Eliana Carter POV

I needed air.

The estate was suffocating, choked with the stench of expensive cologne and cheap morality. It clung to the back of my throat, making it hard to swallow.

I slipped down the hallway toward the guest bathroom, intending to splash cold water on my face to shock my system back into focus.

The door to the study was slightly ajar.

I heard voices.

"You went too far, man," Mason's voice drifted out, low and tense. "Disrespecting her like that in front of the crew? Her father is a made man."

"Her father answers to my father," Jax's voice cut in. It was arrogant, dismissive. "And Eliana answers to me."

I froze, my breath hitching in my chest. I pressed myself against the wall, making myself small.

"She's done, Jax," Mason said. "Did you see her eyes? She's checked out."

Jax laughed. It was a cold, cruel sound that scraped against my nerves.

"She's throwing a tantrum, Mason. That's all this is. She thinks she can freeze me out? Please. She's been obsessed with me since kindergarten."

I heard the clink of glass against crystal.

"I'm just teaching her a lesson," Jax continued, his tone smooth, conversational. "She needs to be broken a little. She was getting too comfortable, too demanding. I'll play with Catalina for a few weeks, let Eliana stew in her misery. When she's desperate enough, when she's begging for scraps, I'll take her back."

My stomach churned violently.

"You treat her like a dog," Mason said quietly.

"She's an asset," Jax replied. "High-value property, but property nonetheless. Once I break her spirit, she'll be the perfect wife. Silent. Obedient. Grateful."

I stopped breathing.

It wasn't just arrogance. It was a strategy. He was systematically trying to destroy my self-worth so I would never dream of leaving him.

I didn't go to the bathroom.

I turned around and walked straight out the back service entrance.

I walked home. It was three miles. The streets of our neighborhood were safe only because everyone knew who ran them, but walking alone at night was still a risk.

I didn't care. The danger on the streets felt cleaner than the danger in that house.

I limped the whole way, the pain in my knee a grounding rhythm. Left, right, pain. Left, right, pain.

He thought I was a dog. He thought he could kick me and I would come back licking his hand.

I reached my street. My house was dark, my parents likely asleep.

But there was a figure standing on my porch.

The streetlamp illuminated him.

Jax.

He hadn't driven past me. He had simply known where I would go. He had beaten me here.

He was holding a large, thick envelope.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I recognized the logo on the corner.

NYU.

It was my acceptance packet. The one Uncle Sal had expedited.

Jax looked at the envelope, then at me. His expression was unreadable, shadowed by the porch light.

"You're walking with a limp," he said.

"What are you doing here, Jax?"

He held up the envelope. "This came to the main secure mailbox at the compound. It was addressed to you."

He stepped closer, looming over me. "New York University?"

I didn't answer.

"We're going to UCLA," he said. "That's the plan. I run the West Coast operations. You run the house."

"That's your plan," I said.

"There is no other plan!" He slammed the envelope against his thigh. "What is this? Are you actually trying to run away?"

"I'm not running," I said, stepping onto the first step of the porch. "I'm leaving."

"You can't leave." He laughed, but there was an edge of panic in it. "You can't survive out there without me. Who's going to protect you? Who's going to pay for your life?"

"I'd rather starve than eat from your hand," I said.

I reached for the envelope.

He pulled it back out of reach. "You think this is a game? You think you can just apply to another school and disappear?"

"Give me my mail, Jax. It's a federal offense to tamper with it."

"I am the law here!" he shouted.

Suddenly, his phone rang.

He glared at me, breathing hard, then answered it without looking at the screen. "What?"

Catalina's voice was shrill, loud enough for me to hear through the speaker. "Jax! Baby! I think someone is following me! I'm scared! I'm at the gas station on 5th!"

It was a lie. No one followed Outfit associates unless they had a death wish.

Jax looked at me. Then he looked at the car.

He shoved the envelope into my chest. I grabbed it before it fell.

"We aren't done," he growled.

He turned and ran to his car, choosing the damsel in distress over the woman he was actively destroying.

I watched his taillights fade into the dark.

I looked down at the envelope. It was my ticket out of hell.

He thought we weren't done.

He was wrong. I was already gone.

Eliana Carter POV

The next morning, the sky was a bruised shade of purple, heavy and low.

I sat on my porch steps, three boxes stacked beside me. That was it. My entire existence condensed into cardboard.

Jax pulled up.

He wasn't driving his sports car this time; he was in the black SUV-the one he used for "business." The one that smelled like leather and bad intentions.

He got out, looking rough. His hair was messy, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He hadn't slept.

"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded, marching up the walkway with a storm in his eyes.

"The airport," I said, keeping my voice steady. "My flight is in three hours."

"You're not getting on a plane."

"Watch me."

He closed the distance and grabbed my wrist. His grip was tight, possessive.

"I checked the registrar at UCLA. You aren't enrolled. You really did this? You really torched our future for a little drama?"

"I removed myself from your future, Jax. There's a difference."

I yanked my arm back, breaking his hold.

"And by the way, you're no longer my emergency contact. I scrubbed you from my medical files this morning."

The words hit him like a physical blow. He flinched.

In our world, in the Life, being the emergency contact wasn't just paperwork. It was a blood oath almost as binding as marriage. It meant you held the power of life and death over the other person.

"You ungrateful brat," he hissed, stepping closer.

Before he could escalate, tires screeched against the pavement.

Catalina's car skidded to a halt behind his SUV. She jumped out, looking perfectly put together, clutching a coffee cup like a shield.

"Jax!" she screamed, her voice pitched high with panic. "My dad called. The rival crew... the ones who followed me? They're near the park."

It was a lie. A calculated performance. I could see the fabrication glinting in her eyes. She needed to snap his focus back to her, and fear was the quickest leash.

Jax hesitated. The instinct to protect, ingrained in him since birth, warred with his rage at me.

He looked at me, then at her.

"Go," I said, my voice hollow. "Go save her. It's what you do."

Jax pointed a finger at me, his jaw tight.

"If you leave," he warned, "don't think you can come crawling back when the real world chews you up."

"I won't."

He stared at me for one last second, then turned and got into his car with Catalina. He chose the distraction. He chose her. Again.

I waited until their taillights disappeared. Then, I loaded my car.

But I had one last stop.

The Old Oak.

It stood on the jagged edge of the Outfit's territory, a massive, ancient sentinel where generations of made men and their wives had carved their initials. It was sacred ground.

I drove there, my heart pounding a slow, painful rhythm.

I grabbed my keys and walked up to the trunk. There, weathered by time and elements, was the carving:

J.L. + E.C.

We had carved it when we were twelve. A blood oath of sorts. A promise that now felt like a curse.

I took my car key. I didn't just scratch the bark; I attacked it. I gouged the metal deep into the wood, scraping away the 'E.C.' until only raw, weeping pulp remained.

"That's vandalism," a voice said.

I spun around.

Jax and Catalina had followed me. Of course they had. He couldn't let me go without making sure I was really gone.

Catalina was smirking, leaning against the hood of the SUV. "Look, Jax. She's erasing herself. Saves us the trouble."

She sashayed up to the tree, inspecting my work. "You should carve my initials there, baby. Right over her mess."

Jax stood back, watching me with cold, dead eyes. "You're desecrating history, Eliana."

"It's not history," I spat, dropping my hand. "It's graffiti."

I dropped my keys. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't hold them.

Catalina stepped closer to me, invading my space.

"You look pathetic," she whispered. "The fallen princess."

Then, she shoved me.

I wasn't expecting it. I stumbled back, my bad knee buckling under the sudden weight.

Behind me was the estate pond-fed by the same dark, stagnant water system that filled the pool at the Riley's.

I fell backward.

The water rushed over me for the second time in a week. But this part of the pond was deeper, muddy, and choked with reeds.

My heavy boots sank into the silt, anchoring me down. I struggled, thrashing, my knee screaming in agony.

I breached the surface, gasping for air, wiping thick mud from my eyes.

Jax was standing on the bank.

He was close enough to reach out a hand. Close enough to pull me up.

He looked at me struggling in the muck.

Then he looked at Catalina, who was laughing-a cruel, tinkling sound.

Jax put his hands in his pockets.

"Die if you want," he said softly, his voice carrying effortlessly over the water. "You aren't my problem anymore."

He turned around. He draped his arm around Catalina's shoulders and walked back to his car.

I watched them leave.

I was alone in the freezing mud.

I stopped thrashing. I found my footing in the sludge. I dug my fingers into the muddy bank and hauled myself out, inch by painful inch.

I lay on the grass, shivering, covered in slime and decay.

The love I had for him didn't die in that moment. Love is a stubborn thing; it doesn't die that quickly.

But hope did.

And in its place, something colder, harder, and infinitely more useful began to grow.

I stood up.

I didn't look back at the tree.

I walked to my car, leaving a trail of muddy footprints that looked like black blood.

I was going to New York.

And I was never coming back.

Eliana Carter POV

The urgent care doctor secured the beige bandage around my knee and gave me his professional opinion: stay off it for a week.

I let out a laugh. It was a dry, humorless sound that scraped against my throat.

I had a plane to catch in four hours.

I didn't go home to rest. There was nothing left for me there. Instead, I drove to the Little Estate one last time.

My parents were already en route to the airport. My father, a loyal soldier to the family for thirty years, had made the call. He had requested a transfer to the New York faction.

It was a dangerous move. A move that could have gotten him killed if Jax's father hadn't been feeling generous.

But the Underboss had granted it, likely viewing it as a convenient way to remove the "problem"-me-from his son's distraction.

I walked into the foyer of the Little Estate. I wasn't limping anymore. The brace held me upright, lending me a spine of steel where my own had started to fracture.

Karen was in the solarium, arranging lilies. Stargazer lilies. My favorite.

She looked up, her polite hostess smile faltering the moment she took in my muddy, ruined coat.

"Eliana? My God, what happened?"

"I'm leaving, Karen," I said, my voice steady.

She lowered the garden shears slowly. "Leaving? For the day?"

"For good. My family is moving to New York. Today."

Her face went pale, the blood draining away as the reality hit her. "But... the wedding. The alliance. Jax is just... he's going through a phase. You know how men are. You have to be patient."

"I don't have to be anything," I said.

"The engagement is void."

I slid the diamond off my finger and placed it on the glass table. It made a sharp, final clink.

"Eliana, please. Think about your father. Think about the Family."

"I am thinking about them," I said coldly. "That's why we're running."

Karen stared at the ring as if it were a grenade. She snatched up her phone, her manicured hands trembling.

"I'm calling Jax. He needs to stop this."

She dialed. She put it on speaker, desperate for a voice that would fix everything.

It rang. Once. Twice. Three times.

"This is Jax. Leave a message."

Karen looked at me, her eyes wide with rising panic. She dialed again.

"This is Jax. Leave a message."

"He's with her," I said softly. The truth didn't hurt anymore; it just was.

"He's always going to be with her."

Karen lowered the phone slowly to her side. She looked defeated. She was a Mafia wife; she knew exactly what that silence meant.

"Goodbye, Karen," I said.

I walked out before she could beg again.

The drive to O'Hare was a blur of gray highway and relentless rain. I pulled into the long-term parking lot and killed the engine.

I left the keys on the dashboard. The car was leased in Jax's name anyway. Let him deal with the repo men.

I met my parents at the gate. My mother was blotting her eyes with a tissue, weeping silently. My father stood rigid, his grim gaze scanning the crowd, his hand hovering near his hip out of habit-searching for the gun he was no longer allowed to carry.

"We're clear," he said, his voice low. "The paperwork went through."

I nodded.

We boarded the plane. I took the window seat, needing to see it one last time.

As the engines roared to life, pushing us back into the upholstery, I watched the Chicago skyline tilt and shrink beneath the clouds.

The Sears Tower. The Lake. The sprawling estates of the North Shore.

It was a kingdom of blood and money, and I had been its princess.

Now, I was a refugee.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool plastic of the window.

Jax was probably waking up right now, tangled in sheets that smelled of Catalina's cheap perfume. He probably thought I was at home, crying into my pillow, waiting for his text.

He had no idea that the ground had already shifted beneath his feet.

He thought he was the sun, and I was just a planet caught in his gravity.

He was about to find out that gravity doesn't work when the planet explodes.