Page 28 of Betraying Family Vows

I run faster, branches hitting my face as I weave between trees, vineyards, bushes, and whatever else is out here.

"Athena!" he yells again, and fear jolts through me like electricity. I push harder, my legs moving faster.

I can now hear footsteps.

Fuck. He's close.

The moonlight barely illuminates my path. I stumble through shadows, hands outstretched to prevent crashing into tree trunks. My lungs burn. My feet throb. But stopping isn't an option.

Behind me, I hear nothing now, but the silence is worse than footsteps. Dimitri is out there. Hunting me.

A branch snaps somewhere to my right. I jerk left immediately, changing direction. My hip slams into a tree trunk, and I cover my mouth to hold back the scream of pain.

I don't know where I'm going. I don't care. Away from him is all that matters. And even if I can't hear him, can't see him, I'm not stupid enough to think I've lost him.

The floor dips suddenly and I lose my balance. I tumble down a short embankment, leaves and twigs tangling in my hair. I land in a small pocket of dirt formed by the exposed roots of a massive tree.

I curl into the small space, trying to quiet my breathing. My chest heaves, lungs desperate for air. I press a hand over my mouth again, forcing myself to take slower breaths through my nose.

Calm down. Calm down.

I strain to hear over the blood rushing in my ears.

Nothing. Just the soft rustling of leaves in the night breeze.

Did I lose him? God, I hope so.

I keep listening.

Nothing.

I suck in air, remembering those breathing exercises they tell us before photo shoots when you have to walk out half-naked to a room full of people.

But my mind won't calm down.

It's not just fear that's pressing down on me. It's exhaustion.

Not just from running tonight, though that was bad enough, but from something deeper. Something I've been doing for years.

From jobs that meant nothing. From a legacy I could never live up to.

When my mother died, she took more than herself. She took the last piece of the life I knew how to live. Because up until then, I just wanted to rise up to her status. Or at least, my own secondhand version of it.

When she was alive, I lived with the secret realization that I'll never be as good as her, as popular, or as adored as she was.

And when she died, I didn't know who the fuck I was anymore. I mean, if she wasn't there to make the calls, force the introductions, then I was just another girl in the modeling world.

And maybe that's why I agreed to do this. Why I let a stranger hand me a vial of poison, give me a target, and some convincingstory, and said yes. Because if I couldn't be someone meaningful in my own right, maybe I could be someone angry. Someone avenging. Someone with a purpose, even if it was fucked up.

I could finally be something more than wasted potential in perfect makeup.

But I couldn't even do that right.

I didn't kill Dimitri.

Not because I had mercy, but because I didn't know how.

Because deep down, I've been pretending I'm dangerous when really, I'm just desperate.