To reach a Dream
Back at the estate, Toni felt the shift before she saw the damage.
The audition building had been a frantic hive of noise—overlapping voices, slamming doors, and nerves stretched to a breaking point—but the drive back was the opposite. The silence inside the car pressed against her eardrums, heavy and unnatural. Eli hadn't spoken once. No clipped instructions, no warnings about surveillance, not even a flash of irritation.
That silence was a siren.
Toni's gaze drifted to the empty seat beside her. Runa should have been there.
"Where's Runa?" Toni asked finally, her voice small.
Eli didn't turn. "She'll be brought back."
The words were calm. Too calm. Toni's fingers tightened in her lap as she replayed the morning in her head—the squeeze of Runa's hand, the hollow look in her eyes,that hadn't made sense at the time.
Now, it felt like a funeral rite.
As the gates of the Vale estate slid open, swallowing the car in shadows, Toni's chest tightened. Albert's SUV was already idling in the driveway. Beside it sat the Ducati. Its sleek black body was scarred—dust-streaked and scuffed, the metal chewed up as if it had kissed the asphalt at high speed.
Something inside Toni went cold.
Runa arrived later. She didn't walk in beside Eli, nor did she come in on her own strength. Albert guided her through the doors, his hand a steady, controlling weight at her elbow. Runa was a ghost—face pale, eyes unfocused, her hands clenched so tight they trembled. She looked like she couldn't forget the shape of something she had touched.
Toni stood abruptly. "What happened?"
Runa didn't answer.
"Inside," Eli commanded, her voice a wall. "Now."
The atmosphere in the mansion was suffocating. Toni refused to look at Runa. The realization that her dream—her one moment of stolen freedom—had been used as a tactical distraction settled like broken glass in her chest. Every encouraging word Runa had whispered now carried a jagged edge.
"You used me," Toni said quietly, the betrayal tasting like copper. "Do you even understand the consequences? If Althea or my parents find out where I was—"
Runa opened her mouth, then closed it. There was no defense that wouldn't sound like another lie.
Before they could cross the threshold into the main lounge, Eli stepped between them. "Everything that happened today remains a secret," she said, her unyielding gaze pinning them both. "No one knows. No one should know. Understood?"
Silence was their only answer.
That night, the family gathered. Rain lashed against the tall windows, blurring the city lights into muted smears of gray and gold. The television murmured in the corner—background noise meant to be ignored.
Until the headline broke.
"—Authorities have identified the victim as Marcus Thorne," the anchor reported. "A high-priority offender wanted for multiple counts of kidnapping and sexual assault. Police believe he was targeting young women at arts district auditions—"
The room plunged into a deep freeze. Toni's breath hitched. Runa's stomach turned violently as Thorne's face—the man who had offered her a "rescue"—faded from the screen.
The man who had tried to "save" her was just another predator, patient and smiling, waiting for a girl desperate enough to trust him. A sick, hollow gratitude settled in Runa's throat. She owed her life to her jailer.
If Eli hadn't pulled the trigger... She couldn't finish the thought.
Althea Vale sat perfectly still, her fingers folded neatly in her lap. Her gaze lingered on the screen a second too long before lifting.
Targeting young women at auditions.
Althea's eyes moved—deliberate.She looked at Toni. Then Runa. Then Eli. Something subtle shifted behind her mask.
"That's… unfortunate," Althea said smoothly. "Dangerous people have a way of hiding in plain sight."
The irony, Runa thought, the words a bitter scream in her head. Just like your family.
Althea stood. As she passed Runa, she paused, a hand hovering near Runa's shoulder but never touching. "You look pale, Runa. Are you sick?"
Runa forced herself to meet that icy gaze. "Just tired."
Althea studied her for a heartbeat too long, then smiled. "You should rest. Fatigue can make the world feel heavier than it truly is."
Across the room, Jason's phone vibrated once. He glanced down, and the name on the screen erased his faint smirk.
"Excuse me," he said, rising.
In the corridor, he answered without a greeting. "Yes."
He listened. A shooting. Industrial district. Eli on-site.
Jason exhaled slowly, the pieces sliding into place with chilling ease. "I see," he whispered. "No—don't escalate it."
He ended the call and leaned against the cold wainscoting. Eli had crossed a line—one that would could have brought the attention of the police. A civilian death. A rushed judgment. Jason smiled. Leverage didn't require innocence; it only required timing.
When he returned to the lounge, his expression was a blank slate.
Eli remained by the window, rain tracing silver lines down the glass behind her. She hadn't turned around once. Jason took his seat, folding his hands, not even bothering to look at her. He didn't need to; he already owned a piece of her.
Runa watched Toni and Eli with a terrifying new clarity. The lie had worked—not because it was convincing, but because every person in that room had found a reason to let it stand.
She looked at Eli's reflection in the glass—sharp, unmoving, forged in steel. Runa finally understood the most devastating truth of the Vales. Even when they were right, they were monsters.
There were no heroes in this house. Only different breeds of predators. And she had almost fled the lions only to run straight into the jaws of a wolf.