Death Is My Escape: No Forgiveness

Whatever it takes, get her off my back! Or I'll tear your lives apart.

I had chased after Dante like a stage-five clinger for four long years. Disgusted by my obsession, he ordered my family to handle the problem.

Chemicals. Hypnotherapy. Electroshock.

The methods worked.

I forgot how to love him. Even his face faded into a blurry static in my mind.

If he was in the room, I vanished.

My mother made it explicitly clearhe was a predator I could never afford to cross.

When I caught him kissing Sloane, I quietly pulled out my phone and snapped a photo.

His eyes locked onto mine. Lethal. Ice-cold.

My throat closed up. I pressed my spine hard against the corner wall, my words crumbling into pieces.

"I-I'm sorry," I choked out. "I just thought you guys look perfect together. I totally ship it"

The fingers gripping his cigar clamped down until his knuckles turned bone-white. Beneath his custom-tailored suit, his chest heaved for a fraction of a second.

Chapter 1

Ever since I got back, my brain felt like it was wrapped in thick cotton.

I spent most of the day sleeping. I was pretty sure there was something physically wrong with me.

Mom brushed it off. "You've always been lazy, Violet. Not everyone has Sloane's discipline. It's fine. Everyone's body is different. If you're tired, just go to sleep."

I poured a massive mug of black coffee, desperate for a jolt. Nothing.

I tapped my knuckles against my temples. The front door clicked open.

The butler's voice echoed from the foyer. "Miss Sloane and Mr. Dante are here."

Delight lit up my parents' faces. Dad practically sprinted into the hallway to greet them.

Mom started to follow, then froze. She shot me a conflicted look. "Violet, you"

I gave her an understanding nod. "I know. Dante doesn't like me. Sloane's engagement is what matters. I'll head upstairs. I need to catch up on sleep anyway."

Mom cast a relieved glance at my yawning face.

I made it a few steps toward the stairs before realizing I'd left my mug behind. I figured I'd try to force down another cup later.

The second I turned back around, my eyes slammed into a dead, freezing stare.

Pure instinct took over. Screw the coffee. I bolted.

Every cell in my body screamed at me to run for my life. I didn't stop until I crashed into my bedroom and threw the deadbolt.

I shoved my desk against the door. Only then did the frantic hammering in my chest finally slow down.

I couldn't explain it. The mere sight of Dante made my stomach drop and my blood run cold.

Mom warned me Dante was an apex predator who controlled the pulse of Wall Street. I was just a bottom-feeder without a trust fund, not even qualified to look him in the eye.

She made it clear I was to stay out of his sight.

"Dante doesn't have the patience for girls who play cute but have nothing between their ears. His eyes belong on someone exceptional like Sloane."

"Do you have any idea what kind of power his family holds? If we secure this marriage, we're set for generations. Violet, you need to know your place."

I knew my place.

So whenever Dante came over, I made myself invisible.

Mom approved. Sometimes, she'd even pat my head. It was the highest form of praise I could get, and I clung to it.

That was why I never told her the truth. Even without her warnings, I would have avoided him. His sheer presence suffocated me.

It felt like an invisible hand had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart in a vice grip, leaving behind a sharp, inexplicable ache.

When my eyes finally snapped open again, the room was pitch black. It was already evening. The house was dead silent.

Dante had to be gone.

My stomach gnawed with hunger. I opened my door and padded barefoot down the stairs in my white cotton nightgown to scavenge for food.

The freezing chill of the hardwood seeped into my soles, slightly clearing the fog in my head.

I was standing by the kitchen island, shoving slices of bread into the toaster, when the heavy study doors swung open.

Dante stepped out.

The overhead hallway light hit his broad shoulders. He wore a pure black bespoke suit, his tie loosened a fraction of an inch.

He didn't speak, but his highly aggressive gaze pinned me like physical blades, draining the oxygen from the room instantly. Across the sprawling living room, his eyes locked onto mine.

Chapter 2

His thin lips pressed into a hard line. The sheer weight of his presence was suffocating.

It took a split second for my brain to kick back into gear.

I threw my arms over my head, dropped straight to the floor, and scrambled under the dining table. A pathetic, useless attempt to hide.

Sloane strutted down the stairs, the sharp click of her red-bottom heels echoing in the space. She walked straight up to Dante, winding her arms around his neck, and pressed her perfectly contoured face against his chest.

"Where are you going? You haven't even watched my Hollywood audition tape yet. Stay with me."

Sloane usually carried herself with untouchable arrogance. But right now, she was putting on the ultimate performance, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. Like a pristine, high-maintenance show bird showing off its feathers.

Dante didn't say a word. His ice-cold gaze cut right through the space, locking dead onto my shaking body beneath the table.

Sloane's smile faltered. She bit her lip. "If you're too busy, another time is fine. Come on, I'll walk you out."

Dante didn't move an inch. His aura was so overwhelmingly heavy, it was obvious he hadn't heard a single word she said. Sloane opened her mouth, but quickly snapped it shut, too intimidated to push him.

A heavy silence dragged on before his deep voice finally broke it. "Fine. I'll stay for dinner."

Dad and Sloane's eyes widened, both of them freezing in place simultaneously.

The corner of Dante's mouth twitched upward into a cruel smirk. "What are you so afraid of? Didn't she forget everything?"

He closed the distance to the dining table with long, deliberate strides and crouched down. The fabric of his tailored trousers pulled tight against the dense muscle of his thighs.

"Violet. Do you still know who I am?"

I nervously flicked my eyes up, instantly dropping my gaze back to the floor. I couldn't hold eye contact. Slowly, I nodded.

Suddenly, a sharp, piercing painlike dozens of needles driving into my skinerupted in my fingertips and toes. A primal instinct hijacked my nerves.

A scream ripped from my throat.

I squeezed my eyes shut, thrashing my head back and forth.

"I don't know you! Don't hit me! I don't know you!"

Dinner was a nightmare. Mom and Dad desperately tried to fill the suffocating silence with forced chatter. But Dante just ate.

His movements were slow, calculated, and impossibly aristocratic. He didn't offer a single word, making my parents' frantic enthusiasm look pathetic.

Sloane sat there with a dark expression, silent.

I didn't dare reach for any of the dishes, keeping my head down as I took tiny bites of plain rice.

When the plates were finally cleared, my parents looked like they could breathe again. Dante stood up to leave. Staring at his broad back, something clicked in my chaotic brain.

"Dante. Wait a second."

Every head at the table snapped toward me. Including his. Dante's brows pinched together in obvious irritation.

"Just one second, okay?" I held up my thumb and index finger, showing a tiny gap.

I sprinted up the stairs and rushed back down a minute later, gripping a metal tin box against my chest. Every pair of eyes in the room stayed locked on me.

I popped the lid off. "Dante, this belongs to you, right?"

Sitting right on top of the pile were over a dozen ID photos. Different sizes, different angles.

It was obvious they hadn't been collected legally. Some had official embossed stamps pressed into them; others had chunks of dried glue caked on the back. Someone had violently peeled them off various official documents.

The Dante in the pictures looked younger, his sharp features lacking the ruthless edge he carried now. But even back then, his bone structure was insanely striking.

Beneath the photos was a pile of random trash. Candy wrappers. Crushed cigarette boxes.

Empty pen cartridges. Crumpled test papers.

Dante's gaze scorched into me like a blowtorch.

I ground my teeth together, forcing myself to push the words out. "I found it shoved in the back corner of my closet."

"I have no idea who put it there. But I recognized your face. This has to be yours, right?"

Chapter 3

Dante's eyes flickered, calculating and sharp. Under his stare, I physically shrank. My shoulders slumped.

He finally spoke. "Not mine. Throw it out."

"Oh. Okay."

I dropped the tin into the nearby trash can and turned toward the stairs.

A dangerous shift darkened his gaze. "Violet. You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" he called out.

I stared at him, completely lost. "What?"

A mocking sneer twisted his lips, like he had completely seen through some pathetic scheme. "Nothing. Good performance. Skip it next time. I'm not interested in watching."

He turned on his heel and walked out.

Mom reached for the front door to shut it. Sloane, having held it in all night, collapsed against the dining table and burst into tears.

Dad's face tightened, his jaw locking hard. He swung his hand and slapped me hard across the face.

I didn't see it coming. I crashed to the floor. My head slammed against the sharp edge of the table. A violent ringing exploded in my ears.

Just outside the half-open door, Dante stopped dead in his tracks. He turned back around, his eyes locking onto the blood rapidly pooling on my forehead.

His jaw flexed, the muscles pulling tight. The toe of his expensive leather shoe ground half an inch into the carpet, but he didn't take a single step forward.

Mom pulled the door shut, wrapping her arms tightly around Sloane's shoulders. She glared down at me.

"Violet, don't you dare blame your father for hitting you. You were a disappointment tonight!" Mom hissed.

"Did you forget every single warning I gave you? Why did you come downstairs?"

"Why did you talk to him? Are you really that cheap?!"

Warm blood oozed from the gash on my forehead, dripping straight into my eye. My vision blurred into a hazy red mist. I clamped my hand over the open wound, trying to force the words out.

"I'm sorry. I thought he left. I didn't mean to"

Sloane lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of my collar.

"Running down here dressed like that! Parading around barefoot in front of him! Using some trashy box to get his attention!"

"Violet, who exactly are you trying to seduce?!" she screamed. "Do you have any idea who Dante is?"

"Do you know what you are? How dare you target him! Because of your slutty little stunt tonight, I might actually lose him!"

"Can't you survive without a man? You have to throw yourself at your own sister's boyfriend?!"

Sloane shoved me back, yanked the door wide open, and stormed out.

Mom scrambled to grab her arm. "Sloane, where are you going this late?"

Sloane shot me a venomous glare. "It's her or me in this house. I'm leaving!"

A minute later, the roar of a car engine echoed from the garage. Mom let out a heavy, exhausted sigh. Dad kicked a chair out of his way and slammed the bedroom door behind him.

I spoke up, my voice barely a whisper. "I should stay somewhere else tonight."

Mom hesitated, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Where exactly would you go?"

"A hotel. I stayed in hotels all the time back in Texas. I'm used to it."

Back then, when the inhuman torture at the facility became too much, I used every chance I got to escape. I'd hide out in the cheapest, trashiest motels I could find, desperate to dodge the agonizing treatments they forced on me.

But Sloane always tracked me down fast. She always dragged me right back.

Mom stood in silence for a long moment. Finally, she gave a stiff nod.

"Tonight was entirely your fault. Go stay somewhere else. Once Sloane cools off, I'll bring you back."

Inside the hotel room.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully wiping the dried blood from my face. The gash was too deep. A standard Band-Aid wasn't going to cut it. But it was way too late, and I was terrified to step out of the room to buy actual bandages.

Usually, I could sleep through anything. Tonight, the relentless, stinging throb in my forehead kept my eyes wide open.

Chapter 4

I couldn't remember the real reason they shipped me off.

All I knew was that for my entire life, Sloane had been smarter, sharper, and lightyears ahead of me. She walked into a room and sucked up all the oxygen. Naturally, my parents poured every ounce of their expectations into her.

She had been winning child beauty pageants since she could walk, and later, she built this flawless image as the gorgeous, straight-A Hollywood darling.

And me? Aside from sharing a similar bone structure, I was useless.

So, I got it. I really did. I agreed with my parents' strategy to dump all their resources into the daughter who actually had a future.

But was that really why they locked me away?

I vividly remembered choking down handfuls of pills and enduring those agonizing treatments at the Texas facility. My mother's voice would echo through the phone, promising me the procedures would fix my brain. Make me smarter.

But ever since they brought me back, my head felt like an abandoned building. My reaction time dragged. All I wanted to do was sleep.

Did they pull me out because the treatments failed? Did they hate me even more now because I was officially a lost cause?

I spent the daylight hours wandering aimlessly around the city blocks, dragging my feet back to the hotel the second the streetlights flickered on. I survived in that room for a full week. Mom never texted me to come home.

My bank account hit zero.

I opened iMessage to text her. The message bounced back. She had blocked my number.

Around noon, I was slumped in a chair in the hotel lobby, staring blankly at the wall. Through the glass doors of the indoor atrium, a striking couple caught my eye.

The man stood tall, his broad, rigid shoulders turned away from me. The woman facing him had a drop-dead gorgeous figure wrapped in an elegant silk dress. She tilted her chin up, flashing him a radiant smile, though I could only catch her profile.

I blinked hard, trying to force the image into focus. But my head had been pounding relentlessly for days, and everything looked like it was filmed through a hazy, soft-focus lens. It only made the scene look more cinematic.

Without thinking, I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture.

I forgot to kill the flash. The shutter click echoed like a gunshot in the quiet lobby.

They instantly turned.

Dante's jaw locked. The look he shot me was pure, unfiltered hostility.

My breath caught in my throat as they closed the distance. I squirmed in my seat, until Dante and Sloane towered over me, completely suffocating my space.

"Violet. What are you doing here?" Dante's voice was absolute ice.

I glanced at Sloane. My vocal cords seized.

Dante thrust his hand out. "Give me the phone."

My hands shook violently as I placed the device into his palm.

The weirdest part? He instantly punched in my passcode. I didn't even know what those six digits meant. I had gone through every family birthday in my head, and none of them matched.

Dante pulled up the photo. His eyes narrowed into lethal slits.

"Why are you sneaking pictures?" he demanded. "What exactly are you plotting against Sloane? Are you trying to destroy her again?"

I shook my head frantically, the backs of my eyes burning. "No. I swear, no."

I knew Sloane was superior in every way. I was aggressively average, so I never once dreamed of competing with her.

But according to Mom, I had once showed up fully dressed to the nines at Sloane's major movie premiere. A reporter had apparently pointed out that while we shared the same face, our vibes were entirely different. Sloane was icy and untouchable.

But I had a raw, unpredictable innocence that translated better on camera. They claimed I had more range.

Because of that, the lead role Sloane had practically secured fell through at the last minute.

I didn't get the part either. But Sloane lost her one golden ticket to the A-list.

Chapter 5

So Sloane hated me. She was convinced I purposely stole her spotlight, that I couldn't stand seeing her win.

No matter how much I tried to explain, nobody believed a single word I said. That night, I didn't want to steal her thunder.

I just wanted to be there when she made it big. I blew every last cent of my allowance renting an expensive gown just so I wouldn't embarrass her on the red carpet. I didn't know it would make her look washed out next to me.

I honestly didn't do it on purpose. But nobody cared about my truth.

Those days of being the family target, with my parents taking turns ripping into me about what a massive disappointment I was it was suffocating. A waking nightmare. I couldn't survive going through that again.

"Please, you have to believe me. I didn't." My trembling fingers desperately gripped the expensive fabric of Dante's sleeve.

The muscles in his jaw flexed.

"Are you still playing dumb, Violet? You didn't lose your memory at all, did you