Running from hell isnʼt easy. Especially when thereʼs someone dragging you back down into it.
Belligerent, brash and always in shades of black, Freya is hardly a lady. Hidden away by her father, sheʼs lived a normal life despite being born into the...
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I’M ALREADY ANNOYED after the funeral when Anastasia Morozov decides she’s going to piss me off even further and try to become some sort of fucking paladin for her sister. I know she’s afraid of me — exceedingly so — and yet she still musters up enough courage to approach me.
My sister may act like she doesn’t want love, when really, she wants it more than anyone else.
So if you can’t give it to her, let her go.
I’ve never felt anything for Anastasia Morozov. Maybe she isn’t the lifeless doll she pretends to be. But now she annoys the fuck out of me.
Because she gets so easily what I’ll never have.
Freya’s loyalty.
I can do what I want — push the little Morozov into my home, put my ring on her finger, get her to wear my diamond collar around her neck — but in the end, there are things I’ll never be able to force. Never be able to buy. Like her loyalty. And her trust.
And I know, without a doubt, that given the choice she between her sister and I, Freya will always choose her sister.
Envy wraps its green vines around my neck.
I’m envious of Anastasia. Her, and everyone else who has the one thing I can never get.
So when I get back to the building to find the little Morozov in conversation with someone who looks suspiciously similar to the fucker from all those days ago at the ice rink, my blood heats.
I step up closer, but Freya’s so engrossed in her little conversation that she doesn’t even notice me. The boy with glasses has his gaze fixed on her. It was clear then, and it’s clear now.
He’s in love with her.
My blood drips with spite.
I should have put a bullet in his skull when I had the chance.
He says something that makes Freya pout her lips and cross her delicate brows in anger — it’s not the wild, untamed anger she often sends my way. This anger is restrained — protective, almost. She cares about him.
And then he says something that casts a blood red haze over my mind.
“Run away with me,” he says, “We can move to another state. I’ll take care of you.”
I’m moving forward with only half of my own volition. “You’ll do what, exactly?”
Freya turns, her eyes wide before her pretty features crumple. “Torren.”
My name on her lips is fuel to the flame in my chest.
And just like that day at the engagement, when she stepped in front of her father and sister to protect them, she does the same. For him. Her hazel gaze meets mine. Pleading. Desperate, as she says, “Don’t hurt him.”
