Bound to a Ruthless Love I Can't Escape

‎Dina Atticus is a hardworking and strong young Montmartre, Paris dweller. Financially strained, she works part-time to cover her terminally ill mother, Victoria's, rising hospital costs while still struggling to stay in school at university. Her connection with her cousin, Sarah, is toxic and tense. Sarah, who acts like she cares, is manipulative and appears to be motivated by self-interest, seeing Dina's misfortune as a means to personal fulfillment. Dina feels the crushing weight of responsibility, and having just lost her employment has brought her to a breaking point. "You think you can keep going on like that?" Sarah asked, voice low and hard. "Balancing school, the job, taking care of your mother. ‎Sarah smiled, but it wasn’t warm. “I can help. But you have to stop pretending you can do everything alone.” ‎ Help?" Dina's voice caught on the word. "You 'helped' last time and made it worse." She remembered the botched payment that had almost cut off her mother's oxygen, Sarah's cavalier explanations churning in her gut. ‏Sarah relaxed into a slouch, unfazed. "You're too stubborn. Always trying to be the good girl." ‏Dina's eyes flashed. "I don't need your pity or your manipulation." This isn't pity. This is reality. You're drowning, Dina, and I'm the only one who can toss you a lifeline." Her words were a slow tightening of a noose, and Dina felt her stomach twist. ‎She wanted to announce that she was able to do without Sarah's help. She wanted to want to hope that everything would turn around by itself. The reality was, the weight of her mother's illness, college costs, and the constant possibility of losing it all pressed down on her like the hard pavement of the street beneath her feet. ‎"Why do you even care?" Dina breathed, a thread of bitterness seeping into her tone. Sarah's smile thinned and sharpened. "Because if you screw up, I do too. Family is business. And if you collapse, so does everything I want." Dina's chest tightened. Business. Always business with Sarah. Their fights, her scheming — it wasn't even about family; it was about control, power. The words hung there until Dina's phone rang. She glanced down, hope rising too readily inside of her. ‎It was a text from the manager of the café: *Your employment has been terminated, effective immediately.*‎ ‎Dina closed the phone slowly, the words heavy. Sarah already stood before her, eyes sparkling with triumph.‎ ‎For a moment, there was only silence between them. Then, Dina quickly got up, her chair scraping on the floor.‎ ‎She recalled the previous week dearly. Exhausted, she had spilled coffee on a customer's computer, a mistake she could least afford. The cafe manager had been pleasant to start with, but his attitude had grown more and more caustic over the past few days, his emails full of thinly veiled threats. He insisted she was "too distracted to work safely," that her mistakes had "cost the café customers and reputation." All the late nights in the hospital, all the missed meals to do homework, were being kept in memory against her. The worst part was the way Sarah's manipulation had started the entire drama. Dina was now aware that the misplaced supply order—the one she thought had been an innocent clerical error,had been manipulated by Sarah. Sarah had called up the manager in the pretence of "concern," questioning Dina's reliability. Dina's explanations, her attempts at justification, working her best, had fallen on deaf ears. I trusted you," she whispered, voice shaking but fierce. Sarah didn't blink. "Trust is for idiots." Dina said nothing. She just moved out into the rain-soaked street, bite of the air on her skin, her head spinning with the enormity of it all. Her feet led her away, away from tangled wreckage at the café and closer to the small apartment she shared with her mother. She recalled the nights spent juggling books and hospital visits, recollections of the secret that she kept hidden deep inside,a shadow she did not wish to confront. Lost in reflection, she didn't see the black sports car coming towards her around the curve until the tires screeched on the wet pavement. The car swerved hard just inches from where she stood. The driver's side window came down, and a face, for a moment, halted her breath, appeared. He was tall, his dark hair slicked back, eyes sharp and unreadable. A man who seemed cut from a magazine cover — the kind of chap to be seen in boardrooms and luxury hotels, not the sordid streets of Montmartre. "You're lucky I stopped," he said calmly, voice smooth but laced with something unreadable. Dina blinked, still shocked through. "You almost ran me over.". He grinned, a grin that didn't reach his eyes. "Did I? Maybe you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." The remark made her furious. How dared he? She'd fought to retain her job, her mother was unwell, and now this egotistical stranger had the nerve to suggest it was her own doing. ‎She couldn't say anything else before he turned to face her with a strange intensity measuring her up, as though trying to glimpse something deep inside. ‎ ‎"Who are you?" Dina struggled, moving away but not wanting him to know that she was scared. ‎ ‎"Kristen Dylan," he replied with ease. "Perhaps our trails will cross again." ‎ ‎Her eyes narrowed, but she remained silent. She stood there and watched as he took the car and drove into the night, leaving her alone in the cold dark, her heart pounding. ‎Her mind reeled. She no longer simply wanted to protect her mother — she needed to protect herself. From him, from Sarah, from the past that would not lie down. ‎And from the secret she harbored — a secret that could destroy everything. That night, as the lights of the city blurred past her, Dina's resolve hardened.