Chapter 6 #3
“When I walked away from marrying Violet and chose you instead,” he said, voice steady, “I shattered every plan he had laid, every promise he made to her sister. I reduced years of careful preparation, every painstaking effort to make that wedding perfect, to utter futility.”
Silence settled between us.
Heavy. Insistent.
I crossed my arms slowly, grounding myself, forcing my pulse to obey me.
“That’s not my fault,” I said, steady. “I didn’t plan to crash your wedding, and I certainly didn’t expect you to abandon her and choose me instead.”
A beat.
“I ran into that church because Ruslan’s men were twenty seconds from putting a bullet in me.”
His expression didn’t change.
“Renzo doesn’t believe in coincidence.”
Of course he doesn’t.
But I don’t care.
He’s not the one I’m married to.
Vincenzo reached inside his jacket, fingers precise.
He pulled out a folded photograph.
He didn’t offer it immediately.
He held it there for a moment.
Then unfolded it with surgical care, “Is this the man hunting you?”
I looked at the photograph, and the world tilted.
Ruslan Baranov.
Stepping off a private jet.
Charcoal coat open over a black shirt, expression cold.
Eyes like knives.
Behind him—six men in perfect formation, dark suits, moving as if trained to breathe as one.
Wolves in human skin.
The sight hit harder than I expected.
My lungs constricted.
Memories surged without warning.
Amy—my best friend—her face a mask of blood and broken bone, screaming, every sound a knife in my chest.
Ruslan’s voice reverberating through the shattered room, promising vengeance
Amy’s blood pooling beneath my fist, sticky and hot, a brutal testament to the helplessness to the violence that had taken everything in a heartbeat.
I forced myself to breathe.
Then I nodded, voice tight, the word heavy in the air.
“Yeah.”
Vincenzo folded the photograph with meticulous precision and slid it back into his inner pocket with a calmness that was almost gentle.
“As promised,” he said. His voice was even. “You remain under my protection.”
A beat.
“Ruslan Baranov—or anyone else hunting you—will not, cannot, touch you.”
I swallowed.
The words should have landed like a shield.
Like relief.
Instead, they pressed down somewhere heavier, settling like iron in my chest.
“When you return home this evening,” Vincenzo continued, his tone shifting subtly—“Violet will be at the villa.”
My stomach twisted.
“She’s dining with me tonight.”
Another pause.
His words hit harder than the steel of a blade.
I forced my voice to remain steady.
“Tell me if I’m wrong,” I said, voice steady.
“It’s been seven days since our wedding. Seven days, and I’ve barely seen you. We live in the same house, yet we haven’t shared a single meal. Haven’t even sat across from each other once.”
I flexed my fingers slightly at my sides.
“And yet,” I said, letting the words fall slow, “you’re inviting another woman into our home tonight?”
His eyes didn’t flicker.
“She’s not just another woman,” he said, voice even. “She’s Violet.”
“And,” he continued, calm, almost cruel in the restraint, “It’s my house, not yours. I do what I want. Don’t mistake my silence these past seven days for kindness. I’ve ignored you, yes—but that does not make you equal to me. It does not make you in charge of anything but yourself.”
The words landed like stones, and stayed lodged in my chest.
Pain bloomed, fast and vicious, cutting deeper than I was prepared for, deeper than I’d allowed myself to believe he could reach.
My chest tightened.
For a moment—a single, excruciating heartbeat—I felt something inside me give way, like pressure collapsing under its own weight.
“I believe I made myself clear,” he said, his voice lowering.
“I did not marry you because of what happened in that cave. Whatever debt you think I owed you died with our childhood.”
Each word followed with careful intent, measured like something placed exactly where it was meant to wound.
“I married you because it places you where I can see you... where I can reach you... where you exist within the boundaries I define.”
My breath caught, but he didn’t pause long enough to let me recover.
“To bind you to my world,” he continued, tone unflinching, “so that every choice concerning you belongs to me. Whether I choose to dismantle you piece by piece, strip you of every illusion you still cling to, or reshape you into something that serves a purpose I decide—”
The words settled, heavier with each passing second.
“—that is mine to determine.”
A quiet pause followed.
“And while you remain exactly where I have placed you,” he went on, his gaze fixed on mine with unrelenting clarity, “you will also learn the difference between proximity and possession.”
A step closer.
“You will watch me give Violet what you will never receive from me. Every kindness. Every softness. Every moment of affection that resembles something human.”
His voice dipped slightly, but infinitely colder.
“And you will understand, in time, that no man will ever offer you that willingly. Not because you are incapable of wanting it...”
A faint pause, just enough to let the next words settle deeper.
“...but because I will make certain that no one ever gets the chance.”
My pulse hammered, but I forced myself to stay still.
“I want you to feel it,” he said, his voice soft now, deceptively so, “the absence of love.”
The silence stretched, taut and suffocating.
“The slow burn of want.”
“And one day,” he went on, “when your life begins to slip through your fingers, when you find yourself standing at the edge of it with nothing left to reach for...”
A pause settled.
“...you will understand that all you have ever truly known is absence. Not love. Not warmth. Only the long, quiet endurance of pain.”
Something in my chest coiled painfully.
I exhaled shallowly, fracturing under the weight of the words.
“Vin—“
“Whatever softness you remember in me...” His voice fell silent for a heartbeat.
“...died in that cave.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
“What’s left,” he said at last, lifting a single hand between us in a small, controlled gesture.
“...is this.”
Distance. Coldness. Control.
“You are my wife,” he said next, “In name. In law. In punishment.”
Every syllable landed like a verdict.
Another knife turned in my chest—sharper this time.
“Violet loved me fiercely. Always has. She dreamed of our wedding the way other women dream of sunsets—quiet. Certain. Inevitable.”
Each word painted a picture I didn’t want to see.
“I would have given it to her a week ago.”
A pause.
“I had the ring. The venue. The truce papers drafted.”
His gaze didn’t shift.
“Until you walked into that church.”
I folded my arms across my chest, nails digging into my biceps hard enough to ground me.
Anything to keep my hands from shaking.
Anything to keep the fracture inside from showing on my face.
“So this is your idea of punishment?” I asked, my voice steadier than the tightness in my chest.
“Keeping me at a distance while you bring Violet into your house whenever it suits you?”
Vincenzo tilted his head slightly, studying me.
Not like a husband. Not even like an enemy.
Like a subject.
“I don’t consider this punishment,” he said.
A pause.
“I consider this kindness.”
The word landed wrong. Wrong enough to sting.
Wrong enough to feel like mockery wrapped in silk.
“If you truly want to understand what my idea of punishment is,” he continued, his tone steady, almost indifferent, “then test me. Cross one of the three lines I set for you... and I’ll make it clear.”
His voice dropped colder.
For the first time, tears gathered at the corners of my eyes, blurring the edges of everything I thought I understood.
I held them there, refusing to let them fall, but the burn only sharpened the realization settling deep in my chest—
It had never occurred to me that a man could carry this much hatred.
Letting my tears fall would mean giving him something.
And I wouldn’t give him that.
“So,” I said, steadying my voice despite the weight pressing against my chest, “you married me just to make sure no man would ever want me.”
He didn’t hesitate.
“That’s right.”
The bluntness of it almost stole my breath.
“And tonight...” I continued, forcing my voice to hold steady despite the crack forming in it, “when I come home—I’m supposed to watch you give her everything I’ll never have.”
He stepped closer.
Closing the space between us until there was nothing left to pretend with.
The air shifted with him, carrying the faint, unmistakable trace of his cologne—dark wood layered with something warm and spiced.
The same scent that had clung to the rooftop sheets.
“More than that,” he said, his tone unchanged, as if he were assigning something routine. “You’ll serve us dinner.”
“You’ll prepare it yourself,” he added, watching me closely, as though measuring the exact moment the meaning would sink in.
“Violet asked for it,” he continued, almost idly. “She was... very specific.”
My breath faltered.
“She wants to see you in that position,” he went on, unhurried.
“Wants to watch you set the table, place the plates in front of us—”
Another pause, softer now.
“—and stand there while we eat, knowing exactly why you’re the one serving.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine, not even for a second.
“She wants to taste something made by your hands,” he finished quietly.
Something inside my chest tightened—then snapped clean through whatever restraint I had left.
“Hell no.”
The words burst out before I could stop them.
“Dinner is at 1800,” he said, as though I hadn’t spoken at all.
“Your classes end at 1500. I expect you home by 1600.”
Each word precise.
“You’ll work with the chef to prepare the meal.”
A pause.
“You’ll serve it.”
Another pause.
“That is not a request.”
My jaw tightened.
“I don’t cook,” I shot back, my voice rising despite my attempt to keep it controlled. “We have five chefs on staff. Full-time. They—”
“Violet wants you to do it.”