Page 54 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

Because she’d had her family to consider, to protect, tosave. There was no time for tears. But in that one small moment, when she thought herself alone, she’d given in to the wave of grief that had taken her out at the knees.

It was the lowest point of her entire life. Not because of the funeral, or not only because. But because she had felt so alone and afraid and overwhelmed. Because she had known from that moment out, everything was up to her. For Mom. For Rhys, whether he appreciated it these days or not.

All because of the man she’d idolized. He had been a good father. Hehadbeen. Mostly. Until… Until.

It had been impossible not to blame his death on the way he’d stopped taking care of himself, so obsessed with revenge. To blame it on the way he’d leaned into alcohol. The nights she’d had to handle things because he was either passed out or crying. It was the Akakioses’ fault he’d become that, she had no doubts.

But her father had disappointed her wholly in his reaction to their betrayal. He’d stopped caring about anything that wasn’t revenge.

A revenge he hadn’t gotten. A revenge she’d somehow taken the mantle of now, without fully realizing it.

But she was not like her father. Not anymore. She wouldn’t get revenge with obsession, or emotion. She would find it with her own wits. Her own choices. She would give that to the family her father had left behind.

But now Athan demanded to throw emotion into it? No.

No.

She turned to face him, half-dressed in his hallway. He wasn’t in much better shape. Pants unbuttoned, no shirt, feet bare.

Whatwasthis? Some alternate reality where she did not have control? Where she did not make the right choices? She hated it. Worse, when he continued to speak, so stern, so determined, sovulnerable.

“I realized, in those six months before Aled’s death, that nothing I did would please my father, but I still thought I would live that way. That I was supposed to live that way. And then I saw you crying, and the consequences of what my father and I had done. Real consequences, untenable, unfair consequences. Not just against a stranger, but against someone who had been afriend.”

Tears—those tears she had controlled so long now—were threatening and she hated him in this moment more than she ever had for bringing her to this point. “Do you think I should forgive you then?”

“No,latria mu, I know you will not.”

“Then what is this? Why are you doing this?” And she didn’t sound strong like she wanted to. She sounded like a small child, begging.

“I don’t know,” he said gravely. “I only know that… I cannot pretend this has not gone farther than we planned. I cannot pretend that you do not mean something to me, Lynna. I cannot pretend that this thing I did not believe in, this thing I did not think existed, would take a hold in me.”

He should have just shot her. At least then this would be over.

But it was clear now, he would not end this. So she had to. So she turned and ran.

But his words followed her down the hall. “I love you, Lynna.”

She practically dove into her room, shaking as she desperately tried to turn the lock. He would not and could not follow her, with these…words. With this bizarre game he was playing.

She leaned against the door, breathing hard, looking around her pretty room and how happy it looked in the afternoon light.

She would not stay in this place. She would notdothis. She would find some other way to end Constantine.

And she would never, ever see Athan again.

She rushed forward for her suitcase and haphazardly began to throw things into it. Anything she’d need to travel back to London.

All the while she ignored the tears streaming down her cheeks and pretended she was fine.

Fine.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Athanknewshewould leave. He could have stopped her. He considered it. But in the end, he thought maybe he should just give up. What had fighting gotten him?

All that fire, all that determination, and it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Let his father be a criminal. Let Constantine kick him out of AC.

Maybe all this time, deep down, he had known. AC didn’t matter as much as he wanted it to. It was Lynna he’d wanted to make things up to.

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