Twenty minutes feels like a lifetime when you’re convinced someone might be hunting you.
I pace the empty sidewalk, replaying that moment over and over.
Aside from being Dante’s father, there was something peculiar about him. The silver hair, the expensive suit, the way he almosttook a step toward me before I ran. But I can’t place it, and that scares me more than anything.
What if word gets out that I was there? What if someone figures out who I am and where I’ve been hiding? Three months of building a quiet life in Rosehill, and one stupid decision to attend a funeral might have ruined everything.
When the bus finally arrives, it’s one of those long-distance coaches with high-backed seats and tinted windows. Only a handful of passengers are scattered throughout, which suits me perfectly. I choose a seat near the back, press my face against the cool glass, and watch the city fade behind me.
That’s when the tears start.
I haven’t cried—really cried—since the night I found those recordings. Since I heard my father’s voice negotiating my future with a man I thought loved me. The betrayal had been so complete, so devastating, that I simply…stopped. Stopped crying, stopped hoping, stopped believing in anything except survival.
But now, watching Dante’s world disappear through the bus window, everything I’ve been holding back comes pouring out.
Two years ago…
The campus coffee shop was buzzing with the usual afternoon crowd when he walked in. I noticed him immediately—everyone did. He was beautiful in that effortless way some men are, like he’d stepped off the cover of a magazine. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair that caught the light and the kind of face that made girls forget how to speak.
He looked a bit older than me, maybe early twenties, wearing a designer leather jacket. But it was his eyes that really got me—green as sea glass, with an intensity that made my stomach flip when they landed on me.
“Excuse me,” he said, approaching my table with a smile that could have powered the entire building. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m completely lost. I’m here visiting my cousin, and his phone just died on me.”
His voice was smooth, cultured, with just a hint of an accent I couldn’t place. Up close, he was even more devastating—sharp cheekbones, a mouth that looked like it was made for kissing, and those impossible green eyes focused entirely on me.
“Where are you trying to go?” I managed, hoping I didn’t sound as breathless as I felt.
“The engineering building. My cousin said it was near the library, but…” He shrugged helplessly, and I found myself smiling despite my usual shyness.
“I can show you,” I offered, then immediately regretted it. What if he thought I was being too forward? What if?—
“That would be amazing. I’m Dante, by the way.”
“Kasi.”
When he smiled at me—really smiled, not just the polite expression he’d worn before—my heart did something acrobatic in my chest. Greek gods look like this, I thought.
“Beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” he said, and I actually felt my knees go weak.
We walked across campus together, and he was…perfect. Funny, charming, genuinely interested in what I was studying. He asked about my classes, my dreams, my favorite books. Made me feel like the most fascinating person he’d ever met.
When we reached the engineering building, he turned to me with that heart-stopping smile.
“Can I take you to dinner sometime? As a thank-you for saving me from wandering campus forever?”
I said yes before my brain could catch up with my mouth.
He was everything my twenty-year-old self dreamed of in a man—attentive, romantic, generous to a fault. For over a year, he made me feel like a princess in a fairy tale. I thought I was the luckiest girl alive.
I had no idea I was already trapped.
The memory dissolves as someone drops into the seat directly in front of me, jolting me back to the present. A man in his fifties with greasy hair and a gold-plated tooth that glints when he grins at me over the back of his seat.
“Well, well,” he drawls, looking me up and down like I’m a piece of meat. “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing all alone on this bus?”
I wipe my eyes and turn toward the window, hoping he’ll take the hint.
He doesn’t.
