Prologue
330 Words
The rain slid against the window like a whispered warning, soft but relentless. My wedding gown hung by the dresser—white, perfect, heavy with lies stitched into every seam. Jason’s voice echoed in my mind: “If you want to live, you run.”
Mom’s perfume still clung to my hands as I packed the small bag she’d hidden for me. Each zip felt like betrayal—to my father, to the name I carried, to the future everyone had dictated for me. Outside my door, the guards’ shadows drifted back and forth, loyal to a man I could no longer call my hero.
And yet, my heart betrayed me. One memory kept flaring, sharp as lightning: Gael. His eyes. The way he moved, always two steps ahead, always dangerous, yet… impossibly magnetic. A part of me ached even now for the man I shouldn’t want, for the life I couldn’t have.
Downstairs, laughter floated through the halls—clinking glasses, empty congratulations, the sound of a life I was never meant to survive. I caught my reflection in the mirror one last time. Tracy Rsman—daughter, bride, beautifully trapped. I wouldn’t make it to the altar tonight.
Jason nudged the bag toward me. “We don’t have much time,” he whispered. Fear pressed against my chest, but so did a strange thrill—the adrenaline of defiance, of breaking chains, of doing the impossible.
Outside, the storm raged as if conspiring with me. Love, blood, and power were threads I could not sever, and yet I would run. Even if it meant the one man I couldn’t stop thinking of—Gabriel, with his shadows and secrets—might be closer than I knew.
Thunder cracked, sharp as a gunshot. And in that instant, the line between danger and desire blurred. I swallowed hard, heart pounding for reasons I couldn’t fully name.
Run, Tracy.
Before the storm remembers your name… and before he finds you first.
- Writer
