Chapter 19
PENELOPE (The Present)
Dmitri loomed over me in the kitchen, his polished shoe pinning the gun to the tiled floor.
The soft crunch of metal against ceramic echoed in the tense silence. He was too close, the heat of his body seeping through the cold air that separated us.
His towering frame radiated a dangerous calm, that deceptive kind of stillness that hides the detonation beneath.
His blue eyes burned—icy and furious all at once—like someone who’d stared too long into hell and decided to bring a piece of it back with him.
Blood had seeped through the bandage on his arm, dark and glistening, a reminder of the bullet I’d fired in the cathedral.
And yet... he didn’t even flinch.
My fingers shook as I set the glass of water on the counter, its rim clinking softly.
The sound felt deafening in the stillness.
I searched his face—desperately—for something familiar. For the boy who once slipped me notes, who carved my name into an oak tree back in Brooklyn. But that boy was gone. Whatever he’d become now... it was my fault.
“By the time I reached the address the clerk gave me,” he said finally, his voice low, almost reverent in its rage, “all I found was my mother’s body.”
The words hit me like a strike to the ribs.
His tone was too steady.
His throat worked as he swallowed, his jaw tightening so hard I thought it might crack.
“They let me see her once,” he went on, eyes locking onto mine, daring me to look away. “Just once. She was alive when I got there, barely breathing. And then they took her from me. Do you know what they did to her, Penelope?”
My mouth went dry. “Dmitri...”
“They raped her.” The word came out raw, the syllables trembling with contained violence. “They tortured her. They left her broken. And then they killed her. Like she was nothing.”
The world tilted.
The refrigerator’s low hum filled the silence, and suddenly the room felt smaller, closing in around us.
I shook my head, my voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t know. I swear to God, Dmitri—I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me!” His shout cracked through the air, shattering the fragile composure I’d clung to.
The glass toppled from the counter, exploding across the tiles, water and shards skittering between us like tiny, glittering knives.
He stepped closer, the scent of blood and rain and rage enveloping me.
“You think I didn’t see the reports? The addresses, the transfers, the coded messages your father sent through your hotel staff?” His eyes burned into mine, and I could see the fracture there—the hurt beneath the fury. “You led them to her.”
“No!” I cried, my voice breaking. “I didn’t lead anyone—I was fifteen, Dmitri. I didn’t know—“
He laughed then—a sound so hollow, so unlike him, it made my stomach twist. “You didn’t know,” he repeated, quieter this time, almost to himself. “You didn’t know while I buried her with my bare hands. You didn’t know while they told me she screamed my name before she died.”
Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t move, couldn’t move.
The silence that followed was unbearable. His hand hovered at his side, fingers twitching like he was fighting the urge to reach for the gun—or for me. I didn’t know which would be worse.
He finally stepped back, just enough for air to exist between us again, though it still tasted like grief. “You were my light once, Penelope,” he murmured. “The one thing that made the world bearable. But now, every time I see you, all I can think of is the night they took her.”
I pressed a trembling hand to my mouth, trying to keep from sobbing.
His words weren’t shouted anymore—they were quiet, broken, the kind that cut deeper than any knife.
“Dmitri...”
“You ruined me, Penelope.”
His voice was a blade—cold, clean, and merciless as it cut through the air. “Your family took everything from me. Everything.”
He paused, the silence stretching between us like a noose.
“I later found out,” he said quietly, his voice trembling under the weight of rage, “it wasn’t my foster parents who killed my mother—it was the Romanos. Your family.” His eyes burned into mine. “And you, Penelope... you were there.”
My stomach dropped. “I don’t remember any of this!” I burst out, my voice breaking with frustration. “I swear to God, Dmitri, I don’t!”
His eyes narrowed, freezing me in place. “Don’t lie to me. I don’t care what you ‘remember’ or don’t. Your fingerprints were on her body. That’s proof. Proof you weren’t just a scared kid—proof you were part of the men who beat her, tortured her, left her to die.”
He stepped closer, the air around him charged, suffocating. “Do you understand what that means, Penelope? My mother, the woman I had just found, hours after finally seeing her—gone. Murdered. Because of you. Because of your family. And the blood on your hands... I will never forget it.”
“My foster family—the Volkovs—they killed the father I never even met,” he said, his voice low, reverent, as if speaking the names of the dead aloud might summon them. “And your family... the Romanos... they slaughtered the mother I’d just found. Hours after I finally held her, Penelope.”
He ran a hand over his face, eyes burning with a storm of grief.
“They tried to bribe two of Lake Como’s ruling families to look the other way.
Both refused. I have proof—documents, recordings, financial trails.
I’ve held onto every shred for years.” His lips curled, half-smile, half-snarl, haunted.
“The Romanos owe me their lives, Penelope. Every single one. Every breath they take is borrowed.”
My chest constricted, breath faltering as the past surged up like a tide—his voice echoing in the marble hall on the day I was meant to marry Antonio, my father’s jaw turning to stone when Dmitri burst in, speaking of “debts” and “reparations.” I’d thought it was bluster then, the usual power play between mafia families. But now—
Now it all fit. Every word, every glare, every secret meeting.
The Romanos—my family—had murdered his.
“Dmitri...” My voice wavered, cracking under the weight of everything.
I clutched the counter so hard my knuckles went white.
“I don’t... I don’t remember ever being with anyone else.
I swear to God, I wasn’t. I loved you—only you.
Someone... someone must have set me up, made it look like something it wasn’t.
They wanted to keep us apart... wanted you to hate me. ”
He didn’t move. Just stared at me with that hollow expression—the look of a man who’d buried too many truths to care about new ones.
“I never got your letter,” I said softly, desperate now. “The one you said you left in my room. I never saw it, Dmitri. I would have written back. I would have found you.”
He exhaled sharply, jaw tight, eyes dark with a storm of anger and hurt.
“I know. Your father found it first. That letter—you never saw it because he took it. The day I brought you to meet him, when he came all the way from New York to Lake Como, he smuggled a letter into your hand before he left. You hid it under your pillow, planning to read it later. I saw it before you woke... and I couldn’t let you read it. ”
Something flickered in his eyes—pain, disbelief, maybe even longing—but it was gone before I could be sure.
His voice dropped, quiet but heavy, each word cutting. “It was too late anyway. The pain it would have caused... the guilt, the memories... that was one of the reasons I stayed away for four months. Not because I didn’t want you, but because I couldn’t survive watching you...”
“You and your family destroyed me,” he hissed, his blue eyes icy, sharp as knives. “And you—” He stepped forward, the counter trapping me. “—have no idea what followed. My mother... gone. And me left to rot in the dark.”
I whimpered, trying to speak. “Dmitri...
“Silence.” His voice snapped, a whip across the room. “I lived through hell while you slept, innocent. I carried the rot, the grief, the nights that never ended.”
He leaned closer, so near I could see the faint scar along his jawline, the one I’d once kissed in secret under moonlight. “You can’t imagine the darkness I sank into. You don’t want to imagine it.”
My breath hitched, my body trembling as his words cut deeper than any blade could.
“Set up or not,” he said, his voice low, every syllable a quiet death sentence, “the image of you in his arms—my mother’s blood on your hands —your lies—it’s burned into me. Into my soul. I can’t unsee it, Penelope. I can’t forgive it. And I sure as hell can’t forget it.”
He took another step, and it felt like the air itself recoiled.
His presence filled the kitchen—suffocating, electric with rage barely restrained.
“And now,” he growled, each word dragging through the air like iron, “you raise a gun at me? You fire at me? You mistake my control for cowardice, my patience for forgiveness? You have no idea what you’ve awoken.”
Before I could breathe, his hand shot forward, seizing my jaw.
His grip was iron, fingers biting into my skin until pain flared sharp and hot. My head tilted back under the force, my pulse thundering against his palm.
“Dmitri—” I choked out, but the sound barely escaped.
He lifted me with ease, shoving me back onto the kitchen island.
The cold marble dug into my thighs as my legs dangled, toes scraping uselessly against the air. He stood between them—imposing, furious, unrelenting—his breath ragged with something dark and dangerous.
“Do you still love me, Penelope?” he demanded.
His voice was a snarl, low and trembling with rage, but his eyes—those ice-blue eyes—held a flicker of something else. Something broken. “Tell me.”
Tears blurred my vision, streaking hot down my cheeks.
I hated him. God, I hated him. But beneath the hate, the love still lived—raw, irrational, the kind that refused to die even after everything he’d done.
The memory of him under the oak tree, smiling at me like I was the whole world, cut through the fear like glass. The fire escape, the stolen kiss, his trembling hands the first time he said my name.
Why couldn’t I let go?
“Speak,” he barked, his grip tightening until pain shot through my jaw and my vision sparked white.
I gasped, my voice barely a whisper. “I do.”
His brows furrowed, confusion flickering before fury returned. “You do what?” he hissed, leaning in, his breath warm and cruel against my lips.
“I... I love you,” I choked out, the words tearing themselves free through my tears.
For a heartbeat, silence fell. Then—
He laughed. A hollow, joyless sound that cut deeper than any insult. Slowly, a cruel smile curved his mouth. “Penelope...” he said, almost softly. “You poor, deluded girl.”
He leaned close, his forehead nearly touching mine. “I will never... love you.”
The words struck like gunfire.
My chest caved, breath stuttering as something inside me cracked open.
His tone dropped lower, venomous. “No one will ever love you the way you want. Do you know why?” His thumb brushed my trembling lip, deceptively tender. “Because I won’t allow it. You ruined me, Penelope... and now, I’ll ruin you.”
My heart twisted, torn between terror and the ghost of what we’d been.
“Completely,” he whispered, his gaze unwavering. “Our wreckage will be shared — buried side by side — because I’ll never let you go.”
He leaned in until his lips grazed my ear, his final words a vow forged in madness and grief.
“I’ll be your end, Penelope,” he murmured, his voice almost tender now. “And you’ll be mine.”
His hand tightened on my jaw before his mouth crashed into mine.
It wasn’t a kiss—it was punishment. Possession.
His teeth caught my lower lip, grazing, then biting down until pain flared sharp and hot.
I gasped, but no sound came.
My mind went blank, a haze of shock and heartbreak freezing me in place as the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth.
When he pulled back, the world tilted. Blood traced a slow path down my chin, and his voice came low, guttural—half growl, half confession.
“I hate you, Penelope.”
Then he kissed me again.
Harder this time.
Feral. Desperate. The taste of blood and salt and rage mingled between us.
His grip trembled; his breath was uneven, shuddering like a man standing on the edge of a cliff. For a moment, I felt it—the crack in his armor, the pain bleeding through the hate.
“I ha...” His voice broke, a single word strangled before it could live.
And then he shoved me away.