Chapter 8
PENELOPE
“I’m not trying to have sex with you,” Dmitri said calmly. “Relax.”
The words should have eased something in me. They didn’t.
His voice was low, unhurried, carrying that infuriating certainty he wielded like a weapon. Before I could step away, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
Not rushed. Not careless. Deliberate.
His lips barely touched skin, just enough for the rasp of his stubble to graze me, just enough to remind my body of every bad decision it had once made in his arms.
A shiver betrayed me, sharp and immediate.
Heat flooded my face, my pulse spiking beneath my jaw.
I hated that he felt it.
He pulled back slowly, eyes locked on mine—not smug, not amused. Studying. Cataloguing.
“Are your parents in Greece too?” he asked.
The question landed like a slap. Something cold coiling in my gut.
My parents. The architects of my ruin. The ones who had fed me lies and pills and obedience, who had erased years of my life with syringes and threats and pretty words about what was best for me.
Gone now. Hiding.
Running from Dmitri Volkov like hunted animals.
“What business is it of yours where my parents are?” I snapped.
I took a step back, needing distance from the way his nearness made my resolve wobble. From the dangerous impulse to reach out—to touch him first and lose the upper hand completely.
He didn’t follow. Didn’t crowd me.
“I’d like to meet my wife’s family,” he said evenly.
As if that sentence didn’t contain violence.
I let out a short, bitter laugh. “That won’t be happening. We don’t speak. Haven’t in years. And I’d prefer it stays that way.”
His gaze sharpened. “Why?”
“Because they’re not good people,” I said flatly. “And neither am I when they’re around.”
I turned away before he could dig deeper, crossing the room toward the wardrobe like retreating into cover. My back to him, I opened it and scanned the hanging clothes until my hand landed on black.
Black always worked.
I slipped behind the wardrobe door, dropping the towel and pulling on fresh underwear—black lace, clean lines, something that felt like armor rather than invitation.
I slid the dress over my head, the fabric cool against my skin, hugging my body without apology.
It didn’t try to make me smaller. It didn’t beg for approval.
Good.
At the vanity, I sat and began to rebuild myself piece by piece.
Foundation. Control.
Bronzer. Strength.
Mascara. Clarity.
Red lipstick. Defiance.
My hands were steady, practiced, even though my thoughts were anything but. I felt him behind me—not touching, not moving—his presence heavy in the room, watching without shame. Not like a man ogling.
Like a man recognizing something he’d once lost.
“You hate them,” he said quietly.
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” I replied, meeting my own gaze in the mirror. “And before you ask—no. You don’t get to use them against me.”
His reflection appeared behind mine. Still. Dangerous.
“I wasn’t planning to,” he said.
Then, softly, he said, “Wear black more often. It suits you.”
“I’ll wear whatever color I choose,” I replied.
He didn’t respond.
He just kept staring—too intent, too focused—as if I were something he couldn’t afford to lose sight of, not even for a millisecond.
When I finished, I turned to face him.
Dmitri Volkov hadn’t moved.
He stood exactly where I’d left him—arms crossed, broad shoulders filling the space like a barricade, his presence dominating the room with effortless authority.
He looked carved from command: still, unyielding, every inch the ruler of this dark empire he pretended not to enjoy.
“And where is my son?” I demanded.
My voice was calm. The kind of calm that came just before something broke.
“He should’ve been brought here by now.”
For the first time since I’d met him again, Dmitri hesitated.
His phone rang before he could answer—a sharp, intrusive sound that snapped through the room like a gunshot. He glanced at the screen, jaw tightening, then answered.
He listened in silence.
No pacing.
No swearing.
Just the gradual hardening of his face, the subtle crease between his brows deepening, his fingers curling tighter around the phone.
“Get yourself treated,” he said at last, voice clipped and dangerous. “Then come home. Immediately.”
The call ended.
I knew then.
Something was wrong.
Dmitri Volkov didn’t lose control easily. Whatever had just reached him had cracked the surface of his iron restraint.
“Where is Vanya?” I demanded, stepping toward him. My heart had started to race now, an ugly, crawling panic clawing up my spine.
He lifted his eyes to mine.
And the words fell like stones.
“He’s been taken.”
The room tilted.
“I didn’t hear you right,” I whispered, the sound barely leaving my throat.
My knees weakened.
My ears rang. The world narrowed until there was nothing but his mouth moving, his voice cutting through me like shrapnel.
“The Orlovs found out about the secret wedding,” he said, each word measured. “My men were the only witnesses—yet news travels faster than light.”
His jaw tightened. “Worse, Seraphina is awake. She was supposed to be in a coma for months, but she regained consciousness. The Orlovs will have already deduced that I was behind her collapse at the altar—and the reason our wedding never happened.”
He paused, letting the implication settle.
“They took Vanya as leverage,” he continued coldly. “Whatever demand they intend to make, he’s their bargaining chip. They ambushed Giovanni on his way back to the house and took him.”
A beat.
“They took my son as leverage.”
Something inside me shattered.
“What the fuck!” I screamed, the sound ripping out of me raw and feral as I lunged toward him. “This is a joke. This has to be a fucking joke!”
“It’s not.”
I swung at him, blind with terror and fury—aiming to wipe that calm right off his face—but he caught my wrists effortlessly, twisting me with brutal efficiency. In one fluid movement, he hauled me back against his chest.
Hard.
His arm locked around my waist like iron. The other pinned my wrists to my stomach. I struggled uselessly, breath knocked from my lungs as panic exploded into violence.
“I’ll get him back,” he growled into my ear, his voice low, vicious, vibrating with promise. “I swear it.”
I lost it.
I thrashed wildly—kicking, elbowing, clawing at him like a cornered animal, screams tearing out of me as sobs wracked my chest.
“Let go of me!” I screamed. “Let me go! You selfish bastard—this was your doing! I should have known this marriage was a trap!”
My vision blurred with tears. My chest burned. Every instinct in me screamed to run, to tear the world apart until my son was back in my arms.
“I can’t breathe without him,” I sobbed, my voice breaking completely now. “Do you hear me? I can’t— I can’t exist without my child!”
He tightened his hold just enough to keep me from collapsing.
“Listen to me,” he said fiercely, his mouth close to my ear, his breath hot with barely leashed rage. “No one touches what’s mine.”
That word—mine—should have made me recoil.
Instead, it was the only thing holding me upright.
“I will burn every Orlov asset to the ground,” he continued, each word a vow carved in blood. “I will peel this city apart until I find him. They will regret breathing the same air as your son.”
My strength finally gave out.
I sagged against him, sobbing, shaking, the fight draining out of me as terror hollowed me from the inside.
He held me through all of it.
Unmoving. Unyielding. Like a mountain that refused to break no matter how violently the storm raged against it.
He let me break against him.
And then, when there was nothing left—
When my lungs burned and my throat shredded and my sobs turned thin and empty—
I spun on him without warning.
My forehead pressed against his chest. My tears soaked straight through his shirt. My hands fell limp at my sides.
Only then did he release me.
Slowly. Carefully. Like I might shatter if he moved too fast.
I stumbled back a step, chest heaving, vision blurred. My cheeks were wet, my throat raw, my dignity in ruins.
“It’s my first day as your wife,” I said, a broken laugh ripping out of me, sharp and hysterical, “and you’ve already failed to protect us. How fitting.”
My voice cracked hard on the last word.
“Go,” I hissed, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “Go and find my son.”
Dmitri stepped back and sank into the armchair like a king reclaiming his throne, his calm slicing into me deeper than any insult.
“He isn’t lost,” he said evenly. “He’s with the Orlovs.”
That tone.
That infuriating composure.
Something inside me snapped.
“Fine.” I whirled toward the door. “Then I’ll go to the Orlovs myself and take my child back.”
“They’ll demand you divorce me.”
I froze at the threshold.
Turned slowly.
“And you think I’d hesitate?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet now.
He rose to his feet again, eyes dark, unblinking. “No,” he said. “I don’t think you would.”
“Then move,” I spat.
“But divorce isn’t possible,” he continued, unruffled. “Not right now. It’s in the contract. Three months.”
The room seemed to tilt again.
“So you’re telling me,” I said hoarsely, “that I won’t see my son for three months?”
“I’m telling you I’ll get him back long before that,” he said, stepping closer, his voice lowering. “But you need to stay calm.”
A laugh tore out of me—bitter, hollow, almost unhinged.
“Calm?” I echoed. “My son has been taken, Dmitri. And you want calm?”
I shook my head, backing away. “This marriage does nothing for me. Nothing. It only saves you from marrying Seraphina and her vipers. You get protection. Power. Time.”
My chest tightened painfully.
“And I get this,” I finished. “You’re a selfish bastard.”
I didn’t wait for his response.
I stormed out, the door slamming behind me like a gunshot.
The mansion swallowed me whole.
Corridors blurred past.