The Cursed Mafia King's Obsession

oice leaving no room for argument. "And yo

s office, my fingers tightenin

ted, barely able

you think, you will keep it to yourself. Tomorrow is important to this

lebration. As though I wasn't being forced to mar

never looked up when he was deciding something for me, as if my

t marry

u a

him first. And

ays went when I said her name. "Your sister's death was

of it, and I hated that it did. "The last thing she ever said to

precise, like even that small motion had been decided in advan

erstood for the first time, that my father would hand me to Lucian Vale the same way he handed

thing, and because I'd already decided, somewhere between *she's dead* and *nothing

m her vanity the week after the funeral, when no one was looking, and kept

hard enough to leave a mark, two days before she died, in the kitchen where no one

ood what I was promising then. I understand it now. And I fina

planned to leave behind the moment I was far enough away. I didn't pack anything that would slow me down, which meant I didn't pack

midnight. My father's men rotated the gate every four hours, and I'd spent t

ew because Elena had shown me years ago, back when slipping out for a few hours felt like the biggest rebellion either of us could m

e that do

t catch on anything, my breath so shallow I was sure someone would hear it before they saw me. Every window in the house behind me wa

n't move the way I'd practiced. They shook. My heel caught in the grass once and I nearly went down, and the sound of my own stumble was so loud in the si

made myself breat

finished swinging, my heart slamming so hard against my ribs it hurt. Then I was outside the wall for the first time in eight months

uld turn around and go back inside where it was safe, where the worst thing that could hap

ike a woman who had just run out on her own wedding. Then I heard an engine turn over somewhere behind the wall.

ontinuing wa

er lid, a cat knocking something over in an alley, my own shoes on the pavement - made my whole body flinch like it might be the last sound I ever heard. I kept m

before I heard the c

I recognized the shape of it even in the dark. I'd know that car anywhere..... is that same I'd been driven to school in the back seat of it, taught

into an alley I'd never walked before, my bag banging hard against my hip with every step. Behind me, a door opened. Someone said my nam

g. I was actively fleeing from. My hands rubbing raw somewhere around block six. I lost track of which direction the house even was. The alleys opened onto a wider street

footsteps until it was already t

ancing back over my shoulder for headlights, and

und my arm to keep me from falling, and I understood, with my h