Runaway Promise

On the night of her nineteenth birthday, Celeste survives by paying attention to the details most people miss. The way her mother's voice stutters when she lies. the way silence stretches before bad news the way counting keeps panic from taking over.

Her father is retiring and selling her to a powerful mafia family to secure his escape. Faced with a future decided without her consent, Celeste does what she's always done best: she masks. she agrees, she smiles. and when the house goes quiet she escapes and disappears into the dark.

But running doesn't erase the deal she was promised into. As the people hunting her close in, Celeste is forced to navigate a world that has never made room for her , where trust is dangerous , love is unfamiliar, and survival depends on reading between the lines. An unexpected stranger offers help she never planned to accept, and a connection she doesn't know how to name.