Page 126 of Twisted Addiction

Lights flashed.

My balance appeared.

My breath caught.

Enough.

Enough to vanish, to escape, to breathe without fear.

I withdrew a small stack of crisp bills, their edges sharp.

The notes burned warmth into my palm, a concrete proof of freedom.

I slipped the card back into my bag like a talisman, a lifeline tethered to a man who both ruined and saved me.

I hailed a cab, the driver indifferent, cigarette smoke curling from the open window like ghostly fingers.

I slid inside, voice low, giving him the address of Penn Station.

New York receded behind me—the looming towers, the suffocating weight of my parents’ empire pressing like stone against my chest.

At Penn Station, I purchased the next train ticket to New Jersey, choosing instinctively a place far from my father’s reach, far from the Romano empire’s shadow.

The train smelled of damp concrete and polished metal, a faint undercurrent of stale coffee lingering in the air.

I sank into a window seat, the carriage nearly empty save for a few late-night travelers, their presence a faint reassurance of life continuing outside my personal chaos.

I was alone.

Truly alone.

No husband, no family, no friends.

Dmitri’s betrayal, Seraphina’s shadow, My parents’ monstrous truths. Each one had stripped away another piece of me until nothing remained but skin, breath, and the faint thrum of a life growing inside me.

My hand found my belly, trembling, protective—the only warmth left in a world gone cold.

My face in the glass looked like a stranger’s—pale, hollow-eyed, barely holding together.

I pressed my forehead to the window, feeling the vibration of the tracks beneath me, each mile pulling me further from the cage I’d called home... and deeper into the unknown.

And though the night felt endless, I pressed my hand to my belly and whispered, soft and cracked but certain.

“We’ll survive this,” I said to the child who would never know the monsters I’d left behind. “You and me. Together.”

I traced the curve of my belly through my gown, as if the movement of my fingers could soothe the panic coiling inside me.

Around me, passengers dozed or scrolled on their phones, oblivious to the storm inside me.

I envied their ignorance.

The train slowed into a station, lights flickering across the darkened platform.

I gathered my bag and stepped down, the chill of the night pressing against my skin.

For a brief, foolish second, I glanced over my shoulder, half-expecting to see Dmitri there—the tailored black suit, the unreadable eyes, the way he filled a room with his presence.

The thought of him finding me both terrified and tempted me.