Owned excerpt
Chapter One
As soon as the clock struck midnight, Deidre was gone. Creeping out the old windows of her boarding school was easy as pie. Climbing the barbed wire fence, not so much. Aside from the cuts all over her legs and arms, she managed to do it.
Not looking back, she ran into the street trying to get as far away from the horrible school as she could before they did the nighttime bed check in an hour. Legally, she was free to do as she wished now that she was eighteen; however, her father and the nuns didn’t see it that way.
She’d been rebelling against any authority for as long as she could remember. The only people to ever give a damn about her had already left, so what was the point of trying to be accepted? She couldn’t live life for anyone else anymore. It was time for her to take control and do what was best for herself.
Since arriving in Lugano, Switzerland a little less than seven years ago, she’d not had a single moment for herself. Every day was planned. Every minute was scrutinized. Maintaining a strict diet and exercise regimen had been expected from the moment she got there. Feeling more like she was being trained for something than receiving an education.
What little she had been able to see of Switzerland from behind the confines of the school was stunning. The small city they were in was surrounded by gorgeous mountains and covered in a variety of full green trees. She couldn’t begin to name them other than to know they were beautiful.
Lake Lugano bordered the breathtaking city, sharing its eastern shore with northern Italy. That was what she was banking on to be able to exit the country. She’d heard from other girls that had been allowed to leave the school that there were boat taxi’s waiting to take her right into Italy and from there, she could rent a car.
The only reason she had any money was because her mam had been sending her some as often as she could, and she had saved every euro since she arrived. By her estimation, she had roughly fifty thousand Swiss Francs. Hopefully enough to get her to Ireland and her mam.
She had to wait on going home, though, because she knew her da would search for her there. The waiting would be the hard part. Her mam didn’t know she was coming, so she might be worried if he showed up there looking for her, but she couldn’t risk him finding her. Something was going on with him; he’d been checking in more and more of late. It was suspicious.
