**BOOK FOUR**
Reuben is running. Running from a life he never wanted; one he never fit into.
Eli is chasing. Chasing a future he is desperate to call reality.
After Reuben's rejection, Eli thought he'd never see his mate again. However, when repo...
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The O'Harris' weren't the first family I stayed with, however, they were the first to crush my spirit.
Mark and Lizzy O'Harris were a broken couple from the start. They were too different to work, yet neither of them was ready to admit it. Instead, they remained in their loveless excuse for a relationship, silently hating each other and fostering a deep resentment in their hearts. Still, they tried to find ways to make their inevitability doomed relationship last and one of those ways was opening their doors to a child—me.
Mark and Lizzy believed, like many of the misinformed people in the world, that children fixed all issues. The problem was that Lizzy wasn't able to become pregnant so, instead, the parents tried fostering. To an eight-year-old mind, coming from nothing and ending up in a home where everything you could wish for was provided for you seemed like a dream that you never wanted to wake up for. I know I didn't. I did everything in my power to try and convince Mark and Lizzy to adopt me; I was the perfect, angelic child.
But children don't fix everything and throwing a bandage on a broken dam doesn't stop the water from bursting through the cracks. Bringing me into their lives didn't solve their problems, if anything, it created more. Lizzy was the type of person who didn't realize they didn't want to be a mother until it was too late, and Mark was a man married to his job first and his family second. He seemed to believe that money was a good substitute for his presence. Needless to say, the fighting stopped for a few weeks, but resumed soon after.
To many, this would've been a clear-cut sign that the relationship wasn't working and it was time to end it, but Mark and Lizzy weren't most people. Instead, they realized something else—they realized that they had a new victim to blame their failed relationship on: me.
Many believed that if they had an opportunity to gain money easily they'd do it, consequences be damned, but if I had to choose between living with the O'Harris family or having little to no money, I'd choose the latter.
Even now, their screams and fighting are still clear in my mind. Which is why when I heard the sound of arguing, I immediately woke up.
It took me a minute to remember where I was. I'd fallen asleep at Cronan's place, but the blue-eyed man was nowhere in sight. It was only when I caught his voice, coming from behind a closed door that I realized he was arguing with someone, and judging by the other voice, I figured it was Arlo.
The memory of Arlo's expression from yesterday flashed through my mind and I frowned. I was curious to know what they were fighting over, but I didn't want to pry.
Grabbing my phone and shoes, I slipped out of the front door to give them space, making a mental note to check on Cronan later.
Once I was back in my own apartment, I set my shoes down by the door, put my phone on the charger, and headed toward the bathroom to take a shower. I climbed inside and as the water rained down on me, my mind drifted back to Mark and Lizzy.
