accused her of being a junky when I caught her buying drugs.

“I was put in a cold room alone, without any children. There was just this flickering, faint overhead bulb there that went out frequently. That’s where Vassallo came and questioned Frankie as to why I was still alive, because I was too old. He told him he wanted to keep me, and I took the fact that they didn’t share any incriminating information around me as a good sign… Perhaps I was naive, but you don’t usually censor yourself if you plan to kill the person who hears you.”

I don’t think it would have mattered, but I don’t tell her that.

“Do you remember why they drugged you?”

Now her gaze shoots straight to mine, her brows furrowing in both annoyance and confusion.

“You already know why,” she spits back at me.

My brows draw together, tension pulling at my temples along with the confusion.

“I don’t…” I shake my head, forced ignorance burning through my chest.

Her features morph to fury, eyes turn glassy as she frowns. But the truth stares me right in the face, it spills from her eyes in wordless whispers, telling me what I’ve been refusing to accept since the moment Maddox found her.

No… fuck! No, they didn’t! Did they…?

“Evelyn…”

“Don’t make me say it, Finnigan. You already know why.”

“I don’t. I wasn’t there,” I say quickly, the strain too noticeable in my voice.

Her eyes widen, and she flinches back. “But Maddox said—”

“I was part of the rescue mission, but I was with some of the kids… Maddox alone found you.”

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