Darkest Oblivion (Doomed Vows #1)

Chapter 1

PENELOPE

“ See how far you’ve come, Penelope,” Antonio sneered, his voice dripping with venom as he adjusted his tie at the altar. “Paraded up here like a pig in lace. Even the gown can’t hide it—your belly looks swollen, your arms soft and jiggling. You look like a bloated mess.”

My heart lurched. The man standing before me was my fiancé—Antonio Bellanti. Three years together. Three years of whispered promises and stolen kisses. Three years of me believing he cherished me.

And here he was, tearing me apart on our wedding day.

The church fell into a heavy silence. The priest shifted uneasily behind us. Mafia men in sharp suits lined the pews. Their women wore diamonds, their lips curled with cruel amusement.

I blinked back tears. This can’t be real.

“Antonio... what’s wrong with you?” I whispered, barely moving my lips, terrified of drawing more eyes.

“What’s wrong with me?” He grinned cruelly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if amused. “The real question is—what’s wrong with you? Did you actually believe I’d ever love you? A pig, Penelope. A soft, greedy pig. No man will ever love you. Not truly.”

My stomach turned to stone.

“I married you,” he continued, lowering his voice but not enough that the front row couldn’t hear, “because your family bleeds money. Because your father and uncles trust me like a son. You, Penelope—you were just the easiest way in. Once the rings are on, you’re my key to all of it. My puppet.”

My hands trembled, clutching the bouquet of white roses, their thorns pricking my palms.

The church spun, the stained-glass windows casting blood-red light across Antonio’s smirking face.

This was our wedding day, the most anticipated moment of my life, and the man I’d loved was shattering me in front of everyone?

He’d mocked my weight before, calling it a “joke” when I’d begged him to stop, but this was different—vicious, deliberate, meant to wound.

“Antonio,” my lips trembled, “please tell me this is a joke.”

He smirked. That mocking, sharp curl of his lips that I had once found charming now looked monstrous.

“A joke?” he scoffed, then leaned closer, his breath hot against my cheek. “I fucked your cousin an hour before the ceremony. Sofia. Sweet little Sofia with her tight waist and pouty lips. She begged for it, and I gave it to her. Do with that what you want.”

The words split me in half.

My knees weakened.

Images flooded my mind—Last month, at my father’s gala, I’d caught them in the garden, Sofia’s hand lingering on his arm, their laughter too intimate.

Two weeks ago, at the family dinner, she’d sat beside him, her thigh pressed against his under the table, his smile too warm.

I’d told myself it was nothing. I had believed him. But now the truth burned through me.

My hands shook, the bouquet slipping, as fear coiled in my gut.

Antonio was taking me to Italy after the wedding—a helicopter waited outside, ready to whisk us to his hometown.

What would he do to me there, in a place where no one would hear me scream?

The priest cleared his throat, the sound brittle in the silence. Sweat gleamed at his temple as his gaze flicked nervously to Marco—my father—then to Rocco and Carlo, my uncles, as though begging for their approval to continue.

His hands trembled around the Bible, knuckles pale against the leather binding.

“L-let us...” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. “Let us proceed to the vows. Penelope, Antonio—please... please take each other’s hands.”

My fingers shook violently as Antonio clasped them with his smug grip, tightening until my bones ached. My chest felt hollow, panic scraping my ribs raw.

This is my future? Being dragged to his hometown in Italy? Becoming his prisoner?

“Antonio Bellanti, do you take Penelope Marco to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

Antonio’s smirk widened, and he tilted his head toward me, his eyes gleaming with cruelty.

“Oh, I take her, Father,” he said darkly, his tone venomous enough to make the front pews stir.

“I’ll take her in sickness, in weakness, in shame.

I’ll take her bloated body, her pig snorts when she cries, her useless tears.

And I’ll hold her—” his lips twisted into a vicious grin, “—by the throat, until death does us part.”

A ripple of uneasy murmurs spread through the crowd. The priest paled, fumbling over his book.

My hands trembled, my lungs tightening with the familiar ache of asthma, though I clutched my inhaler in my pocket like a lifeline.

I was stepping into a life with a man who despised me, who’d used me to infiltrate my family’s empire.

From the corner of my eye, I saw my father’s smile falter, his proud expression stiffening into something harder. Marco Romano wasn’t a man easily shaken, but his jaw clenched tight enough to crack bone. A vein ticked at his temple, the kind of silent fury that usually preceded blood.

Isabella—my mother—gasped, her hand flying to her chest, her pearls trembling against her fingers. “Madonna santa...” she whispered, horror flooding her face. Her eyes darted between Antonio and me, as if begging me to deny what he’d just said, to insist it was some cruel joke.

My uncles, Rocco and Carlo, stiffened in unison, the air around them turning predatory. Wolves, ready to rip out a throat.

Rocco leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing on Antonio, a muscle feathering in his jaw. His hand twitched once, hovering dangerously close to the holster beneath his suit jacket.

Carlo’s lips pressed into a knife-thin line, his shoulders squaring, gaze sharp enough to cut. His fingers tapped once against the armrest, a silent countdown to violence.

The very man they had trusted, the man they had welcomed like blood, had just spat venom on their niece in front of everyone.

And I... I stood frozen, my hands trembling in Antonio’s grip, shame and betrayal clawing at my throat.

The priest’s voice broke through again, formal and resonant. “If anyone here has just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Silence fell, heavy and oppressive, the crowd’s eyes darting nervously.

I scanned the faces, desperate for someone to see my pain.

Tears pricked my eyes as I turned back to Antonio, his smirk a promise of torment. “Nobody will save you from me, Penelope,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. “The contract’s already signed. The Romanos handed you over the second they put ink to paper.”

His grin widened, evil and triumphant. “My family may not be as powerful as yours in New York, but in Italy? You’re nothing but mine. And once I drag you there, no one—not even your precious father—will take you back.”

A loud gasp erupted from the crowd, and my head snapped up.

In the center of the pews, a hand rose, powerful and commanding, adorned with intricate tattoos—snakes and daggers coiling up a muscular forearm, a silver ring glinting on the thumb.

People craned their necks, murmurs stirring. The sheer weight of that single hand lifted high seemed to drag the oxygen out of the church.

Then, as if pulled by some invisible gravity, the rows shifted. Men shuffled back, women clutched their pearls and slid aside. One by one, the bodies between me and him moved—parting without being asked, without daring to resist.

And through that opening, I finally saw him.

The figure who made my heart stop.

Dmitri Volkov.

Not the boy who once shared lemonade with me on my porch when I was fifteen. Not the boy who’d smirked when he caught me spying on him from my bedroom window.

No—this was someone else entirely.

The sweet boy was long dead.

In his place stood a man carved from shadows and violence, a mafia king whose name alone made men twice his age tremble.

His black suit hugged his towering frame, his dark hair swept back, his icy blue eyes cutting through the room like a blade.

His throat was inked, his sharp jaw shadowed by stubble, and a scar ran across his brow like a battle mark. His presence didn’t just fill the room—it strangled it.

The priest’s voice trembled. “The gentleman raising his hand, do you have an objection to the union of Antonio Bellanti and Penelope Marco?”

Dmitri stood, and seven men in black suits rose from different corners of the church, their movements synchronized, their faces hard as stone.

Whispers exploded around me.

A man nearby, his tie loose, muttered, “That’s Volkov. The devil himself. I thought he left New York for Italy ten years ago. What the hell is he doing here?”

Two women in sequined gowns leaned into each other, their voices trembling.

“Is it true what they say? That he slit his parents’ throats... then carved the mafia’s crest into their corpses?”

“No,” the other whispered back. “Worse. They say he burned them in the square... and made his men watch.”

I shivered.

The rumors slithered from mouth to mouth, growing darker with every breath. Each word seemed to feed the silence, pulling the air tighter, until the chandeliers themselves seemed to rattle above us.

Dmitri didn’t move. He didn’t need to. One flick of his icy gaze across the pews was enough to choke the whispers in their throats. The man with the loose tie looked away. The jeweled women lowered their eyes. The entire hall seemed to shrink under the weight of him.

I quivered.

The priest whispered to his assistant, his face pale. “Volkov’s here? God help us—he’s a walking nightmare.”

Fear gripped me, my chest tightening.

The Dmitri I’d known was gone, replaced by a mafia king who ruled Italy and New York with blood and terror.

“Yes,” Dmitri finally said, his voice deep and casual, like thunder rolling across mountains. “I object.”

The silence fractured.

“Penelope is mine,” he declared, his gaze fixed on me, burning through me. “Not his.”

Antonio stiffened beside me, but Dmitri didn’t even glance at him.

“This wedding is cancelled.” His tone was final, an executioner’s decree. “Everyone has ten seconds to disappear.”

Chaos erupted.

A chair clattered first, then a woman shrieked.

A burly man in a gray suit grabbed his wife’s arm, nearly tripping as they bolted for the exit.

Three women in stilettos stumbled over their gowns, clutching their purses as they ran.

An old mafia boss, his cane clattering, dragged his frail wife toward the doors, muttering, “Not crossing Volkov—nobody’s that stupid.”

The hall emptied in a frenzy, guests shoving past one another, their fear palpable.

Even the priest vanished, his robes fluttering as he fled through a side door, leaving only me, Antonio, my father, mother, and my two uncles, Rocco and Carlo, in the front row.

Dmitri approached, his seven men fanning out behind him like shadows, their faces carved from granite, guns visible at their waists.

My father stood, his silver hair gleaming, his expression calm but respectful.

Our Romano family was a powerhouse in New York, rivaling the Volkov mafia, and he carried that weight.

“Mr. Volkov,” my father greeted, extending a hand. “A pleasure.”

My mother, elegant in her navy gown, offered a polite nod. “Dmitri, welcome.”

Dmitri shook my father’s hand, his grip firm, then glanced at my uncles, Rocco and Carlo, who returned subtle nods of respect.

His eyes landed on me, and my chest tightened, fear and something else—something magnetic—stirring within.

I thought he’d look away, dismiss me like Antonio always did. Instead, Dmitri held my gaze, and my chest caved under the weight of it.

I tried to look away, but his gaze held me, icy and unrelenting, until I forced my eyes down, my hands trembling.

He turned back to my father, ignoring Antonio completely. “You seem to forget our agreement, Marco,” he said, his voice dangerous. “Five years isn’t long enough to erase a debt. Marrying your daughter to this nobody? Did you think I’d forget?”

My father’s brow furrowed, but he stood his ground, his short stature belying his fearlessness. “We honored the agreement years ago, Dmitri. The payment was made in full. Our debt to your family is cleared.”

Dmitri stepped closer, towering over him. “We never accepted that payment—weren’t you informed?” His voice was steel, cutting through the air. “You may think yourself free, Romano... but your family will always be in my debt.”

I stared, confusion swirling.

What agreement?

What debt?

“She will marry—” Dmitri began.

Uncle Rocco interjected, his voice sharp. “It doesn’t have to be you, Volkov. One of your brothers—Nikolai, Viktor, or Alexei—could marry her. We’ll discuss and decide who’s fit for Penelope.”

Dmitri stepped back, eyes glinting with quiet amusement.

For a moment, those cold, unreadable eyes locked onto mine, pinning me in place, before he flicked his hand in a simple command.

At once, his men moved—flanking him like shadows, their formation tight, lethal. Together they strode down the aisle, the echo of his footsteps lingered, louder than the vows I’d never spoken. My wedding wasn’t ruined—it had been rewritten. And I was at the center of a game I didn’t understand.

My father remained standing, his jaw locked in its usual iron grip.

To anyone else, he looked unshaken, a don carved from stone.

But I saw it—the slight tremor in his hand as he smoothed the front of his jacket, the bead of sweat trailing down from his temple, caught quickly with the flick of a handkerchief.

“Dio mio...” he muttered under his breath, so low only those nearest could hear.

The words weren’t fear, not exactly. They were acknowledgment. Even Marco Romano, who’d stared down rivals without blinking, knew the Volkov name was a storm no one could outrun.