Page 20 of Betraying Family Vows

But there's something about the way she looks at me, half hatred and half something else entirely, that makes me curious what lies beneath all that fake bravado.

I turn and walk into the bedroom, to the secure closet to gather some things. I need to create some distance between us. Something about her proximity makes it hard to focus. Makes me feel things I have no business feeling for someone who tried to get me killed.

Not just things. Need. It's anger and need all twisted into something I don't fucking trust.

Alone in here I can clear my head and figure out what to do next, though she's probably not going to like it.

7

ATHENA

I'm going to get out of this.

Somehow. Some way.

I repeat it like a mantra in my head even as the rope burns sting my wrists as I shift in the chair. Ten minutes. Fifteen? I've lost track of how long he's been gone. The house creaks around me, wind whistling through cracks in the stone. My shoulders ache from being pulled back, and my throat feels raw from screaming obscenities after he walked away.

The bastard didn't even flinch. Didn't even come back from wherever the hell he went behind me.

Finally, footsteps approach from the hallway. I straighten in the chair as best I can.

Dimitri returns, his face expressionless. Not angry. Just in control.

I hate that more than anything.

I can handle rage. I can handle violence. I can handle the kind of men who want to hurt me or scare me because it pushes me to react.

But this... it's harder. It makes me think too much.

And on top of all that, he doesn't even look at me now, and that pisses me off the most.

I'm sitting here in nothing but oversized clothes, with rope binding my ankles and wrists, my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to break out.

And he's ignoring me as he moves around the room.

Like I'm nothing.

He leaves again and returns. This time, I see a bottle of water in his hand. No knife visible, but that doesn't mean anything.

He unscrews the cap and stops in front of me, towering. "Thirsty?"

I glare up at him. "I'm fine."

"You're lying," he says, bringing the bottle to my lips. "Drink."

I turn my head away. "Fuck off."

He shrugs and sets the water on the floor beside me. "Suit yourself."

He's right. My tongue feels like sandpaper, but I won't give him the satisfaction of seeing me need anything.

I press my knees together and rotate my head from side to side. My skin still burns from where his knife touched it, from where his hand gripped my throat.

I can still feel the heat of his body when he pressed me to the wall.

I hate how aware of him I still am.

Focus. I can't be so wrapped up in all my emotions if I want to live and break free.