Page 22 of Before Broken Vows

"Try me."

A silence. Her throat works, but no words come.

Instead, she says softly, "I was scared."

I wait.

She doesn't go further.

"Please, go on," I say.

Her eyes lift. "Of things. Of what I'd become if I stayed. Of what you'd become."

"Well, I became it anyway."

We sit in the wreckage of our past like it's a third guest at the table.

Finally, she pushes her plate away.

"I'm not hungry anymore," she says.

I nod. "Then dinner's over."

She starts to stand, but I stop her with a look.

"One more thing."

She freezes.

"I don't care what you're hiding," I say, lying again and tossing my napkin on the table, "but if you put this house, or anyone in my family, in danger, there won't be another dinner. There won't be anything."

She holds my gaze and doesn't blink.

"I understand," she says and leaves.

And I believe she does.

Because whatever she's running from, it's not done with her yet.

And neither am I.

9

STASSI

The second I step out of the dining room, the calm I faked starts to crack. I'm halfway back to my room before I realize I'm shaking. Not from fear, but from that old, familiar rage that used to make Theo's eyes darken with appreciation. The rage he only ever brought out. The part of me he wanted to tame.

I don't care what you're hiding.

His dismissal cuts deeper than any threat. And that look in his eyes when he said it—like I was already a threat, already guilty of something.

I lean against an old wood beam that separates the hallway from one of the sitting rooms and stare out the window into the darkness.

He's not wrong to be angry. Not wrong to be cold. Not wrong to want answers I still can't give.

But dammit, I told him I was scared, and that's why I left.

And he said nothing. Just brushed it off.