I Refused To Run Again

My mother’s hand tightened around mine. “We have to leave now,” she said, her voice urgent.

Adrian moved toward the door and peered through the small glass panel. “Stay behind me.”

“Are they coming inside?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

My mother pulled me toward the back of the room. “There’s another exit,” she said, but something inside me resisted even as I followed her. I was tired of running. I had spent days moving from one place to another, hiding from people I did not know, while everyone around me made decisions about my life as if I had no say in it at all. I stopped walking.

“No,” I said.

My mother turned to look at me. “What?”

“I’m not running anymore.”

Adrian turned toward me as well. “Elena.”

“I’m serious.”

“You don’t know how dangerous this is.”

“I know,” I said, and then I looked at my mother. “I have spent my whole life being protected by lies.” I turned to Adrian next. “My father hid the truth from me. My mother disappeared. Victor lied to me. My uncle pretended to be dead. Everyone thought they could decide what I should and shouldn’t know.” My voice shook, but I kept going anyway. “I cannot keep running just because other people are afraid of what will happen once I finally learn the truth.”

Adrian came closer. “I understand.”

“Then let me face it.”

He studied me for several long seconds before speaking again. “You’re stronger than you realize.”

“I’m trying to become stronger.”

He reached for my hand. “And I will stand beside you while you do.”

My heart softened at that. “Thank you.”

A loud sound came from the hallway just then, and it was clear someone had entered the hospital. Adrian became alert immediately. “Stay here,” he said, and this time I did not argue. He stepped outside, and I heard several voices through the door before everything went quiet again. A few minutes later he returned.

“We have a way out,” he said.

We followed him through the back hallway, my mother staying close beside me the whole way. When we reached the parking area, I saw a black car waiting there, and a man stepped out of it. My heart stopped. It was my uncle, Daniel Carter, the man I had believed was dead for three years, standing right in front of me. He looked older than I remembered, his hair gone gray, a scar now cutting across one side of his face.

He looked at my mother first. “You should not have brought her here.”

My mother stepped forward. “She deserves the truth.”

He turned his eyes to me. “You have your father’s eyes.”

I stared back at him. “Why did you pretend to be dead?”

“Because I had to.”

“Why?”

“Because they wanted me dead.”

“Who?”

He looked over at Adrian. “Your father.”

Adrian’s expression hardened instantly. “My father?”

“Your father was not working alone,” Daniel said.

My heart tightened. “What are you saying?”

Daniel turned back to me. “Your father trusted the wrong person.”

“Who?”

He hesitated for a moment before answering. “Your grandmother.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“She knew about the network.”

“But she protected my father.”

“She protected the company,” he said. “That is not the same thing.”

Daniel looked away, as though the words themselves were difficult to say. “Your grandmother made a deal.”

“What deal?”

“She agreed to give the company to the people behind the network.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Why would she do that?”

“To save your life.”

Tears filled my eyes. “So everyone was trying to protect me.”

“Yes.”

“Then why did my father die?”

Daniel’s face changed, something like grief passing over it. “Because he refused to keep the deal.”

Silence filled the parking area. I looked at my mother. “Did you know?”

She nodded slowly. “I found out later.”

I turned to Adrian next. “And your father?”

Daniel looked at him. “He was part of the network.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. “I already know that.”

“No,” Daniel said quietly. “You don’t.”

Adrian stepped closer to him. “What do you mean?”

“Your father did not simply work for them.” Daniel paused, as though bracing himself. “He was the man who created the network.”

My breath caught in my throat. Adrian stood completely still beside me, and I reached for his hand without thinking. When he looked at me, I saw pain in his eyes that I had never seen there before.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “This is not your fault.”

Daniel looked between the two of us. “There is more.”

I turned back to him. “What else could there possibly be?”

He looked directly at me this time. “The person controlling the network now is not my brother.”

I waited, bracing myself. “Then who?”

Daniel’s expression turned grim. “Victor.”

I felt the world stop around me. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Victor was being controlled by them.”

Daniel shook his head. “He wanted you to believe that.”

I remembered Victor’s words to me, the ones I had once believed with my whole heart. I loved you. I felt sick just thinking about them now. “He betrayed me because he wanted my company.”

“He wanted more than the company.”

“What?”

“You.”

I stepped back from him. “Why?”

“Because marrying you would have given him complete control over the Marlowe Group.”

I shook my head, grasping for something that still made sense. “He was engaged to Sophia.”

“Because he needed her father’s political connections.”

I looked at Adrian, and suddenly everything fell into place. Victor had never wanted Sophia. He had wanted power, and he had wanted me because I was the key to everything my father had left behind. Tears ran down my cheeks before I could stop them.

“I loved him,” I said.

Adrian stepped closer. “I know.”

“I gave him everything.”

“I know.”

“I thought I wasn’t enough.”

Adrian gently lifted my face so I had no choice but to meet his eyes. “You were always enough.”

Those words broke something open inside me. I had spent years wondering why Victor had never truly chosen me, and now I finally understood. His failure to love me had never been proof that I was unworthy of it. It had only revealed what kind of man he really was. I wiped the tears from my face.

“I don’t want him anymore,” I said.

Adrian nodded. “You don’t have to.”

Daniel suddenly looked toward the road, his body tensing. “We need to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because Victor knows where we are.”

My mother stepped closer to him. “How?”

Daniel shook his head. “He has people everywhere.”

We climbed into the car, Adrian sitting beside me while Daniel took the wheel. For several minutes nobody spoke a word. Then my phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw Victor’s name there. I answered anyway.

“What do you want?” I asked.

His voice came through calm and even. “You finally know.”

“Know what?”

“Everything.”

“You used me.”

“Yes.”

“You never loved me.”

There was a long silence on the line before he spoke again. “I loved you in my own way.”

I laughed bitterly at that. “That is not love.”

“You will understand soon.”

“I understand enough already.”

His voice turned colder then. “Give me the Marlowe Group.”

“No.”

“Then I will take it.”

“You can’t.”

“I already have.”

My heart stopped cold. “What are you talking about?”

“The company is no longer yours.”

I looked at Adrian, my hands beginning to shake. Victor continued speaking as though nothing were wrong at all. “Check your phone.”

The call ended abruptly. A message arrived almost immediately after, and I opened it with trembling fingers. My bank accounts had been frozen. My company documents were locked. And beneath all of it was one final line.

You chose Adrian. Now you will lose everything.

I stared at the screen for a long moment. For the first time, I understood that Victor was not trying to win me back at all. He was trying to destroy me completely. And this time, I was ready to fight him for everything.