Chapter 3
PENELOPE
The men I kept seeing around the docks weren’t Romano soldiers. Their movements were too precise, too disciplined—wolves, but loyal to someone else. Someone waiting for me.
The thought sent a cold shiver racing up my spine.
The man stopped abruptly and turned, his dark eyes unyielding.
My pulse hammered, but I straightened, forcing steel into my voice.
“If you’re going to kill me,” I said, low and steady, “at least tell me who I’m dying for.”
He didn’t answer. Silence wrapped around me like a noose.
Then, with a curt gesture, he pointed toward a tent ahead, its canvas snapping in the wind like a warning.
“Go in,” he ordered. “He’s waiting.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
“Who?” I demanded, though dread already curled low in my stomach.
He stepped back, his scarred face unreadable, his eyes flicking toward the tent. A silent order.
I swallowed hard, my mind racing.
The tent loomed only a few meters ahead.
My boots crunched over gravel as I forced myself toward it, each step slower than the last, my heart pounding loud enough to drown out the crashing of the waves.
The closer I came, the more the air seemed to thicken, pressing against my chest like a vice.
At arm’s length, I hesitated. My fingers brushed the coarse canvas, rough against my skin.
For a long moment, I stood there, my breath shallow, fighting the urge to crumble. Then, with trembling hands, I pulled the flap aside and stepped inside.
A low golden glow bathed the tent, cast by an ornate floor lamp in the corner, its brass stem etched with snarling wolves.
At the far end sat a man in a chair that wasn’t merely a chair—it was a throne, carved from blackened oak, its armrests tipped with silver wolf heads.
Dmitri Volkov.
The devil himself.
My lungs seized, as if the air had thinned to nothing.
He didn’t simply sit. He ruled.
One arm draped over the armrest, his posture deceptively relaxed, as if the entire world already belonged to him.
His suit clung to broad shoulders, midnight black, his icy blue eyes locked on me, unblinking, merciless.
This was no neighbor, no friend from summer afternoons with lemonade and laughter. This was a king carved from shadows, the devil men whispered about in fear.
This was a monster who’d returned to collect on a promise I’d been foolish enough to make.
“Dmitri...” I whispered, the name trembling from my lips, weighted with shock and memories I wished I could burn.
Fifteen years old, barefoot on the Romano porch. His laugh warm as he leaned back, sipping the lemonade my mother had made. His blue eyes had been bright then, almost boyish. “You’ll marry me at twenty-five, right, Penelope?” he’d teased, flashing that infuriating grin.
I’d laughed, swatting him with my book. “Sure, if you’re still this sweet.”
But the man before me was anything but sweet.
Another memory clawed its way forward— his hand sneaking mine a cupcake at my fifteenth birthday, the chocolate frosting smudging my thumb.
His fingers had brushed mine, warm, tentative, his smile shy but genuine.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he’d whispered, his voice low and conspiratorial, as if the stolen cupcake was a treasure. “It’s just for you, Penelope.”
For a moment, he’d been the boy who saw me when no one else did.
Now, just two weeks from my twenty-fifth birthday, that boy was dead. In his place sat a man carved from ice and iron, his sharp jaw rigid, his eyes glacial.
“Dmitri,” I breathed, searching for him, the him I remembered. My voice softened, aching. “You’ve changed so much.”
He didn’t move.
The silence was more brutal than any words. His fist flexed against the carved armrest, the leather of his glove creaking with restrained violence.
The tent pressed in on me, heavy with gun oil, cigar smoke, and his suffocating presence.
“Say something,” I demanded, my voice breaking sharp against the stillness. “Those rumors—about killing your parents, carving their names into their ashes—they’re not true, right?”
He finally rose, every movement fluid yet coiled with lethal intent, his black suit cutting a ruthless silhouette.
His eyes raked over me, merciless, stripping me bare until I felt my pulse thundering in my throat.
“There’s a chopper outside,” he said, his voice smooth but venom-laced, circling me like a predator testing the edge of fear. “It’s bound for Italy. I could drag you aboard, lock you in my estate, and chain you there as my possession for the rest of your pitiful life.”
“Dmitri...” My whisper cracked, a trembling plea that betrayed the storm inside me.
“Not another word,” he growled, voice low but edged with fury.
“When I speak, you listen. When I command, you obey. Do you understand me?” His voice cracked like a whip, his hand flexing, veins ridging across knuckles capable of snapping necks.
I swallowed hard and nodded, the movement small, instinctive—like prey bowing to its predator.
He halted, eyes burning into mine. “Don’t overestimate your family’s power, Penelope. I could erase them all—your father, your mother, Rocco, Carlo. I could turn the Romano empire into smoke and bone, and it wouldn’t cost me a single sleepless night.”
I had clung to the memories of our childhood from the moment he appeared and shattered the wedding, foolishly hoping that somewhere beneath the monster, a fragment of that lost gentleness still remained.
But I was wrong. The tears stung, threatening to spill, but I forced them back.
“Why?” I whispered, my voice quivering. “What did I do to earn your hatred?”
He stepped closer, his presence suffocating, his scent—sandalwood cut with steel—crowding my senses.
“Why?” he hissed, his eyes blazing like ice set on fire. “You dare to ask why I hate you?”
I lifted a trembling hand toward his jaw, desperate to glimpse the boy who once made me feel seen.
But his hand shot out, iron-fast, seizing my wrist and wrenching it behind my back.
In one brutal motion, he slammed me against the canvas wall, the impact rattling my bones.
His palm closed around my throat, squeezing until the world narrowed to panic and pain.
My chest clenched violently, my asthma roaring to life.
The burn in my lungs was sharp.
My vision blurred as I gasped for air, fumbling with my free hand toward my pocket where the inhaler rested.
But his grip was merciless, pinning me, holding me on the edge of suffocation.
“Please...” I rasped, my voice broken, my strength waning.
He froze.
For the briefest moment, something flickered in his eyes, before he released me.
His fists clenched and unclenched as he turned away, shoulders rigid.
I collapsed to my knees, clawing at my pocket with trembling fingers until I found the inhaler. The hiss of the spray filled my lungs, blessed air flooding back into me.
I sucked it in greedily, vision sharpening, chest easing as the panic slowly ebbed.
Then his voice came—venom wrapped in ice. “I want to bury you seven feet under... right where I buried my mother. After I carved her heart out and burned it to dust.”
The words struck harder than his grip ever could. I flinched, my body recoiling, as if the syllables themselves were knives.
Every memory of the boy I’d once adored shattered into ash. Could that boy ever have been real? Or had he always been this monster, waiting to surface?
“Get up,” he ordered, the command merciless. “You’re coming with me to Italy.”
My hand tightened around the inhaler, the plastic biting into my palm. “No... no, please...” I whispered, my voice raw, shredded by fear.
Dmitri Volkov was a monster through and through, and going to Italy—his kingdom—would be my death.
A bullet here on the docks would be mercy compared to being chained as his property in a foreign land.
Terror surged, but so did instinct. Survival roared louder than fear. I moved before thought could stop me.
I bolted.
The tent flap whipped against me as I tore through it, boots pounding over gravel, lungs burning with every gasp of icy night air.
Shouts erupted behind me—deep voices, heavy boots giving chase—but I didn’t dare look back.
My Audi gleamed ahead, salvation in black metal.
My pulse hammered in my ears as I reached it, yanking the door open with trembling hands.
I threw myself inside, slammed it shut, and jammed the key into the ignition. The engine roared to life, my only ally.
“Come on, come on,” I hissed, shoving the gear into reverse.
Tires screeched, smoke curling into the air as the car shot backward. I spun the wheel, flooring it, the dock vanishing behind me in a blur of shadows.
I didn’t care if the Italian mafia’s entire army was on my tail—I’d rather die running than be taken alive.
But as I glanced into the rearview mirror, my blood froze.
Dmitri stood outside the tent, framed in the floodlight’s glow, unmoving.
His hands were folded behind his back, his black suit unruffled, his icy blue gaze locked on mine even from a distance. Calm. Patient. As if my frantic escape was nothing more than a game he had already won.
My chest heaved, every breath scraping like sandpaper through my lungs. The city’s lights streaked past in fractured blurs as I wove recklessly through traffic, horns blaring, red lights ignored.
My pulse was a war drum, pounding in my ears, drowning everything else.
My shaking hand fumbled for my phone.
I hit Papa’s number, set it to speaker, and pressed it to the dash. “Pick up, Papa,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
The dial tone dragged on, each ring a blade carving deeper into my fear.
No answer. Not even voicemail.
Had Dmitri already made good on his threat? His voice echoed in my skull: Don’t overestimate your family’s power, Penelope. I could erase them all—your father, your mother, Rocco, Carlo. I could turn the Romano empire into smoke and bone, and it wouldn’t cost me a single sleepless night.
My stomach knotted.
Was my silence on the line the sound of that promise coming true?
The Romano estate rose before me, a dark tower of steel and glass cutting through the night sky, its lit windows a beacon of fragile safety.
I screeched into the garage, the Audi’s tires shrieking against the polished concrete, and slammed it into park.
I stumbled out, my legs nearly giving way.
My chest still ached from the earlier attack, my lungs raw, every gasp shallow.
The ground was cold against my bare foot—one boot lost somewhere in the chaos on the docks.
I limped across the garage, gripping the trunk of the car for balance, clutching the other shoe like a weapon I’d never get to use.
“Ma’am!” A butler in the Romano gray uniform rushed toward me.
His usually calm face was pale, eyes wide with alarm. “Are you—are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I lied between ragged breaths, my voice hoarse. “Find my father. Now. Tell him...” My grip tightened on the shoe until my knuckles went white. “...tell him I have something urgent to say. It can’t wait.”
The butler hesitated, searching my face, but the fear in his eyes mirrored my own.
He bowed slightly before sprinting toward the elevators, leaving me alone with my pounding heart, the shadows of the garage pressing close, and the gnawing certainty that Dmitri Volkov was already inside my walls.
I limped inside.
Every step echoed too loudly in the cavernous silence, reminding me I was alive—but barely.
Dmitri Volkov. My first love at fifteen, the boy who once made me laugh over lemonade, had revealed himself as a monster. Not just to the world. To me. To my family. His hatred was a blade pressed to my throat, and I still didn’t know why.
I stormed to my bedroom, shutting the door harder than I meant to, the silk curtains swaying with the draft.
My mind replayed the dock in jagged fragments: his hand on my throat, the threat in his voice, the chopper waiting.
Dmitri could have forced me aboard, dragged me to Italy, where no one could ever find me.
Had I escaped because of my speed—or because he wanted me to run? The thought froze my blood.
He was a predator, and I was nothing more than prey he enjoyed watching scramble.
My father had to act, and soon, or we were finished.
I showered, scrubbing away the stink of diesel and fear until my skin burned, then pulled on a clean sweater and jeans. It calmed nothing.
The hours crawled by, the estate growing darker and emptier with each passing minute.
No word from Papa. No calls returned.
My mother was still in Miami, celebrating Nonna’s eightieth birthday with the extended family—a feast of wine and laughter she would never believe I envied now.
I was alone, the silence pressing in like a vise.
Finally, desperate for answers, I slipped into the hall.
My footsteps carried me toward my father’s study, the one place I thought I might find comfort. The mahogany door was locked. My heart dropped. He wasn’t there.
Dmitri’s words clawed their way back into my chest: I could erase them all. I could turn the Romano empire into smoke and bone, and it wouldn’t cost me a single sleepless night.
Panic surged.
If Papa was gone, if Dmitri had already moved against him, I had no shield left. Rocco and Carlo would step into power, yes, but their love for me was tangled up in loyalty to the empire. Could I really trust even them?
I turned away, forcing my legs to move, wandering the first living room with its velvet sofas sitting in eerie stillness, then the second, where I paused.
Voices.
I stilled, breath catching.
They drifted faintly through the double doors, low but urgent, threading through the silence like a warning.
Then I heard it.
My name.
Penelope.
Sharp. Measured. Heavy with something I couldn’t name.
I froze where I stood, my heart slamming against my ribs, straining to catch the rest.
Were they discussing me? The Volkov debt? Or something far, far worse?