As soon as I hung up the phone, I realized I’d been shaking as I spoke. Trembling. It wasn’t cold in the hotel—if anything, it was awfully clammy, hot and humid, my hair sticking to my forehead as beads of sweat made their way down my skin. But then, maybe that was just because I felt as though I was already burning in hell for what I’d asked Jasper to do.

 

Even as the words had come out of my mouth, I hadn’t believed I was saying them. What was I, a character in some Shakespearean play about the toppling of an empire? He would never see that the biggest threat came from…his daughter. I had heard the fear in Jasper’s voice—it was the first time he had ever sounded scared around me. That was what had brought home the insanity of what I had asked him to do. To have me, my father would have to die. I wasn’t lying, but selling myself like that to get rid of my father…it didn’t make me feel great.

 

Lucky for me, then, that it didn’t sound much like Jasper was about to take off and murder my father for me. It had been a last-ditch attempt, me grasping at straws, looking for a way out of the situation I had gotten myself into. It wasn’t like there were any other guys like Jasper I could contact and request a hit from—most of them would laugh me out of town at the thought of taking down Lucca D’Orazio, and it wasn’t as though I could offer them some huge bounty for doing it either. I would just have to revert back to Plan B—not that I had much of one. But, if Jasper was out, then I had to find my own way out of here.

 

I didn’t have much with me—really only the clothes I was wearing—and I felt a small stab of sadness when I thought about all the gorgeous garments that filled up my wardrobe, all of them remaining unworn as I fled. In fact, the thought of never seeing that room again made me feel disjointed and as though the world had sort of shifted on its axis below my feet. But that was okay. I would have to get used to those feelings, because that would be my life from here on in. There would be no one to fall back on, no familiar place to call home. I would start from the ground up, and build myself into someone unrecognizable. And hope that I did a good enough job for my father to never find me.

 

I made a list of things I needed—make-up, some new clothes, a new cell phone—and tucked it into my pocket. If I felt as though I was organizing, I could focus in on that instead of the fear that was pulsing underneath my skin. I caught a look at myself in the mirror, and saw that my skin was almost the same color as my hair—white, pale, almost icy. I realized that I would have to let my natural color grow back in and ran my fingers through my light curls, already missing their outrageous color.

 

But, this is what I would have to give up if I wanted to live the life I had always dreamed off. Pursuing what you wanted was never easy, right? That’s what all those dumb romcoms had taught me over the years. Life was hard, and you had to fight through it for the things you truly desired. I mean, they never had to escape their mobster fathers and get rejected by their hitmen boyfriends to get what they wanted, but hey, I could adapt the message.

 

I paced up and down the room as my mind raced. Okay, so where would I go? My father had a place out of town, a hundred miles or so North, not far from the sea—could I go there, hide out in plain sight for a while? Or would those be the first places they checked for me? I had no idea how to go about making my escape stick. Why hadn’t I taken more time to think about it before I fled? Couldn’t it have waited another day, another week, another month?

 

I clenched my fists as those thoughts crossed my mind. No, it really, really couldn’t. How long had I waited? Twenty-two full years. That was how long he’d kept me trapped in that awful, awful place, and I had simply put up with it. He had rendered my life unlivable. Getting out with Jasper had been my first hint at freedom, and it had reminded me that if I let my Dad dictate every part of my life, this would be it. I would eternally be sneaking around, hoping that he didn’t notice my flushed face or ruffled hair when I returned from a day out. Hoping that he didn’t check on my clothes, my make-up, my friends, because nothing I could do would live up to his standards. I could say that for certain, because nothing ever did. Nothing had. Even another minute under his command could have driven me insane. What if I had caved, and just decided that it was easier to live my life under his command? If I became the docile, pretty daughter he had always hoped for, and probably thought he had created by now?

 

I wondered if this would shatter that illusion. If they had figured out that I was gone, what was he thinking? That he was going to tear me a new one for running away like I had? Or…maybe it was more than that. Maybe my increased independence was starting to hurt him. Maybe he’d be angrier than I was prepared for. I assumed that if he caught me, I would be in the kind of trouble I’d never experienced before in my life—but maybe I wasn’t even getting that allowance.

 

Maybe he was just going to go for it and have me done in, save himself the worry of keeping an eye on me anymore. He must have known this had to do with Alfonso—if I got away I would screw up the deal, and if Alfonso found out that I had fled to avoid a marriage to him, that wouldn’t exactly come across too well, either. I had probably blown the deal either way, and my father wasn’t likely to be too happy about any of that.

 

I sat down on the bed, and put my head in my hands. This whole thing was such a…fuck, it was such a complete and utter mess. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually gotten out, but even being so far from my prison, I knew I had so far to go before I was actually out. It would take weeks, months, years, before I felt truly safe, and did I really want to wait that long before I could relax? Maybe I could go to the police, let them know everything I’d seen over the years…yeah, like they wouldn’t have taken down my father if they could have. I mean, he was the biggest deal in this part of the city, and I had no doubt that the cops had spent a long time digging up anything and everything they could on him—more than even I knew. Besides, what if they arrested me? Or Jasper? Or someone else close enough to my father that he figured out where I was and what I’d done?

 

I had seen the wrath of my father, glimpsed it on those rare occasions that I would sneak down to his office without him noticing and peer around the door. A flash of him, phone pressed to his ear, screaming the kind of abuse you’d think would be saved for the bad guys in action movies at whoever was on the other end of the line, passed through my head. I felt myself begin to shake again. And there was nothing between us now—nothing stopping him. The police likely wouldn’t, and Jasper was already out. It was just him and me now. And that thought alone was enough to make my body seize up with fear.

 

I continued making the list of everything I would need, and tried to keep my mind on where I was going to go come the morning; but it was hard to focus when my father was so heavily on my mind. I had never realized just how scared I was of him before. I mean, I knew a little—enough to understand that I didn’t want to cross him. But he was still my dad at the end of the day, the man who raised me after Mom left. He was the one who got me birthday cake and let me sip wine at the dinner table when I was a teenager.

 

I knew he had a temper, knew that he wanted things just so, but I’d never really translated it into him committing any harm against me. I had never had to before. Even with Jasper, our encounters were exhilarating in the abstract, because we knew that neither of us would ever say a word about them to anyone. They were completely and utterly between us—both of us silently terrified of what my father might do if he found out. And could we be blamed for that? I lay back on the bed, pressing my fingertips to my forehead as if trying to still my thoughts through sheer force of will. I needed to get my head straight. Needed some sleep, which hadn’t been very forthcoming, even before Jasper called.

 

I dragged myself to my feet, and went to the window; I stared out blankly at the streets below. There were a few figures already out for their early morning shifts—I scanned the place for Jasper, praying that he might have come back to help me out, but found nothing. I sighed, pulled the curtains shut, and turned on the shower to wake myself up. If I had to do this myself, I would—but there was no time to waste.