Chapter 6
PENELOPE
The night air cut through me like a blade.
Cold. Metallic. Carrying the faint, iron-tinged scent of the lake as I crossed the private airstrip in borrowed slippers that were far too thin for the hour.
The world felt suspended—like time itself had paused to watch what choice I’d make. No crickets. No distant engines from the road. Just the low, predatory hum of the jet’s idling engines and the soft crunch of gravel beneath my feet.
The man guiding me wore a black ski mask, his face erased as thoroughly as my past had been more than once.
He moved with brisk efficiency, every step precise, purposeful. An extractor. A professional. Someone who’d walked dozens—maybe hundreds—of people into disappearances.
I didn’t ask his name.
I didn’t care to know it.
Fear coiled tight in my stomach, sharp and restless. I was going home—to my parents. To the people who should have represented safety, love, protection.
Instead, every step toward the glowing stairs of the jet felt like walking willingly into a cage I’d spent my entire life trying to claw my way out of.
The jet loomed ahead of me, sleek and white under floodlights, door open like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
I reached the foot of the stairs.
My hand lifted, fingers brushing the cold metal railing—
Headlights exploded in the darkness.
A black SUV tore onto the tarmac, engine roaring, tires shrieking as it skidded sideways to a violent halt inches from my legs. The sudden force sent me stumbling backward, my heart slamming so hard I tasted blood.
The masked man reacted instantly, yanking a pistol from his waistband. Two armed figures appeared at the jet’s doorway, rifles snapping up, red dots trembling over the SUV’s windshield.
The air went razor-thin.
Then the driver’s door opened.
Dmitri Volkov stepped out.
The floodlights caught him fully—black coat hanging open, collar turned up against the wind, dark hair tousled like he’d driven too fast to care. His presence hit like a physical force. Lethal. Controlled. Radiating something dangerous and unreadable.
Handsome didn’t come close to covering it.
He looked like vengeance given a human shape.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
His voice cut through the night—low, furious, vibrating with restrained violence. Not shouted. He didn’t need to raise it.
The guns stayed raised. Fingers hovered dangerously close to triggers. One wrong breath and the airstrip would erupt.
“To my parents,” I said, forcing my voice not to shake. “I wasn’t born a slave, Dmitri. I won’t stay one.” I swallowed. “Please... let me go.”
For a moment, he just stared at me.
Then his mouth curved—not into a smile, but something sharper. Colder. Almost amused.
He flicked his gaze toward the armed men with nothing more than a casual wave of his hand.
Three muffled shots cracked through the night.
I barely registered the sound before bodies started dropping.
The masked man collapsed first—head snapping sideways as a clean shot tore through his temple. The two guards on the jet stairs crumpled seconds later, rifles clattering as they fell in lifeless heaps down the steps.
I gasped, stumbling back again.
A sniper.
Hidden. Patient. Watching the entire time.
Dmitri didn’t spare the bodies a single glance.
“These men,” he said calmly, folding his arms as though discussing poor business etiquette, “thought they could extract you from my territory.” His eyes returned to me, dark and assessing. “Without asking permission.”
“Please,” I whispered, the word tearing out of me before pride could stop it. “I’m begging you. Let me go.”
He closed the distance in three long strides.
His hand wrapped around my upper arm—firm, possessive. The contact sent electricity racing across my skin, goosebumps erupting everywhere.
My breath stuttered.
He leaned in close, his mouth brushing my ear, his breath warm against the cold night.
“I want to marry you.”
The words hit harder than the gunshots.
I jerked back, staring at him like he’d spoken a foreign language.
“Excuse me?”
He released my arm only long enough to reach into his coat pocket. Slowly. As if daring anyone to challenge him.
He pulled out a small velvet box.
Flipped it open.
Inside, a ring caught the floodlights—platinum band, a single flawless diamond. Understated. Immaculate. The kind of ring chosen by someone who didn’t need to prove wealth because power already bent to him.
Before I could react, he took my left hand.
Gentle. I felt the weight of his attention more than the weight of the ring as he slid it onto my finger.
It fit perfectly.
Too perfectly.
“I feel like there’s more to my past than I’ve been told,” he said quietly.
The words didn’t come with drama or accusation. Just certainty.
“And marrying me,” I asked, carefully, “helps how?”
He studied my face the way a man studies a code he’s already half-broken.
“I’m not a fool, Penelope.” His eyes locked onto mine, sharp and unflinching. “I know exactly who you are.”
My heart stuttered.
“You—” The word caught in my throat.
“I’ve been pretending for everyone in Lake Como,” he murmured, lowering his voice until it threaded only between us.
The jet engines hummed behind us, distant and meaningless.
“Every smile. Every vacant stare. Every obedient nod.” His jaw tightened.
“Because I’m planning revenge. Slow. Careful. Deadly.”
Cold slid down my spine.
“You had memory loss,” I said, searching his face for cracks, for madness, for deception. “How can you—”
“You’re not going to confuse me.” He stepped closer, backing me against the metal rail of the jet stairs.
Not threatening. Possessive. Grounding. “I saw you in dreams long before you bled in my backseat. Long before you looked at me like you expected me to kill you.” His voice dipped.
“You are Penelope. Vanya’s mother. My wife—once. ”
The night seemed to still.
For a breathless second, he looked almost... afraid. Like a man clutching fragile shards, terrified that one wrong word from me would scatter them forever.
I felt it then—pity. Sharp and unwelcome. Not weakness, but recognition.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I’m Penelope.”
Relief cracked across his face like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
He exhaled, the sound rough, almost broken, and scrubbed a hand over his jaw.
His jaw tightened, voice calm but hard, “For a second, I feared my own mind was lying to me.”
“Do you remember anything else?” I asked gently. “Anything real?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Just fragments.” His mouth tightened into a hard line. “But I refused to trust that diary the Orlovs fed me to shape my thoughts from the start. It was too... convenient.”
He turned slightly, eyes scanning the airstrip as if ghosts still lingered.
“Recently, I had the diary tested,” he continued, voice steady, “and it confirmed my skepticism all along. It was forged—clumsy, sloppy. I also realized the Orlovs systematically took my men, dismantling my defenses piece by piece. They planted Seraphina here to watch me, to steer me. Replaced my security with theirs.” His gaze snapped back to mine.
“I’m playing weak. Letting them think they’ve already won. ”
He leaned in again, voice dropping to something intimate and lethal.
“We pretend. You help me recover what’s buried. We take it all back—together.”
My fingers curled instinctively around the rail.
“How do we pretend,” I asked, “if you just put a ring on my finger? Seraphina was supposed to be your wife.”
A smile touched his mouth then. Small. Dark. Real.
“This,” he said, lifting my hand slightly, the diamond catching the floodlights, “is between us. No witnesses. No ceremony. With this ring, you’re my wife again.” His eyes softened, just a fraction. “No one needs to know. Not Giovanni. Not Seraphina. Not Vanya—not yet.”
I stared down at the diamond, its fire stirring something long-buried.
A memory surfaced without permission.
Fifteen years old. Brooklyn. Late summer heat clinging to skin. The massive oak tree on my father’s estate, leaves whispering secrets above us. Dmitri—nineteen, cocky, beautiful—had dragged me behind the trunk, laughing softly as though the world couldn’t touch us there.
He’d woven daisies clumsily into a ring and slid it onto my finger, pride shining in his eyes.
“Marry me someday,” he’d whispered, kissing me until my knees went weak. “When we’re free of all this.”
I’d believed him. Completely.
I looked up now, meeting his gaze in the harsh glow of floodlights and death.
Moments later, we were in the SUV.
The engine rumbled to life as we pulled away from the airstrip, tires humming over empty roads.
“You caused me so much pain, Dmitri.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I did?” he asked quietly, glancing sideways.
“Yes.” My voice stayed steady, but my chest ached with the truth of it. “And I will never fully forgive you.”
He didn’t defend himself. Didn’t deny it. Just listened.
“We had something sweet once,” I continued, the words pulling themselves free. “I was fifteen. You were nineteen. Secret meetings. Stolen kisses. You made me daisy chains and promised we’d run away together.” I swallowed. “Then life tore us apart.”
The road curved along the lake, dark water flashing through trees.
““Ten years later, you returned,” I said, shaking with anger. “Forced me into marriage, dragged me from New York on my twenty-fifth birthday, and brought me to Lake Como... a place I was never meant to belong.” I stared at him. “Everything after that was hell. Pure ruin.”
His jaw clenched.
I stared out at the dark lake flashing by, the water catching the headlights in brief, broken shards before dissolving back into black.
“You hated me,” I said finally. My voice was calm—too calm. “Or thought you did.”
Dmitri’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, but he didn’t interrupt.