Chapter 12
PENELOPE
Ilingered in the doorway of Vanya’s room longer than necessary, my hand resting on the frame as I watched the steady rise and fall of his small chest beneath the covers. Sleep had claimed him at last, but only after a battle—questions fired like arrows into the dark.
Will you be here in the morning?
Why does the big house have so many doors?
Is the pretty lady bad?
I had answered what I could. Soft truths. Half-promises. I’d kissed his forehead, smoothed his curls back, and told him the world would feel safer tomorrow.
A lie wrapped in love—but it was all I had.
I closed the door quietly, careful not to let the latch click, and walked the short corridor to Dmitri’s room.
Our room.
The thought scraped against me.
My luggage sat at the foot of the massive bed—two modest suitcases placed with military precision, as if even my belongings had been assessed and accepted under terms. To the right, Vanya’s room, the connecting door cracked open just enough to ease my breathing. To the left—Seraphina’s.
The wall between us felt too thin.
The bedroom was dim, lit only by a single lamp on the nightstand. Shadows stretched across dark wood paneling and heavy curtains, the air faintly scented with smoke and lakewater and something distinctly him.
Dmitri was already in bed.
Sprawled might have been the wrong word—he occupied it, unapologetically, like a king who had never learned how to make himself small.
Loose black sweatpants rode low on his hips, his bare chest and arms exposed, muscle and scar etched together like a history written in flesh.
Old wounds. New tension. Power resting in stillness.
Five years.
Five years since I had last lain beside him.
Five years of graves and ghosts. Of letting the world believe I was dead while he mourned me—while I mourned him from the shadows.
Or maybe he had always known.
I changed into jeans and an oversized sweater.
The jeans and oversized sweater felt like armor, layers between me and everything my body still remembered.
I slipped off my shoes and crossed the rug barefoot, the plush fibers whispering under my steps. I eased onto the edge of the bed as if it might recoil from me, then lay flat on my back, hands folded over my stomach, eyes fixed on the ornate molding carved into the ceiling.
I didn’t reach for the duvet.
Neither of us moved.
His eyes were closed, lashes dark against his skin, but his breathing was too controlled. Not the slack rhythm of sleep. Anyone who had ever shared a bed with him would have known.
Memories came anyway.
The reckless joy of our teenage years—stolen kisses behind the old oak trees, the way he used to look at me like I was the only good thing in a brutal world.
And then the darkness.
The day he forced the ring onto my finger. The cold ceremony. The vows that felt like chains. The nights where love curdled into possession, into cruelty sharpened by jealousy and pride.
In one lifetime, this man had given me heaven and hell.
I hated that heaven still glimmered brighter.
“You’re not sleeping,” he said.
His voice rumbled low, certain, cutting through the silence like a stone dropped into still water.
I flinched, turning my head toward him. His eyes were still closed.
“How did you know?” I asked quietly.
The faintest smirk touched his mouth. “I know the sound of your breathing when you’re pretending.”
Of course he did.
I let out a slow breath, my fingers tightening briefly over my stomach before I forced them to relax. “I’m trying,” I said.
“If you’re worried I might touch you without your consent, put your mind at ease,” he said softly, his voice edged with warning and restraint. “I never have—and I never will.”
A pause.
“Sleep,” he added. “We have a party tomorrow evening.”
His chest rose and fell once, deeper this time.
He opened his eyes then.
Storm-gray. Unforgiving. They fixed on me with that familiar intensity that always made the air feel thinner, like breathing required permission.
“What party?” I asked.
“The annual gathering of the four families.” He replied, careful to keep his tone neutral.
He shifted, pushing himself up against the headboard. The muscles in his arms flexed with the movement, the duvet sliding lower across his waist as if the bed itself yielded to him. He didn’t bother pulling it back up.
“Every year,” he said, “the Volkovs, Orlovs, Morozovs, and Ferraros come together. A masquerade of civility.” His mouth twisted faintly.
“We parade new soldiers, new alliances, new brides. We drink expensive wine, exchange pleasantries, and pretend we aren’t all calculating how best to kill one another when the night is over. ”
His gaze never left my face.
“It’s how Lake Como stays standing,” he went on. “One evening of restraint so the rest of the year doesn’t drown in blood.”
I nodded slowly, a prickle of unease sliding down my spine. “And I have to be there?”
“Yes,” he said. “In fact, I’ll need you to handle a task for me tomorrow.”
The way he said it—calm, deliberate—made my pulse stutter.
“The Orlovs have already secured the Morozovs as allies,” he continued. “If I’m going to have any advantage when war breaks out, I need the Ferraros on my side before the Orlovs poison them too. That’s where you come in.”
His gaze held mine.
“They’ll be at the party tomorrow. I need you to speak to the Ferraros—Ricci Ferraro in particular. He’ll be there. He’s been... resistant to choosing sides.”
A knot formed low in my stomach. “You want me to speak to him.”
“Yes.”
“Convince him that siding with me is the smarter move when war comes.”
The word landed like a blade between my ribs.
“War?” I repeated softly.
His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking beneath the stubble. “I will not marry Seraphina Orlov.” His voice dropped, stripped of all pretense. “The idea of her in a white dress, wearing my ring—it turns my stomach. It would be the ultimate betrayal.”
His eyes darkened.
“Of Penelope.”
The possessive slipped out without effort, raw and unguarded.
“So yes,” he said. “War. Once the three months are over—once you and Vanya are safely out of reach—I will burn the Orlovs to the ground. Every last one of them.”
The violence of it should have terrified me.
Instead, something else bloomed—an ache, sharp and unwelcome. For the man who would raze empires for a woman he believed dead. For the boy sleeping in the next room who deserved a father alive, not a legend carved into marble.
“And if you’re the one who burns?” I asked quietly.
He stilled.
“You speak of war like it’s a clean decision,” I went on, my voice steady but tight. “Not rivers of blood. Not widows and children left behind. What makes you think you’re untouchable, Dmitri? That death won’t come for you the way it comes for everyone else?”
For a moment, he simply studied me.
Then he smiled.
Slow. Dangerous. A curve of his mouth that didn’t reach his eyes.
“You still don’t understand loyalty,” he said. “When a man chooses war over surrender, it means he’s already made peace with dying.”
He leaned forward slightly, close enough that I could smell smoke and lakewater and something darkly familiar.
“I would rather greet death as an old friend than spend a single second bound to that woman.”
I searched his face in the lamplight—the hard planes, the iron will, the grief etched so deeply it had become bone.
“Your hatred for her is... absolute,” I said at last. “Admirable, in a twisted way. All for the memory of your late wife.”
He didn’t correct me.
Didn’t flinch at the word late.
He just watched me, silent, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes—like a man staring at a ghost who refused to stay buried.
“Will you do it?” he asked again, quieter now. “Speak to Antonio Ferraro?”
The question hung between us, heavy as a drawn blade.
“Why me?” I countered, still staring at the ceiling as if it held answers I didn’t want to give him. “Why not you? Or Giovanni?”
“Because we’ve already tried,” he said without hesitation. “The Ferraros have kept us at arm’s length for years. Polite. Civil. Unmoved.” His mouth curved faintly, humorless.
“But the Orlovs are already whispering,” he continued. “Offering partnerships. Planting incentives. They’ve even gone so far as to offer their third daughter—no doubt as a marriage, neatly bound to the Morozov’s heir, Ricci.”
He paused.
“You’re my wife, Pen. For three months, that title has weight. It disarms. It intrigues.” His gaze burned into me. “He’ll listen to you.”
I turned my face back toward the ceiling, the carved molding blurring as my thoughts tangled.
“And if I refuse?”
“There will be no punishment,” he said simply. “I won’t force you.”
The words should have reassured me.
Instead, I almost laughed at the bitter irony. “And if I agree?”
“Then you earn a reward.”
His voice changed—softer, persuasive, the tone he used when he wanted something badly but refused to beg.
“When the three months end and this marriage dissolves, you may ask me for one thing. One.” He lifted a finger slightly, as if sealing a vow. “Anything. Half my wealth. Properties abroad. Enough money to vanish forever and live like a queen. Name it.”
I stayed silent.
Money meant nothing to me. I’d survived five years with nothing but Ruslan’s shadow and my own teeth bared to the world. Wealth couldn’t buy safety from a man like Dmitri Volkov.
But leverage could.
A promise from him—spoken, witnessed, bound by his iron sense of honor—that was something else entirely. Insurance, in case he decided not to let me go when the contract ended. In case he learned the truth and tried to keep Vanya. In case I needed to pry something precious from his hands later.
“I don’t want you to go to war, Dmitri,” I said at last, my voice barely above a whisper.
The honesty surprised us both.
I hated him. Feared him. Resented him for everything he’d taken from me.
But I didn’t want him dead.
Not the father of my son.