Twisted

Copyright © 2023 by Emily McIntire Cover and internal paperback design © 2023 by Sourcebooks Cover design by Cat/TRC Designs Cover image by tawan/Shutterstock Internal design of Paperback by Ashley Holstrom/Sourcebooks Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks. Bloom Books is a trademark of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems— except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews— without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book. Paperback published by Bloom Books, an imprint of Sourcebooks eBook published by Emily McIntire P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567- 4410 (630) 961- 3900 sourcebooks.com Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress. Printed and bound in [Country of Origin – confirm when printer is selected]. XX 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Playlist Author’s Note Prologue 1. Yasmin 2. Julian 3. Yasmin 4. Julian 5. Yasmin 6. Julian 7. Yasmin 8. Julian 9. Yasmin 10. Julian 11. Yasmin 12. Julian 13. Yasmin 14. Yasmin 15. Julian 16. Yasmin 17. Yasmin 18. Julian 19. Yasmin 20. Julian 21. Yasmin 22. Julian 23. Yasmin 24. Julian 25. Yasmin 26. Yasmin 27. Julian 28. Yasmin 29. Julian 30. Yasmin 31. Yasmin 32. Julian 33. Yasmin 34. Julian 35. Yasmin 36. Julian 37. Yasmin 38. Yasmin 39. Julian 40. Julian 41. Yasmin 42. Julian Epilogue Crossed - Never After Book #5 Thank you for reading! JOIN THE MCINCULT! Also by Emily McIntire Acknowledgments About the Author Playlist “Devil on My Shoulder”— Faith Marie “Changes”— Hayd “In the End”— Beth Crowley “Boyfriend”— Dove Cameron “Love Is Madness”— Thirty Seconds to Mars (feat. Halsey) “idfc”— blackbear “Under the Influence”— Chris Brown “Demons”— Imagine Dragons “Girls Like Us”—Zoe Wees “Infinity”—Jaymes Young Listen HERE on Spotify For the people pleasers. Sometimes, it’s okay to be a little selfish. “It is amazing what women in love will do.” ANONYMOUS, THE ARABIAN NIGHTS Author’s Note Twisted is a dark contemporary slow- burn romance. It is a fractured fairy tale, not fantasy or a literal retelling. The main character is a villain. If you’re looking for a safe read, you will not find it in these pages. Twisted contains mature and graphic content that is not suitable for all audiences. Reader discretion is advised. I highly prefer for you to go in blind, but if you would like a detailed trigger warning list, you can find it on EmilyMcIntire.com Join The McInCult on Facebook to chat while you read Prologue JULIAN My mother used to have me pick my own switches. I’d traipse through the small, wooded area at the back of our house and find the smallest branch I could: one that was thick enough to replace the belt but wouldn’t hurt quite as bad. Then she’d whip me until I bled. “It will only hurt for a little, piccolo,” she’d always murmur. Afterward, she’d apologize and take me for gelato. Dark chocolate raspberry. Her favorite. Sometimes, I deserved the whippings. I was a boy who rebelled at the idea of following in my father’s footsteps, taking over the dry- cleaning business started from the ground up by my grandparents when they immigrated from Calabria, Italy. Other times, you had to look deeper for the cause. Any time my father would come home, after being ridiculed and talked down to by the customers he cleaned stains for, he’d beat my mother black and blue. Our walls were thin, and I’d lie awake to the sounds of a broken woman’s whimpers and an angry man’s curses. I’d always know that not long after, she’d come into my room, her midnight-black hair so similar to mine, pulled back as tight as her smile while she passed along the torture. My family has always been predictable that way— taking power from those too weak to keep it. Maybe that was why I started sneaking away and watching the hapkido classes that took place at the end of our block. I’d see them train and wonder what it would feel like to be so powerful. To have such control over your opponent that you had no fear of being hurt. I’d imagine learning how to use the short stick or the staff and beating the hell out of my piece-of- shit father, making sure he could never touch my mother again. If she found some peace, maybe I could as well. It will only hurt for a little. I snap out of the memory, allowing it to fade into the recesses of my mind where I keep it locked up tight and straighten from where I’m leaning against the wall in the dimly lit hidden room of my house. The plastic tarp that I hung earlier from the ceiling covers the floor, creating a cocoon around the man currently bound to the chair in the middle of the space. His breathing is heavy, the sound accompanied only by the hissing of Isabella, my twenty-three- foot python, as she slithers her way around his feet and up his legs. The second she hits his calves, he jerks, his once perfectly pressed suit soaked through with perspiration. “Careful,” I tsk. “She likes when you put up a fight. It excites her.” I rub my palm over my jaw, the three-day stubble rough beneath the pads of my fingers, and then I sigh, reaching into my pocket and gripping my custom- made compact metal staff. Pulling it out, I press a button on the side, and it elongates until it’s