Chapter 5
DMITRI VOLKOV
The dim, cavernous underground hall beneath my estate hummed with the faint echo of disciplined breaths, the air thick with the scent of polished leather and gun oil.
I stood at the head of the chamber, my posture unyielding, eyes scanning the thirty men arrayed before me in precise, uniformed rows—like loyal hounds awaiting their master’s command.
These weren’t ordinary thugs; they were elite, battle-hardened warriors, ex-Navy SEALs and Special Forces operatives from across the globe, masters of every conceivable weapon from silenced pistols to long-range sniper rifles, with decades of covert operations, urban warfare, and counter-terrorism under their belts.
Their skills were legendary: precision marksmanship that could thread a needle at a thousand yards, hand-to-hand combat that turned flesh into pulp, and tactical expertise honed in the world’s deadliest hotspots—Afghanistan’s rugged mountains, Iraq’s chaotic streets, and Somalia’s pirate-infested waters.
Recruiting them had cost a fortune, draining accounts that could have funded small wars, but their presence was non-negotiable.
In a world where enemies lurked in every shadow, mediocrity was a death sentence.
“Where’s the contract?” I asked Giovanni, my voice cutting through the silence like a blade.
He stood at my side, ever the faithful shadow, his bandaged legs a stark reminder of his recent failure.
“I dropped it on the bed as per your instructions,” he replied, his tone steady despite the limp that betrayed his pain.
I nodded, my gaze locking onto the men.
Their attention was absolute, eyes forward, bodies rigid—a testament to their training. “Of all your duties here,” I began, my words measured and commanding, “one stands above the rest. You must ensure my woman is protected—at all costs.”
“We will protect her with our lives, Commander.” they thundered in unison, their voices reverberating off the concrete walls like a war drum.
“Should even a strand of her hair fall to the ground without my permission,” I continued, my tone dropping to a lethal whisper, “you will all be slaughtered. Slowly. Alive.”
“By our honor and blood—she is under our watch.” The echo was fiercer this time, laced with the gravity of my threat.
I exhaled slowly, the weight of the moment settling over me.
Giovanni had briefed them on every contingency—patrolling the estate’s perimeters, monitoring surveillance feeds, and executing rapid response drills.
But I needed them to internalize the core of it: Penelope.
My brothers—Alexei, Viktor, and Nikolai—had slithered back into Lake Como like vipers returning to their nest.
Their return spelled danger, not for me—I thrived on threats—but for her.
They knew she was my Achilles’ heel, the one vulnerability in my ironclad armor. They’d exploit it without hesitation, using her as leverage to dismantle everything I’d built.
Memories of my foster home bled into my thoughts, bitter and sharp as broken glass.
I’d been the intruder—the unwanted foster boy in a house that already had heirs.
Alexei, ever the serpent, once locked me in the cellar for three days, slipping food through the gap only to snatch it away, whispering through the darkness that I’d never belong.
Viktor, the brute, had pinned me down in the yard, forcing dirt into my mouth until I choked, laughing as he called me “the stray dog their parents pitied.”
Nikolai, the youngest and most sadistic, had orchestrated “games” where they’d hunt me through the woods with air rifles, pellets drawing blood as they jeered about my worthlessness.
Those torments forged me. Pain turned to a geometry I could use—angles, patience, the slow learning of how cruelty bent a man toward violence. They left scars, yes, but more importantly they left fuel: a hatred I learned to stoke and aim.
Years later, I repaid them in the only language they understood.
I slipped into their parents’ villa at night and poisoned the wine—an elegant end that read like a heart attack on paper.
The dynasty I was meant to inherit crumbled into silence. I took what was left: the name, the ledger, the empty throne.
The foster brothers melted into shadow, nursing grudges I did not fear.
Now, they were back, not just for blood over their parents’ graves, but to reclaim the throne they believed was rightfully theirs.
They despised that a “stray” like me had seized what their family had bled for generations to build. But this position was mine—etched in blood, secured by ruthlessness—and I’d die before surrendering it.
Giovanni was capable, a bodyguard who’d taken bullets for me in the past, but against my scheming brothers, one man wasn’t enough. I needed an army.
I stepped closer to the recruits, my presence looming.
“Betrayal in Lake Como doesn’t end with your death,” I said, my tone quiet, lethal—the kind of calm that made men shift on their feet.
The silence in the underground chamber thickened. “It takes everything you love with it. Your wives. Your children. Your bloodline. We have contacts everywhere. If one of you so much as thinks of crossing me, your name will be erased from this world before sunset.”
Their jaws tightened, eyes forward, the weight of my words sinking deep.
“I don’t tolerate weakness,” I continued, pacing slowly before them. “Loyalty is survival. Betrayal is extinction.”
A beat of silence followed, and then—
“As you command, Boss,” they thundered in unison, voices deep enough to make the concrete walls vibrate.
Satisfied, I turned and gestured for Giovanni to follow.
We ascended the hidden staircase, emerging into the opulent main house, the transition from stark utility to lavish excess, a reminder of what I’d claimed.
As I approached the front door, Giovanni’s hurried, uneven footsteps echoed behind me—his limp a constant, grating sound.
“Boss...” he called, breathless.
I didn’t pause until my hand gripped the doorknob, twisting it open with deliberate force.
He caught up as I strode through the foyer, his labored breathing filling the air.
We headed straight for the master bedroom, but he persisted, dogging my heels like a shadow unwilling to fade.
Only at the bedroom door did I halt, turning to face him. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his scarred face twisted in exertion, pain etched into every line.
I glanced down at his bandaged legs—still wrapped in gauze, the wounds from Antonio’s ambush fresh and festering. Normally, I’d have sidelined him for weeks, letting him heal before resuming duties. But no. He didn’t deserve that mercy.
“Will you ever truly forgive me?” he asked, his voice raw, eyes pleading.
I met his gaze without a flicker of pity.
He’d failed to protect the one person who mattered most—my Penelope. She’d been taken right under his watch, forced to endure horrors he could only imagine.
Forgiveness? It wasn’t in my vocabulary for such betrayal. “Forgive you?”
He swallowed hard, his limp more pronounced as he tried to close the distance between us.
“I failed, I know,” he rasped. “But I fought Antonio with my life, boss. I swear on my mother’s grave, I did everything to put him down—but he came prepared.”
His voice trembled with a mixture of fury and shame.
“He had six men with him. Armed. I took down three before the fourth shot me in the leg. Still, I crawled. Kept firing until the barrel overheated. You think I didn’t fight?
I cracked one’s skull open with the butt of my gun.
Another—I slit his throat.” His breath hitched, chest heaving.
“But they used gas, boss. Knocked me out cold.”
I stared at him in silence, my expression unreadable. The smell of gunpowder and blood clung to the memory he was describing, and for a moment, I almost believed the torment in his voice. Almost.
Then my tone dropped, calm and merciless.
“And yet,” I said, “she was taken. Your fight means nothing if the result is failure.”
His jaw tightened, eyes glinting with regret and humiliation. “I know. But I’d do it again. Even if it killed me.”
I took a slow step toward him, my gaze cold as the steel I carried.
“It should have,” I said. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have to look at the man who let her be taken.”
He swallowed hard, sadness deepening the grooves in his face.
The silence between us stretched thin—dangerous, suffocating. He stood there, shaking, his breath ragged from pain and shame.
Then, as if to shift the blade away from his own neck, Giovanni bowed his head and nodded—acceptance carved into the slump of his shoulders.
“I’ve seen the reports.” He said quietly. “Her womb’s malformed. She won’t carry to term. If she can’t give you an heir, everything you built is on the line.”
The sentence landed like a thrown knife. My jaw clenched until my muscles sang.
“And you think I need you to remind me?” I snapped, irritation flaring.
“I’m not reminding,” he said carefully, watching me like a man gauging a trigger. “I’m asking—how do you plan to fix it? Because there’s only one way I can see—”
“Finish that sentence,” I warned, my voice sinking to a dangerous calm.
He hesitated, sweat gathering at his temple. “A mistress,” he breathed. “Someone who can carry your blood.”
A humorless smile twisted my mouth. “You’re advising me to betray my wife now?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Never that. I just—want to know the plan before the world starts asking questions.”
“You think I don’t have a plan?” I stepped toward him, my shadow swallowing his. “You think I’d let something as small as biology ruin what I built?”
He flinched as I brushed past him. “I’ll decide what happens next,” I said, reaching for the door.
Then, like a fool with a death wish, he whispered, “Seraphina...”
I froze, my grip tightening until the brass bit into my palm.
Slowly, I turned back, my eyes narrowing to slits.
“What did you just say?” My voice was soft—but it carried the weight of a gun being cocked.
“She’s not dead.”
The words slipped out of Giovanni’s mouth like a confession meant for a priest, not for me.
I froze mid-step. “What?”
“She faked it,” he said, his voice cracking, the sound barely human. “Seraphina... she’s back.”
Silence stretched, taut as piano wire. Then I laughed—low, humorless.
“You’re out of your mind.”
“I wish I was.” Giovanni’s throat bobbed. “She never died. The body we buried—it wasn’t her. She’s alive.”
A muscle jumped in my jaw.
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying to me right now?”
“Boss...” Giovanni’s voice cracked, the words dragged out like he was forcing them past his own dread. “Penelope knows about Seraphina.” He said carefully, words tumbling fast as if to outrun my temper.
“I just—couldn’t keep up the lie anymore. Watching her lose her mind over a woman she thought you were still seeing... it was eating her alive. So I told her that Seraphina never existed.”
My fists curled so tight my nails bit into my palms, the sharp sting grounding the fury surging through me.
My voice dropped to a lethal whisper. “Tell me I misheard you, Giovanni. Tell me you didn’t open your fucking mouth about Seraphina.”
“Penelope was unraveling, boss,” he rushed out. “She thought you were cheating—she was losing her mind. If she kept going like that, she would’ve exposed everything, burned your name, burned her. I had to say something.”
My hand shot out before he could finish, fisting his collar and slamming him against the concrete wall hard enough for the sound to echo.
“What did you tell her?”
“I—”
“What did you tell her, Giovanni?” I hissed, inches from his face, my voice cutting like broken glass.
His breath hitched. “That she wasn’t real.”
I stared at him, my heartbeat a roar in my ears. “You told her she wasn’t real?”
“I was protecting you!” he choked. “And her! She was unstable. She was already betraying you—”
“My Penelope,” I interrupted softly, the softness like a blade pressed to skin, “would never betray me.” My fingers tightened on his collar until the fabric creaked. “She doesn’t lie to me. She doesn’t cheat. She doesn’t need to. Because she’s mine.”
He swallowed, but his eyes didn’t flinch.
“She did,” Giovanni said quietly. “She... she planted a device on your phone. A spy bug. On her ex’s orders.I know you don’t want to hear it, but she’s not perfect.
She’s capable of worse. I acted because you wouldn’t.
And let’s be honest...” his lips twisted, “...you weren’t cheating. ”
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him—the man who’d failed me once and now dared to rewrite my past.
Then, slowly, deliberately, I released him.
He fell to his knees, coughing.
I stood, brushing imaginary dust from my sleeves. “You’re running out of lives, Giovanni.”
“Seraphina existed,” I said through clenched teeth, each word a shard. “You should have told her that—told her the truth. Not that she was some fiction I invented to torment her.”
Giovanni’s eyes pleaded. “Give the word and I’ll see it done—quiet, clean. Whatever you order, I’ll make it happen.” His voice was small beneath the weight of his mistake, loyalty trying to resurface through fear.
I rounded on him, my patience fracturing like glass. “What command would you have me give?” I barked. “Kill my ex-fiancée and risk a war that never ends? Plunge Lake Como into chaos over a ghost who won’t stay buried?”
He went quiet, the question strangling any answer.
The return of Seraphina was more than an embarrassment; it was an infection—timed disastrously with my brothers’ reappearance and Penelope’s vulnerability.
Mercy here would be weakness.
Violence would be spectacle.
Neither choice sat clean.
I folded my hands, forcing my breath even. Decisions like this weren’t made on impulse. They were carved out of calculation.