RISE: A Prequel Novella (Sin and Secrets)

RISE: A PREQUEL NOVELLA (SIN AND SECRETS)

Cara Wade, Kali Brixton, Shanna Swenson, and Nicole Rodrigues

RISE is an original work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, businesses, companies, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 by Shanna Swenson, Cara Wade, Kali Brixton, and Nicole Rodrigues

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval systems or other electronic or mechanical means, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used within this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher nor the book are associated with any products or vendors mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within have endorsed this book. The Devil’s Playground is a fictitious club used for entertainment purposes only.

Cover Design by: Cara Wade

Formatting by: Shanna Swenson

Contents

Introduction

Foreword

Blurb - Eden

Eden

Blurb - Everleigh

Everleigh

Blurb - Magnolia

Magnolia

Blurb - Addison

Addison

Eden

Sneak Peek—Delivered in Sin by Nicole Rodrigues

About Nicole Rodrigues

Also by Nicole Rodrigues

About Kali Brixton

Also by Kali Brixton

About Cara Wade

Also by Cara Wade

About Shanna Swenson

Also by Shanna Swenson

Introduction

Get drawn into an addictive world of sin and secrets as we take you back to how it all started and tell the stories of four best friends who experience loss, heartbreak, and love.

Meet Eden, Magnolia, Everleigh, and Addison in this introduction prequel novella and learn about their pasts and how it'll forever haunt them.

Like the mighty Phoenix, these ladies will RISE.

DISCLAIMER: This is an introductory prequel novella to the Sin & Secrets Collection and offers glimpses of each coming character’s dark past, not a full story with an HEA. Please note, this book is a dark romance with possible triggers.

These books are part of a series and are meant to be read in order.

~The Sin and Secrets Collection~

Book 1: Delivered in Sin by Nicole Rodrigues

(Magnolia’s book, Coming in December)

Book 2: Star-Crossed Secrets by Kali Brixton

(Everleigh’s book, Coming January 2021)

Book 3: High Rise Secrets by Cara Wade

(Addison’s book, Coming February 2021)

Book 4: Marked by Sin by Shanna Swenson

(Eden’s book, Coming March 2021)

Foreword

We call ourselves Core Four now, following our destruction—and our RISE to freedom. We had no idea how intertwined our lives would become. That we would become sisters, born not of blood, but forged in fire...my best friends and I: Everleigh, Magnolia, Addison, and of course, myself, Eden. 

And to think, it all began in The Devil’s Playground...

Blurb - Eden

ℂ𝕒𝕘𝕖𝕕

𝐀𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟓 , 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞, 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞-𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐨.

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬.

𝐌𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐧𝐝...𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠?

Eden

Iunwillingly inhale the acrid sweet scent of cigar smoke as I walk nervously up the stairs, clad in only a thin silk teddy, thong, and stiletto heels. I gulp as the sound of his chair turns and he faces me, that sick satisfied grin on his face forcing me to hold back the little contents in my stomach.

Dance. Dance for me, my sweet girl. The sound of his rough voice grates out as a smoke ring encircles his head; his suit is perfectly starched, his black hair is slicked back, the poignant stench of his woodsy cologne wafts my way and I want to run to his trash can and hurl.

Instead, I simply nod and move closer, my heart hammering in my chest.

I can hear the faint thumping of the music from the club in the background as I stand in front of him. He grips my curvy hips and moves his eyes over me, lust evident there. It sickens me. He sickens me.

I begin to dance, knowing things won’t work out well if I don’t do as he asks and he has to prompt me again. Uncle Vince doesn’t ask twice.

It isn’t long before I’m practically in his lap, of his movements not mine, and his hands are on me, moving familiarly over my womanly body like they’ve done so many times before.

It’s been a long night. You’ve had lots of eyes on you, he states as his hand rests on my thigh, he grips it a little more tightly than what’s comfortable. But no hands. Never any hands. Because I’d break them into pieces if they touched what was mine. He smirks and moves his fingertips down my inner thigh. I mentally cringe but try not to let him notice. Do you know what these men want to do to my sexy little prima donna?

I nod. But Uncle Vince scowls. He wants a verbal answer.

They wanna… I can’t say the words. I’m too mortified.

They wanna fuck you. They wanna claim what’s mine…and we just won’t have that, will we? It’s okay that I don’t answer him this time because his lips are falling on mine and kissing me, with a possession that always makes me recoil. But I don’t fight. I never fight. Because fighting is a moot point. He would only inflict more pain and that’s something he enjoys far too much; I won’t give him the satisfaction.

His hand falls between my legs. I cringe again. I try to relax against the tension in my body but it’s hard, so damn hard. Bile rises in my throat, I hold it back but my belly burns like it always does when he puts his hands on me. I feel his slimy tongue invade my mouth and let my mind reach—reach for anything that will take me away from this dismal place I’ve found myself trapped in. But there is no escape, no escape from his clutches as he pulls me across his lap and begins to grope me.

As he lays me down onto the leather couch next to his desk, the tears begin to fall down my cheeks, spilling forth and filling my eyes. I can’t stop them. I always try but there’s no way I can stop them. I think deep down Uncle Vince takes a sick kind of satisfaction in my tears.

Eden, my sweet little pleasure garden, open your eyes and look at me, he says as I hear the sound of his pants unbuckling and his zipper being unzipped.

Fuck him. The bastard. He knows I hate looking at him while he does this, knows I hate him.

I do as he asks—for God forbid I disobey—staring into his black eyes, eyes that I’ve grown to despise peering into while he takes me like he owns my body.

He touches my cheek. So beautiful. Just like your mother.

I wake to the sound of my own screaming. Like so many early school mornings. I’m glad my uncle isn’t here. He’s never here, thank God. He’s always at the club. Living, breathing, and sleeping the club. He always leaves my body guard, Marco, who at this point has gotten used to my nightmares—and middle-of-the-night screaming—and doesn’t come barging in like he used to do in the very beginning. Uncle Vincent is delusional, paranoid, and extremely overprotective of me.

My birth name is Cordelia Adaleden Riser by the way, although I go by Eden. Uncle Vince—my uncle by marriage—forced me to take his surname of Perelli two years ago when he adopted me. I’m seventeen years old. Seventeen…and trapped in a place where I’m completely and utterly miserable in my skin and my life. Trapped with a man who thinks he owns me, body and soul. Trapped in a body that I hate…for I’ve had curves since I was twelve, curves that he uses to his advantage, curves that I loathe because I feel abnormal because of them.

I lost my parents when I was just fifteen and this depraved man who got custody of me has tortured, beaten, and raped me from the first night I came to live with him. My uncle Vincent was obsessed with my mother, Lydia, whom I’m practically identical to, but ended up marrying my aunt Lauren, my maternal aunt, instead since my mother was happily married to my father. Aunt Lauren died of cancer when I was fourteen, much to my dismay, and not just because I wish she would have lived to be here for me now—she was a wonderful person. Although, if she were here, I would never have been treated this way, I’m sure of it. She would have gotten us out of this hell-hole somehow, for she was a fighter up to the very end.

I get up from my bed and tip-toe to the door. I need some water; my throat burns from screaming.

I open the door and see Marco sitting in his usual chair. He looks up at me as I step gingerly out.

You ok, Eden? he asks, concern darkening his big blue eyes.

I simply nod and drop my head. He’s bore witness to far too much, seen more of my naked body than I ever anticipated he would, been there to wipe my tears, pick me up off the floor, and bandage my cuts. He’s been my rock in the aftermath of my fall from grace. Every. Single. Time.

I love him like a second father…and maybe even more if I’m being completely honest with myself. How could I not though? He’s the only man in two years who’s shown me any type of compassion. I’ve even been forced into