Page 21 of Beneath Scarred Vows

I'm almost positive if someone were to walk by right now, they'd think I'm crazy, but I don't care.

They don't know all that I've gone through just to have a moment here on this bench.

I get up and start walking.

I'm not naive. I know I can't stay here forever. I know Ares will be furious when he discovers I've left. I know there will be consequences. But right now, I don't care. Right now, I'm just a woman walking along Navy Pier—no one's wife, no one's niece, no one's property.

The city pulses around me like a living thing. Street performers perform on corners for the nighttime crowds, tourists stumble around, and couples walk hand in hand. I follow the scent of food to a small pizzeria with a faded awning. Inside, it's warm and smells of garlic and tomato sauce.

"Slice of deep dish?" asks the man behind the counter.

I nod, suddenly realizing I'm still hungry. When he hands me the pizza on a paper plate, I can't believe how big it is. Cheese stretches in strings as I take my first bite.

Oh my god, it's delicious.

It's messy and indulgent and nothing like the refined meals served at my uncle's or Ares's mansion. I eat standing up, grease on my fingers, watching people through the window.

This is life. Real life. Not the carefully controlled environment I've been kept in.

I wipe my hands on too-thin paper napkins and continue walking, letting my feet guide me. Thoughts enter my mind, butI push them all out. They'll be there later. Right now, I just want peace. And this small taste of freedom I've stolen for myself.

As I continue exploring, I hear music from an open door—a dark jazz club with neon lights. The bass pulses, vibrating in my chest. People laugh inside, clinking glasses, dancing without a care.

For a moment, I stand there, imagining stepping inside, losing myself in the crowd, in the rhythm. What would it be like to just exist? To dance without thinking about who might be watching?

I hesitate at the entrance, telling myself one drink won't hurt. One dance. Just twenty more minutes where I'm nobody and everybody at once. The bouncer nods at me, gesturing me in. I take a step forward.

I'm halfway through the door when I feel the air shift behind me.

Before I can turn, a strong hand clamps around my arm, pulling me back into what feels like a brick wall. I stumble, losing my footing, but he doesn't let me fall.

It's Ares.

I flinch because his fingers dig into my right side. Not there. Never there. The panic is immediate. I strike his hand away with more force than I intended, my body reacting before my mind can catch up.

"Don't touch me there," I hiss.

He looks at me for a moment and then forces me around the building into a dark alley.

Ares's expression shifts, just slightly, before his hand moves to my throat instead. He pushes me back against the wall, caging me in with his body.

"You really think I wouldn't find you?" His voice is firm.

I say nothing. What is there to say? Of course he found me. I suppose deep down I never truly believed I could slip away unnoticed. I just needed something. Anything.

"Do you have any idea what's happening right now?" His grip tightens—not enough to cut off my air, just enough to remind me he could. "With my father's murder. It's too dangerous to go out alone. You have a death wish, Katerina?"

Truth is, death doesn't scare me. It never has, not since I woke up to flames at fourteen. Now, I wake up to them every day, but they don't burn like real ones.

But what I notice is maybe Ares has his own fire to fight, because I see something behind his eyes now. Something raw.

He isn't just furious. He's afraid.

The realization jolts through me. Ares Kastaris, afraid? Not for himself—no, that doesn't fit. For me? The thought is so absurd that it can't be it either. Could it?

"I don't care if I live or die, Ares. That's the difference between us." The words fall from my lips, honest in their simplicity.

His hands shift to my jaw, and he forces me to keep looking at him. His thumb brushes across my lower lip, the gesture strangely intimate despite it being an accident, I'm sure.