Acquiescence

Marley Fletcher is half of a person: stuck in a mindless, indefinite cycle of pleasant friends, obeyed rules, and whispered words of forced contentment, she’s trapped by what’s missing. Senior year of high school brings no more than another smattering of new teachers and Friday nights with old friends at the local movie theater. But Marley longs for something to complete her, to fill her dreamy innocence with passion and fervor. She wants someone to live for.

She finds someone who makes her want to die.

Selfish, cruel, and impatient, Jude Sinclair has not only cut off his ties to compassion and sympathy, he has torched the ropes with flames and laughed as they burned to ashes. Jude is an integral member of the underground, modern scope of organized crime—the infamous “Mob.” Despite his lack of Italian heritage, he has risen to the peak of his bloody career at only 24 years old: the deaths of hundreds linger at his fingertips, and it seems not one has left an ounce of regret on his indecent conscience.

Jude doesn’t know what it is about Marley: a naïve, childish little high school girl with self-esteem depleting faster than the ozone layer. For the sake of a bet and a game he doesn’t quite understand, Jude grows determined to “break” her, to destroy her stubborn resistance until she surrenders to him, and then to abandon her. After all, Jude Sinclair can do anything to anyone.

He can leave her shattered.