Chapter 13 #2
I drew my hand back, my skin tingling from the contact—as if her pain had seeped through the marble, through me.
“Dmitri...” I said softly, his name barely leaving my lips. “You can’t keep carrying this.”
He turned his head, the corner of his mouth curling, but there was no smile there. “What else is there to carry, Penelope? Guilt? Power? Both come with weight.”
I met his eyes, and for the briefest second, the mask cracked. Beneath it, I saw a boy—lost, grieving, still searching for a mother he could never save.
And maybe that was what terrified me most. Because for the first time since I met him, I didn’t see the monster.
I saw the wound that made him one.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words inadequate but all I had.
“I don’t need your pity,” Dmitri snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through the candlelit silence.
But almost as soon as the words left him, his shoulders sagged, and when he spoke again, it was quieter—broken around the edges.
“Go home, Penelope,” he murmured, not looking at me. “Before I forget who I’m trying not to be.”
His voice—God, it wasn’t just rough. It was ruined, like a man scraping his soul against the edges of his past.
Something in me cracked. I took a step closer, my throat tight, words trembling before they even formed.
“Dmitri—”
He turned then, sudden and sharp, and whatever softness had flickered in his eyes was gone. In its place was devastation held together by rage.
“Your fingerprints,” he said quietly, every syllable, precise, lethal. “They were on her body.”
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The words didn’t make sense—they hung in the air like smoke that refused to clear.
“What?” My voice fractured, disbelieving. “What are you saying?”
He didn’t move, didn’t blink. “You were there.”
The echo of those three words tore through me.
I staggered back, shaking my head. “No... no, that’s not possible—”
“You suffer from dissociative amnesia,” he said, cutting me off, his tone stripped of emotion, as if detachment were the only way to survive what he was saying. “Parts of your past are gone. You don’t even know they’re missing.”
The world tilted. I gripped the nearest pew for balance, my pulse hammering in my throat. “And you’re sure?” I asked, my voice trembling. “You’re so certain that I—”
“I don’t deal in certainty,” he said coldly, his eyes flicking toward the statue of his mother. “I deal in evidence.”
I stared at him, disbelief curdling into something uglier—hurt, betrayal, fear. “So that’s it?” I choked out. “That’s why you’ve punished me? Controlled me? You think I had something to do with her death?”
His gaze snapped back to me, hard and unyielding. “No.”
The word was quiet—but final.
I laughed bitterly, the sound raw in the hollow cathedral. “No? You’ve destroyed me, Dmitri. You’ve treated me like a weapon that turned on you, like something you couldn’t stand to touch. Don’t stand there and tell me you never hated me.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Then, softly—so softly I almost missed it—
“I never hated you.”
The words hit harder than any blow. They rang with truth, but it wasn’t comforting. It was terrifying.
“Then why?” I whispered. “Why keep me close just to break me?”
He exhaled slowly, his expression unreadable. “Because even if you were there that night, you didn’t choose it. You were used. Like her.” His gaze lifted to the statue, to the scarred stone face of the woman who had birthed him. “You and she—both victims of someone else’s cruelty.”
My voice cracked. “Then tell me what I did. Tell me why you look at me like I’m a ghost you can’t bury.”
His eyes hardened again, closing the door on the brief glimpse of vulnerability. “Go home, Penelope,” he said, turning away. “I have work to do.”
“No,” I said, my voice breaking but defiant. “You don’t get to say something like that and walk away. I know you don’t want me here, but I’m not leaving you like this.”
He went still—too still.
“I won’t repeat myself,” he said at last, voice dangerous, the sound of a man holding back everything he wants to unleash. “Leave.”
The candles flickered. Wax bled down the altar steps like tears.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure if the man before me was asking me to go... or silently begging me to save him.
His words stung, but I didn’t move. I was done running from his silence.
“If my presence disgusts you that much,” I said, forcing the words past the ache in my throat, “and you’ll never stop hating me—or even tell me why—then I can’t do this anymore.”
I reached into my bag, my hands trembling despite my resolve. The papers brushed my fingers—cold, thin, and heavy with finality.
When I pulled them out, the cathedral’s candlelight caught the embossed seal: Dissolution of Marriage Agreement.
“I’ll be called to testify soon,” I said, my tone deliberate.
“They’ll ask whether you coerced me into this marriage.
” My fingers tightened around the papers.
“You know my answer. But you also know this ends the same way—so sign them now, and I’ll disappear from Lake Como before the court even speaks your name. ”
For a moment, he didn’t move. Then his jaw flexed—once.
And before I could react, he turned, his hand shooting out to seize my wrist.
The papers slipped from my fingers, scattering like wounded doves across the marble floor.
In one swift motion, he pulled me against him, my body colliding with the solid wall of his chest.
The air between us disappeared—his heat, his fury, his scent of smoke and iron enveloping me.
“Divorce?” he growled, the word dragged from his throat like it cost him blood. His hand slid to my waist, holding me there, unyielding. “You think I’d let you go that easily?”
“Dmitri—”
He leaned closer, his mouth at my ear, every word searing the air between us.
“No,” he whispered, and the sound was worse than a shout. “You’re mine, Milaya. I’d burn Lake Como, the courts, the world itself—until there’s nothing left but you and me. No one takes you from me. Not even God.”
His voice shook—not with anger, but something far more dangerous: fear.
I swallowed hard, my pulse thrumming in the hollow of my throat. “You can’t keep me here if all you do is hate me,” I whispered, though the words came out fractured.
He laughed softly—bitter, broken. “You think this is hate?”
His hand slid to the back of my neck, fingers trembling as if fighting between destruction and mercy.
His forehead dipped until it brushed mine, his voice a rasp. “Hate doesn’t look like this. Hate doesn’t hurt like this.”
The silence of the cathedral pressed in around us, vast and suffocating.
The statue of his mother loomed above—scarred, solemn, eternal—bearing witness as his thumb traced the line of my jaw like a man tracing the edge of a weapon he didn’t know how to use.
“Then what is it?” I breathed, my voice breaking.
His answer was a whisper that burned. “Punishment,” he said. “For both of us.”