Chapter 7
PENELOPE
WHEN MY EYES FLUTTERED open again, I was still in his arms.
Naked, cocooned against his chest beneath the covers, his body curved protectively around mine like a shield.
His heartbeat was slow and steady beneath my cheek, grounding me. One arm lay draped across my waist; the other cradled the back of my head, fingers threaded gently through my hair as if he’d never moved.
I shifted slightly, testing reality.
His hand lifted immediately, giving me room without fully letting go.
“Did you sleep?” I asked softly. My voice was raw, scraped thin by tears.
“How could I?” he murmured. “When every man who laid a hand on you... still draws breath.”
The quiet fury in his tone sent a shiver through me.
I pushed myself upright slowly. He let me, though his hand lingered on my hip, reluctant, protective.
The room was dim, washed in faint silver moonlight slipping through the curtains. Shadows carved his features sharp.
His eyes were red-rimmed. Exhausted.
Furious.
I reached up before I could think better of it and brushed my thumb across the damp track on his cheek.
“You cried,” I whispered.
He didn’t deny it.
“So did you,” he replied, just as quietly.
I looked down at the ring on my finger—the one he’d slid there on the airstrip, cold metal warmed now by my skin.
The diamond caught the moonlight and fractured it into sharp white sparks that danced across the ceiling. It felt heavier than it should have. Like a promise. Like a threat.
“What happens now?” I asked quietly.
Dmitri shifted beside me and sat up, the mattress dipping with his weight. He reached for me without hesitation, drawing me closer until our knees touched, until our foreheads rested together. His breath brushed my lips, steady and warm.
“We pretend,” he said. His voice was calm, deliberate—the voice of a man making a plan, not a plea.
“During the day. In front of Seraphina. In front of the staff. In front of anyone watching.” His thumb traced a slow arc over the back of my hand.
“They think I’m broken. Weak. Confused. You’re the rescued girl who doesn’t know her place yet. ”
“And at night?” I whispered.
“At night,” he said, softer now, “we rebuild.”
My chest tightened.
“You tell me everything,” he continued. “Every memory. Every lie they fed me. Every truth I lost. I listen. I don’t interrupt. I don’t defend myself. I learn.” His forehead pressed more firmly to mine. “And when the time comes—when I’m whole again—we take back what’s ours.”
I swallowed hard. The weight of it all—hope, fear, exhaustion—pressed down until my ribs ached.
“And the girls?” I asked. “Bianca?”
His expression hardened instantly, like steel snapping into place.
“Already in motion,” he said. “I sent men out before we even reached the house. Quiet ones. No Volkov insignia. They’re tracking the five who escaped—border crossings, emergency rooms, underground shelters, churches, anywhere women like you would run.” His jaw tightened. “As for Bianca...”
He paused, just long enough for my heart to stutter.
“I’ll buy her freedom if I can,” he said. “Money talks. Especially to men like the Kompania brothers. But if they refuse—if they so much as touch her again—I’ll take her by force.” His eyes darkened, something feral flickering there.
I studied his face in the dim light. The man who’d once locked me in a dark room. The man who’d broken me without remembering my name. And now... sitting inches away, poised to grant whatever I ask.
“I don’t forgive you yet,” I said quietly.
He nodded once. No argument. “I know.”
He exhaled, the sound shaky and unguarded, like he’d been holding his breath for years.
Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead—slow, reverent, lingering.
A few minutes passed in silence, broken only by the quiet rhythm of our breathing.
I sighed and reached for his hands, threading my fingers through his.
His grip tightened immediately—warm, steady, calloused from a lifetime of violence and survival.
He adjusted his position, sitting fully upright so we were eye to eye, moonlight carving sharp lines across his face and leaving the rest in shadow.
“You have to be careful, Dmitri,” I said softly. “I don’t want you doing anything reckless. You don’t have the power you used to. And there’s that agreement—the one between the Albanians and the four families here in Lake Como. You can’t just engage them openly. It would be war.”
A corner of his mouth lifted in a small, dangerous smirk—the expression that used to make men hesitate and women forget themselves.
“I’m not daft, Penelope,” he said. “I’m not walking into this blind.”
“Then tell me,” I said. “What you’re planning.”
“I’m building my own army,” he replied calmly. “Quietly. Outside Lake Como’s borders. No banners. No colors. Loyal ones. Men who answer only to me.”
His gaze burned into mine, intense and unwavering. “Mercenaries. Ex-special forces. Ghosts. They don’t care about old alliances or family pacts.”
I stiffened. “That’s dangerous.”
“Yes,” he agreed without hesitation. “But necessary.”
“You’ll draw attention.”
“Only if I’m sloppy.” His thumb brushed over my knuckles in a soothing motion that didn’t match the violence of his words. “And I won’t be.”
I searched his face. “You’ve already given the order.”
“Hours ago.” No pride. Just fact. “My men near the border are already probing the Kompania brothers’ holdings—looking for cracks.
Weak points. Blind spots in their surveillance.
Corruptible guards. We won’t storm their territory.
We’ll cut it out from under them.” His voice dropped. “Surgical. Fast. Silent.”
A chill slid down my spine.
“They’ll wake up one morning,” he continued, “and half their leadership will be gone. The rest will be too terrified to retaliate.” He paused, eyes softening as his thumb traced the faint outline of my ring. “No one will trace it back to me. Not until it’s far too late.”
I held his gaze, torn between fear and a dark, dangerous sense of justice.
“Still,” I said, tightening my grip on his hands as if I could anchor him in place. “Be careful. Promise me.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
He studied my face instead—really studied it—like he was memorizing every line, every flicker of fear I hadn’t managed to hide. Then he nodded once, slow and solemn, the kind of nod that carried weight.
“I promise,” he said.
The word settled uneasily in my chest. Promises had always been fragile things in our world—easily made, easily broken. Still, I held on to it.
I hesitated, then asked the question that had been clawing at the back of my mind. “Does Giovanni know about these men? The ones you’re building outside Lake Como?”
His jaw tightened instantly, a muscle ticking near his temple.
He looked away for a moment, toward the far wall, as if calculating how much truth to give me.
“You’re the only one who knows,” he said finally. “Giovanni can’t.”
“Why?” I pressed, though I already sensed the answer would be ugly.
“Because he’s compromised,” Dmitri said flatly.
“He has a child with Elena Orlov. A son.” His mouth twisted, not in disgust but in something closer to grim understanding.
“If I start this war openly, he’ll be forced to choose—his loyalty to me or his boy’s safety.
And I won’t put him in that position. Not yet. ”
The words settled like lead.
“So you’re doing this alone,” I murmured.
“For now,” he corrected. “But when the time comes—after the Albanians are ashes—I’m not stopping.
” His eyes lifted to mine, burning with a ruthless clarity that sent a shiver through me.
“I’m bringing down the three families here in Lake Como.
All of them. Starting with their patriarchs.
The Orlovs daughters. The Morozov elders.
What’s left of the Ferraro line. The council itself. ”
My breath caught. “That’s rebellion,” I whispered. “Full-scale war against the structure that holds this place together.”
“It’s rot,” he said coldly. “And rot has to be cut out.”
He stood abruptly, the mattress shifting beneath me, and began pacing the length of the room like a caged predator.
His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, knuckles bleaching white before flushing red again.
“They wiped my memory,” he went on, voice low and vibrating with restrained fury.
“Stripped my power piece by piece. Installed Seraphina in my house like a parasite to watch me decay. And you—” He stopped short, breath sharp.
“They sold you. The woman who matters most to me. Sold you to the Albanians like livestock.”
The air felt thick, electric.
Rage rolled off him in waves—controlled, compressed, but barely contained.
“They deserve death,” he said simply. “Every last one of them.”
I rose from the bed and crossed the room, laying a tentative hand against his arm. His skin was hot beneath my fingers, tension coiled tight.
“Dmitri,” I said softly. “This path—there’s no coming back from it.”
“I know,” he replied without hesitation.
He pulled away and walked toward the door. Halfway there, he stopped. His shoulders rose and fell once, as if he were steadying himself, then he turned back to face me.
“If I die doing this,” he said quietly, almost gently, “if something goes wrong and I don’t come back... don’t mourn me.”
The words hit like a slap.
I crossed the distance between us in a rush. “Don’t,” I snapped, fear sharpening my voice. “Don’t talk about dying. Don’t even think it.” I grabbed his coat, fingers fisting in the fabric. “I won’t survive another loss like that. I won’t have hope left if you’re gone.”
His eyes flickered, something raw breaking through the steel.
“Stay alive,” I begged. “If not for yourself, then for me. For Vanya. He deserves his father. I deserve—” My voice cracked. “I deserve you staying.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me. Really looked. The hard lines of his face softened, the armor slipping enough for me to see the man beneath—the boy under the oak tree.
“I’ll try,” he said quietly. “For both of you.”
It wasn’t another promise. It was something more honest.
He leaned in, pressing a brief, careful kiss to my forehead—restrained, reverent—then stepped back.
Without another word, he opened the door and slipped into the corridor, closing it behind him with a soft click.
His footsteps faded slowly, carrying fury and sorrow in equal measure.
I stood there long after he was gone, heart pounding, palms damp.
He was going all in on the Albanians. Nothing I said now would stop him.
But if he succeeded—if he tore the Kompania brothers out by the roots and burned their empire to the ground—it would heal something inside me that had been bleeding for over a year.
I crossed to the window and pushed the heavy cotton curtains aside. Dawn was just breaking, pale and tentative.
The lake shifted from black to molten silver, light spilling across its surface like a promise whispered rather than proclaimed.
A new day.
I stood there for a long time, arms wrapped tightly around myself, watching the sun climb inch by inch above the mountains.
The glass was cool against my skin, grounding me in the present, but my thoughts refused to stay still. They churned, restless and sharp, circling the same fears again and again.
I had no illusions.
Dmitri’s plan was reckless. Elegant in its design, terrifying in its execution.
Brilliant men still died from brilliant plans all the time.
One wrong move and the Orlovs would smell blood. They would close ranks, crush him before his outside army ever fully took shape.
Seraphina would tighten her grip on Vanya under the guise of protection. The Albanians—if they sensed even a whisper of retaliation—might strike first, fast and brutal, just to prove they still owned the ground beneath their boots.
And yet... hope crept in anyway.
Unwanted. Dangerous. Impossible to stop.
If Dmitri succeeded—if he dismantled the Albanians piece by piece, stripped them of power, of reach, of the certainty that they could do whatever they wanted to whomever they wanted—then something inside me might finally loosen.
If the men who had pinned me to cold stone floors, who had laughed while I screamed, who had turned my body into currency and sport... if those men were erased from the board entirely—then maybe the darkness lodged deep in my chest would lift just enough for me to breathe again.
Maybe I wouldn’t flinch every time a door slammed.
Maybe sleep wouldn’t feel like a battleground.
My thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the others.
Ana, with her quiet strength and steady eyes—always watching, always calculating, even when fear threatened to break her.
Sofia, her scarred eye a constant reminder of survival, her will forged sharp and unyielding.
Christina and Simona, who hadn’t hesitated for a second when the chance came—who ran like freedom itself was chasing them.
Carina, breathless but stubborn, refusing to be left behind even when her legs trembled.
And Bianca.
Still trapped.
Still waiting.
Still believing—because what else did she have?—that someone would come.
I pressed my forehead to the glass, breath fogging the surface.
Please, I thought. Find them. Bring them home. All of them.
And please—don’t leave Bianca behind. Don’t let hope be the thing that kills her.
And selfishly, desperately—don’t die trying.
The sun rose fully then, spilling gold across the room, illuminating dust motes drifting lazily in the air.
The light felt almost intrusive, too bright for the heaviness sitting in my chest. A new day didn’t care about my fear. It arrived anyway.
I turned from the window and reached for the robe draped over the chair, slipping it on with slow, automatic movements.
My body still felt fragile, like it might splinter if I moved too quickly. I sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping beneath my weight.
The ring on my finger caught the light.
Platinum. Simple. Unassuming. No grand declaration, no audience. Just a quiet promise forged in the dark.
I didn’t know what it meant yet.
I didn’t know what we meant.
All I knew was that today, my only purpose was to wait. To endure the hours stretching ahead of me.
To keep breathing through the memories that clawed at the edges of my mind every time I closed my eyes. To play my role convincingly. To protect Vanya with silence if I had to.
And to pray.
That Dmitri succeeded.
That he came back.
That the girls were found.
That Bianca saw daylight again.
That this fragile thread of hope didn’t snap under the weight of reality.