Ruthless Addiction: Chapter 2

The ancient chapel on the shore of Lake Como was a cathedral carved from shadows and gold.

Candlelight trembled along the vaulted ceiling, illuminating frescoes of saints who seemed to avert their eyes—as though refusing to witness the sins about to be sanctified beneath them.

The marble aisles gleamed like polished bone.

The air itself felt heavy, thick with incense, orange blossom, and the metallic whisper of gun oil.

Every pew was a gallery of power and ruin.

Russian vor lounging like kings, Sicilian capos with their jawlines carved in stone, Albanian traffickers with cold, assessing eyes, Greek smugglers with tattoos peeking from beneath Brioni cuffs.

Their wives glittered beside them—draped in couture, diamonds, and grudges older than their marriages.

This was no wedding.

This was a summit of empires. A coronation disguised as vows.

Vanya and I touched down in Lake Como earlier today, the winter air sharp enough to sting as we stepped off the jet. After freshening up in the secluded villa Ruslan had arranged, we didn’t linger.

Within an hour, we were on the road, winding through the familiar mountains I once escaped from, heading straight toward the most whispered-about event in Italy:

The wedding of Dmitri Volkov and Seraphina Orlov.

The wedding everyone in this world feared to miss.

The wedding of the man I married.

The wedding of the woman he once compared me to as though she were gold and I were rust.

And now here I was, walking back into the lion’s mouth with my son at my side—toward the man who didn’t know I was still breathing.

Vanya and I sat in the final pew, half-swallowed by the shadow of a towering marble pillar. Ruslan’s pull had bought us two anonymous seats at the back and a secluded villa for the night—far from prying eyes, far from anyone who might recognize the woman who died five years ago.

No one looked our way.

Why would they?

Penelope Volkov had been lowered into the ground in a mahogany coffin, four mafia families in attendance. They’d watched the dirt cover the lid. They’d heard Dmitri Volkov’s roar split the sky as he screamed her name until his voice shredded to ash.

The dead did not return to weddings.

My palms were damp. My heart beat so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

My eyes never left the empty altar.

That cruel, blinding stage of gold and candlelight. Waiting. Waiting for a groom who had once been my nightmare, my husband, my captor—and a bride whose name had been the weapon he used to carve me open every day of our marriage.

They told us the couple was still in the sacristy, preparing.

The knot in my stomach had only tightened since last night.

And tightened again.

And now it sat like iron lodged beneath my ribs.

He forgot me so quickly.

The thought was poisonous. It burned going in, burned sitting there, burned every time it circled back around.

I didn’t know if he had—or if he ever would—forgive a “betrayal” I had no memory of committing.

A sin I never recalled.

A wound I didn’t cause.

Yet it was the backbone of his hatred. The reason he looked at me with loathing in the early mornings, the reason his voice cut me to ribbons at night. The poison running through every day of our marriage.

He clung to that phantom betrayal with a zeal that bordered on devotion, as if hating me kept him alive. As if resenting me was easier than facing the truth of what had really broken him.

He could not forget—could not forgive—the rape and torture my father’s men inflicted on his mother, violence meant to keep her from fleeing with him to Russia. And in his grief-soaked rage, he convinced himself I was there on that hill, watching, approving, supervising their brutality.

He held that old tragedy between us like a blade, pressed to my throat every day of our marriage.

He swore he hated me.

Spat it.

Swore it again.

Yet every time he kissed me, it felt like a man drowning, gasping, clawing for breath—like I was the only thing in the world keeping him from slipping under.

Every time he touched me, it was desperation, violence, need—all tangled so tightly he couldn’t tell them apart.

He once severed a man’s hand for daring to slap my backside.

Anyone else would have mistaken it for love—some brutal form of protection.

But it was only possession, wearing devotion like a borrowed coat.

But I had finally accepted the truth in the quiet, bleeding parts of myself:

Dmitri Volkov was too shattered to love.

And far, far too broken to ever be loved in return.

Not by me.

Not by anyone.

Not even by the ghost of the woman he buried.

Vanya’s small hand slipped into mine, warm and steady, the single fragment of peace in the whole damned chapel.

“Mom,” he whispered, leaning close, his voice barely audible beneath the rising hymn. “Your hands are shaking.”

I hadn’t even realized. His fingers curled around mine as if trying to anchor me so I wouldn’t float away. I forced a smile—thin, brittle, like glass about to crack.

“Weddings make me emotional, baby.”

He didn’t look convinced. His brows pinched, the same way Dmitri’s used to when he was trying to understand something that didn’t make sense.

“Is it because the music is sad?” Vanya asked, glancing toward the organ. “Or because you know the people?”

A breath hitched in my chest.

Oh, sweetheart… if only you knew.

I brushed my thumb over his knuckles, needing the grounding of his warmth.

“A little bit of both,” I murmured.

He nodded seriously, accepting that answer the way only a child could, though his eyes lingered on me, curious and too perceptive.

The priest raised his arms, and the organ swelled, notes ricocheting against the frescoed walls like a warning.

“Presenting the groom!”

The double doors at the far end creaked open, and Dmitri Volkov stepped into the light.

Time had carved him differently than I remembered.

The sharp, ruthless beauty of his youth remained, etched with the scars of a mind haunted by loss and obsession.

Five years had aged him, hardened him, deepened the shadows in his face.

His cheekbones were sharper now, cut like obsidian, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscle twitched with restrained rage.

The midnight-blue suit was tailored to perfection, hugging every angle of his body, while the white rose in his lapel gleamed like a spotlight in the darkness.

His hair was shorter, flecked with silver, and the hollows beneath his eyes told the story of countless sleepless nights spent wrestling with ghosts—some of them mine.

He looked like a man who had clawed his way out of hell only to find hell had followed him home.

Vanya’s tiny hand squeezed mine. “Mom… who is that, uncle?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing a fragile smile that cut through me like broken glass.

His fingers covered mine, grounding me even as my heart threatened to shatter.

When our eyes met, the resemblance was unbearable. Same storm-grey irises, same thick black lashes, same stubborn frown between the brows. My son. My living son. The miniature echo of a man I had once called mine.

The realization hit me like a hammer: this might be the first and last time Vanya sees his father.

I had brought him here for that single, selfish reason—to plant a seed of memory in him, so one day he could never accuse me of keeping his father away. After today, we would return to Greece, and until Vanya turned eighteen, I would raise him alone, far from this world of blood, crowns, and debts paid in pain.

Vanya’s dark curls fell over his forehead just as Dmitri’s had before grief had silvered the temples. Every tilt of his head, every narrowing of his eyes, every delicate motion reminded me that he carried Dmitri’s soul in miniature. And now he would watch that soul pledge himself to another woman.

My throat tightened. “That’s the groom, sweetheart. That’s… the man whose wedding we came to see.”

Vanya didn’t blink.

His gaze was fixed, tethered to the altar by some invisible string.

I hated this, every fiber of me recoiling at the thought. The first time my son saw his father was not in a hug, or a quiet revelation, but here, across a cathedral aisle, with vows and a white dress in between.

I wanted to scoop him up, shield him from the betrayal of witnessing the man I loved promise eternity to someone else, but I could do nothing.

My heart ached at the knowledge that this memory—the first image of his father—would linger, burned into his young mind.

The priest lifted the microphone again.

“The bride may now enter the nave, accompanied by her paternal guardian.”

The words hung in the air like a blade suspended over my chest.

The organ shifted seamlessly into the bridal march. Every head in the chapel pivoted, eyes bright, cameras glinting in the candlelight.

My pulse throbbed violently in my ears, each beat hammering against the hollow cage of my ribs.

The doors at the far end creaked open.

Seraphina Orlov appeared, gliding forward like a shard of ice cutting through the warmth of the room.

She was flawless, untouchable—a living echo of every cruel comparison Dmitri had ever thrown at me.

The gown was liquid silk, off-the-shoulder, hugging every line of her slender form, the cathedral-length train pooling behind her like untouched snow.

Her platinum hair gleamed in the morning light, swept into a chignon that spoke of impeccable control.

Diamonds flashed at her throat, at her ears—tiny constellations of privilege and power.

Beside her, the patriarch of the Orlov family, walked with that smug, assured triumph of a man who had bought not just a daughter’s hand, but the illusion of victory.

The world bowed to him, and today, it seemed, the world bowed to Dmitri as well.

My chest constricted so tightly I felt the air waver in my lungs.

A heart attack, or the sensation of one? I couldn’t tell.

Dmitri and I were still married. Legally. No divorce, no annulment, just the farce of a death certificate I had endured.

In the eyes of the Church, in the eyes of every dangerous person filling this pewed cathedral, I was nothing. Ash and memory. And yet here I was, alive, holding my son, and watching my husband—my tormentor—prepare to pledge himself to another woman.

Vanya’s gaze swung between Seraphina and Dmitri, finally resting on me.

Confusion flickered across his small, storm-grey face, mirroring his father’s stubborn frown.

My stomach knotted tighter. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t shield him from the sight of this orchestrated betrayal.

The bride reached the altar, and the priest’s voice boomed, rich and reverberating:

“Beloved in Christ, we are gathered here in the sight of God and this congregation to join in holy matrimony Dmitri Volkov, don of the Volkov family, and Seraphina Orlov, first daughter of the Orlov family.

“Dmitri Volkov, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you live together in marriage, love her, comfort her, honor and remain faithful to her, in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in hardship, in joy and in sorrow, for as long as you both shall live?”

The chapel sank into a silence so complete I could hear the subtle scrape of Vanya’s sneakers on the marble floor, the whisper of his breath as he pressed closer into me, his small hand clutching mine with all the unspoken questions a child shouldn’t yet know.

Dmitri’s gaze did not soften.

Not for the bride. Not for the priest. Not even for me, sitting at the far back, invisible to the world but bleeding in every heartbeat.

His face was marble, carved and cold.

His jaw flexed once. Twice.

Then he opened his mouth, and the words that came out were deliberate—

“I… will.”

It left Dmitri’s lips and exploded inside my chest like a fragmentation grenade.

The cathedral blurred, the organ swelled into a distant, meaningless drone, and the murmurs of the congregation faded to nothing.

All I could hear was the wet, heavy thud of my own heart hammering against my ribs, threatening to break free.

My fingers curled into fists so tightly that blood welled hot and thick between them, dripping in slow, glistening beads onto the cold marble floor. I tried to hold it in, tried to steady myself, but the shock, the rage, the heartbreak—it was all too much.

“Mom?” Vanya’s small, trembling voice cut through the chaos, a lifeline in the storm. “Why doesn’t he look happy?”

I swallowed, my throat raw, forcing a calm I didn’t feel. “Sometimes… my love, men do what they must, not what they feel.” A lie. A half-truth.

Vanya’s grip tightened, and he whispered against my shoulder, “Mom…You are bleeding.”

I looked down.

The blood had splattered across his navy shoes, tiny dots of scarlet standing out like cruel punctuation. I tried to smile—a grotesque, jagged attempt that felt more like a scream pressed into my lips.

“I’m okay, sweetheart,” I lied, voice breaking despite my effort.

“No, you’re not.”

He forced my fists open with surprising strength for his age, revealing the half-moon gouges etched into my skin.

Then, storm-grey eyes lifted to the altar. “That man… that’s my dad, isn’t it?”

The words cut through me like glass, flaying every layer of protection I’d built around my heart.

Tears came before I could stop them, scalding and relentless.

I yanked Vanya into my arms, pressing him close so he wouldn’t see me break apart.

My sobs were silent, violent tremors that shook my body, soaking his dark curls. I pressed a sleeve to my face, inhaling raggedly, trying to steady myself.

He didn’t flinch. His tiny hands gripped mine, steadying me in a way that made my chest ache, and his gaze bore into mine with terrifying, perfect understanding.

“He’s a bad man, right? He is the one who made you cry?” Vanya’s voice trembled but carried a clarity, a raw, five-year-old fury that mirrored my own. “He broke your heart… and now he’s marrying another lady?”

I almost laughed through the pain, a bitter, jagged sound that had no humor in it. My son looked ready to leap up the aisle and punch a mafia boss in the knee.

I cupped his face gently, thumb brushing over the sharp little cheekbone—the same cheekbone that mirrored Dmitri’s. “Yes, baby. That’s your father. And no, he… he isn’t a bad man. He’s just… not ours. Not anymore. But that’s okay. We’ll go home to Greece tomorrow. Just you and me. Like always.”

I smoothed a hand through his dark hair, swallowing shards.

Vanya’s lower lip quivered, his small fists balled tight, knuckles whitening. His little body trembled with a storm of outrage and sorrow, pure Volkov fury confined to a five-year-old frame.

I held him tighter, feeling the heat of his anger, the intensity of his loyalty, and the fierce, unspoken bond between us.

In that moment, nothing else existed—the groom at the altar, the bride’s flowing train, the congregation—all meaningless against the gravity of our shared grief, our love, and our survival.

From the altar came Seraphina’s delicate, triumphant “Yes,” floating through the microphone like birdsong, brittle and rehearsed.

The priest’s smile widened, as if savoring the performance. “The rings, please.”

A black velvet box appeared like a jewel in a theater of power.

Inside lay a ring so extravagant it could bankrupt nations: a platinum band cradling a flawless 12-carat Asscher-cut diamond, flanked by tapering baguettes, cold, gleaming, perfect.

My chest tightened.

I remembered my own wedding: Dmitri sliding a plain white-gold band onto my finger with all the tenderness of locking a collar. I had wept then—not for the ring, not even for love—but for him.

Dmitri lifted the new ring, his wrist steady, but his hand trembled imperceptibly.

Seraphina extended her manicured hand, gleaming with anticipation, a fragile emblem of victory.

His right fist clenched at his side. Unclenched. Clenched again.

The first fissure in his stoic façade.

He raised the ring toward her finger.

And then—Seraphina swayed.

At first, it was almost graceful, a delicate flicker of the knees. Then her body folded like origami, the diamond tiara slipping sideways, catching strands of her platinum hair.

A strangled, wet gasp tore from her throat as she pitched forward, twelve feet of silk train tangling around her ankles like a shroud of snow.

Time slowed.

Dmitri did not move. Not a muscle. Not a step. His eyes, storm-grey and sharp, narrowed—not concern, but calculation, a predator observing the unexpected.

Bridesmaids shrieked, racing forward like startled birds. They caught her inches from the marble, flailing, trapped in the folds of her couture nightmare.

The Orlov patriarch exploded from his seat, his face purple with rage and terror. “Doctor! Get the damn doctor NOW!”

A man in charcoal—the Orlov family physician—vaulted two pews with the agility of a trained operative and landed beside her. His fingers flew to her carotid, then fumbled with the emergency kit, ripping it open, instruments clattering.

Vanya clutched my hand, small and taut, his dark curls brushing my wrist. His eyes were wide with fear, a mirror of the chaos erupting at the altar.

I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering. Good. Let the empire tremble. Let the golden bride fall. Let this perfect facade crack.

My son’s small voice whispered against the roar in my ears. “Mom… what’s happening?”

I tightened my grip around him, drawing him close. “Something went wrong, sweetheart. Don’t worry. Just… watch.”

“Pulse 180, thready. BP 238 over 148 and climbing—she’s in malignant hypertensive crisis with probable acute catecholamine surge. Pupils sluggish, possible sympathomimetic toxidrome—cyanide or amphetamine derivative. We need nitroprusside and ICU now, or she strokes out in minutes!” the Orlov physician barked, his voice ricocheting through the wedding hall.

The word toxidrome detonated in my chest like a second bomb.

Whispers hissed through the cathedral, sliding between the pews like venomous snakes:

“Delicate little thing—always knew she was too fragile for this world. At least she’s actually beautiful, not like that fat American cow Dmitri married.”

“This alliance would have locked the entire Lake Como for a generation. Someone obviously didn’t want peace—probably the Morozovs.”

“Finally—finally—he was about to marry a bride worthy of him, and now this disaster? Poor Seraphina, she didn’t deserve any of it. She belongs in Lake Como. Not like that American mistake they buried… the one who should’ve been shopping in a Walmart aisle, not walking down a Volkov aisle.”

“He only married that American because she got pregnant. Lost the baby, lost her purpose… no wonder she killed herself. And now—our Seraphina, the one who belongs here—fainting on this glorious day? Absolutely scandalous.”

Each word carved another strip from my skin, leaving raw, bleeding anxiety behind.

It’s no surprise that most people here despise Americans—whether from envy, low self-esteem, or some twisted sense of tradition. But to feel it burn for me… even five years after my ‘death’… it tugs at my heart in ways I can’t fully name.

I tasted coppery blood on my tongue—bitten through my lip in silent fury.

They were carrying Seraphina out now—six men hoisting her limp body like a shattered puppet, her cathedral-length veil dragging across the marble like surrender incarnate.

Her father roared orders, veins straining, his face mottled red with terror and rage.

Dmitri simply stood at the altar, hands loose at his sides, eyes cold and detached, watching the tableau unfold as if he were observing a chess piece topple on the board.

I turned to pull Vanya close—and the pew beside me was empty.

Ice coiled through my veins. Panic clawed at my throat.

I whipped around—heart hammering against my ribs—and there he was: a tiny, determined figure in navy weaving between giant men like a comet hurtling toward its target. His curls bounced, dark eyes blazing with the same stubborn fire I knew so well. My breath caught.

No. God, no.

I half-rose, terror and desperation warring inside me. If I stood fully, Dmitri would see me. Giovanni would see me. Every single eye in the cathedral would see Penelope Volkov—alive, standing where a ghost was supposed to remain.

I sank back into the pew, nails biting fresh crescents into my palms.

Vanya reached the altar steps. Reached Dmitri’s leg. Tugged hard on the midnight-blue trousers with all his five-year-old might.

“Papa!” he cried, voice sharp and pure, reverberating across the vaulted ceiling.

Dmitri’s head snapped down. Storm-grey eyes locking on the small figure clinging to his ankle. For the first time that evening, the ice around him fractured, microseconds of raw recognition flickering across the marble features.

His breath hitched imperceptibly.

I leapt from the pew, heart thundering. “Vanya! Stop!” I screamed, but my voice was drowned by the gasps and cries of the onlookers.

Dmitri’s eyes widened, just a fraction, but enough to send a shiver down my spine.

Recognition, shock, disbelief—it all collided there, raw and unguarded, before the mask snapped back into place.

His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping violently as his gaze swept from Vanya to me.

“Vanya!” I hissed under my breath, lunging forward, but the boy’s small hands clung to Dmitri’s trouser leg like a lifeline.

He was fearless, utterly unaware of the enormity of the moment—or perhaps too aware, his instincts telling him this man was his father.

The cathedral erupted into whispers, the organ stuttering under the collective gasp.

Guests shifted uneasily, nobles and mafiosi alike leaning forward, craning to see the anomaly—a child at the altar, a woman in black at the back, breathing life into a corpse’s legend.

Dmitri froze. His hands flexed at his sides, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, I saw it: the same vulnerability that had once drawn me to him, the ache of love buried under grief, fury, and pride.

He stepped forward, slow, deliberate, his dark eyes never leaving Vanya’s small, determined face.

“Vanya…” His voice was low, hesitant, almost unfamiliar, as if the words themselves were foreign in his mouth.

My stomach twisted.

That single utterance—his name from his lips—was a dagger coated in honey.

Vanya’s hands remained firm, but he glanced up at me, confusion and defiance battling in his gaze. “But… Papa!” he said, voice trembling with the mix of awe and indignation unique to a five-year-old who had discovered his father mid-story. “Why are you marrying her? Why not us?”

Dmitri’s chest rose and fell sharply.

His eyes darted to me, a single flicker of the man I had once loved breaking through the armor of Pakhan.

The room seemed to shrink around us, the whispers fading into a dull hum. For the first time in years, he was unarmed—not in body, but in spirit—facing the living proof of the life he’d abandoned.

Vanya tightened his grip on Dmitri’s trouser, his small brows drawn together in fierce determination. “I don’t care about weddings, Papa. I want you. Just me and Mama.”

The words struck Dmitri like a blow.

His hands twitched, almost reaching out, then faltered. The storm in his eyes clashed with the ice he had perfected over the years.

For a single, endless moment, the cathedral, the guests, the organ, the golden light—it all vanished.

There was only a ruthless king and the miniature version of himself, standing before him with defiant grey eyes that carried the weight of every accusation.

Vanya looked at him, unwavering. “Papa,” he said again, voice firmer this time, “don’t you see me? Don’t you see us?”

Dmitri looked mid-sentence at Giovanni.

Giovanni went ghost-white. His grip shot out, snatching Vanya’s small wrist, yanking him back a step. “Where the hell did this brat come from?!” His voice was a hiss of panic, sharp enough to cut through the murmurs of the stunned congregation.

Dmitri’s gaze never wavered from the boy.

Something raw, animal, and terrifying flickered across his face.

Giovanni leaned closer to Dmitri, voice low, frantic. “Dmitri, we need to—”

Dmitri ignored him.

Slowly, deliberately, he crouched, one knee bending with predatory precision, until he was eye-level with Vanya. His storm-grey eyes were an arresting storm, the kind that could break mountains and hearts alike.

Vanya didn’t flinch. His little chin lifted in fearless defiance, fists balled so tight his knuckles went white.

Giovanni’s eyes widened in terror. He signalled to two guards, who moved with lightning precision, their steps silent but lethal.

They reached Vanya and, with gentle firmness belying their brute strength, lifted him away from the father who had never truly left his thoughts, never truly left his life.

Giovanni’s hand clamped over Vanya’s small shoulder like a man trying to contain a live wire, holding him steady while the world erupted around them.

Dmitri straightened.

His face went blank again, the mask of the don perfectly restored.

Without a word, he pivoted and strode to the side exit, moving like a shadow consuming the light.

The cathedral dissolved into chaos but all I could hear, all I could feel, was the echo of that single, devastating “Yes” he had spoken earlier, and the searing, furious promise burning through my chest.