Ruthless Addiction: Chapter 4

Penelope

I folded my arms, lifting my chin so he couldn’t see the small tremor running down my spine.

“I’m already married, Mr. Volkov. And weren’t you—oh, forgive me if my memory’s faulty—about three seconds away from sliding a ring onto another woman’s finger? I don’t do warm-up bride duty. I don’t stand in for the original just because she’s currently unconscious in your private clinic.”

His gaze didn’t flicker.

Not even once.

He sat back and sank into the leather couch as if it were a throne made for him alone—long legs stretched out, shoulders relaxed, ownership radiating from every inch of him. Like the room belonged to him.

Like I did.

He plucked a fresh cigarette from the pack with steady fingers, touched flame to it, and dragged in a breath so deep it hollowed out his ribs. Smoke curled from his mouth in a slow, defeated exhale, drifting through the room like a ghost.

The cigarette burned between his fingers now, its red tip a tiny, furious star in the dim light—steady, unwavering, a heartbeat outside his chest—as he stared at nothing.

Dmitri never smoked.

Not when I was fifteen and he was nineteen.

Not when he forced a ring onto my finger six years ago.

Not once, in all the years I was legally his wife, did I ever see him lift a cigarette to his lips.

But now?

Now he smoked like the nicotine was the only thing keeping him from unraveling—like if he didn’t inhale, he’d shatter. Like his lungs needed the burn to drown out whatever was clawing inside him.

And something about that terrified me more than every threat he’d ever made.

“She was never the one I loved,” he said calmly. Too calmly. “And her collapse? That was my doing.”

Something inside me dropped.

A silent plunge straight through my bones.

He watched my reaction the way a surgeon examines a pulse—detached, curious, faintly amused.

“I needed the Orlovs to believe the wedding was legitimate. I also needed it delayed. A precise dose of a neuromuscular paralytic in her morning espresso accomplished both tasks. She’ll wake in a few weeks with mild confusion and a very unfortunate ‘mystery illness.’ By then, the council’s deadline expires, and the marriage clause becomes irrelevant.”

My mouth fell open.

“You poisoned an innocent woman just to avoid marrying her?”

“Innocent?” His smirk was a blade. “Seraphina knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted the crown. She wanted the Volkov empire. I simply reminded her that thrones built on corpses weigh more than people admit.”

He crushed the cigarette into the ashtray with slow, surgical pressure.

“Besides, marrying her would’ve been the real betrayal.”

“Betrayal of whom?” The words escaped before I could swallow them. “Your late wife who isn’t here to care anymore?”

His eyes snapped to mine—dark, molten, dangerous enough to scorch.

Something feral flashed there. Something that remembered me too well.

“Enough,” he said.

He rose in one fluid, terrifying movement—like violence carved into a man’s shape—and stepped toward me.

“Sit.”

The command sliced straight through five years of distance.

My body obeyed before my mind even understood what was happening.

I sank into the leather armchair opposite him, hating the way my muscles responded to him—remembering him. Hating that he could still pull obedience from me like a thread.

Dmitri didn’t sit.

He remained standing over me, broad shoulders blocking the light, suit strained across the kind of strength that didn’t need to be proven.

A storm wearing a man’s shape.

A man who had loved me once.

A man who now wanted something far more dangerous.

“Five and a half years ago,” he said, voice clipped and surgical, “the Council of Families issued me an ultimatum. Marry within two months… or relinquish the Volkov seat to my foster brothers.”

He didn’t pace. Dmitri Volkov never needed to pace.

He simply stood there — a monolith in an Italian villa lit by dying sunlight — and the room bent around him like gravity.

“I challenged the ruling. Took it to the High Tribunal. Negotiated. Threatened. Paid. Won another five-year extension.”

He paused.

“Those five years end in exactly nine days.”

He lit another cigarette. The lighter’s flame sliced across the sharp lines of his face, illuminating cheekbones forged from some ancient Slavic war god.

Smoke curled around him like mist around a blade.

“I need a wife on paper. Immediately.”

I folded my arms, pretending I wasn’t squeezing my ribs to keep myself from shaking.

“Then marry Seraphina when she wakes up. Let your council choke on their own rules. Problem solved. Empire saved.”

“Seraphina,” he said, exhaling smoke toward the chandelier, “will be… conveniently incapable of walking, talking, or standing at an altar for several months. I ensured that.”

His tone didn’t change.

But the room seemed to flinch.

“I need someone now.”

I laughed.

Sharp. Ugly. Disbelieving.

“Right. And you thought—what—the random tourist who happens to look like your dead wife would do? Just slap a ring on me and call it strategy?”

He didn’t blink.

“I thought,” he said softly — dangerously softly — “that the woman who sent a carbon copy of my own childhood face to sabotage my wedding might have an agenda worth hearing.”

My stomach dropped so fast I nearly swayed.

He took a step closer, heat radiating from him in waves.

Then another step.

Until I could see the flecks of silver in his irises, the ones that only appeared when he was restraining violence.

“Get your luggage,” he said. “You and the boy will move into the villa tonight.”

“No.” It tore out of me before I even stood. A clean, violent word.

I pushed up from the chair so fast it scraped against the tile, instinct yanking me backward, away from him, away from that command.

My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to break out.

“We are strangers. I don’t follow your orders. If that’s how things work in your little kingdom, wonderful for you — but I’m not one of your subjects.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched. His fist balled until the veins stood out like ropes.

He closed the distance in two strides, towering over me like a shadow with teeth.

“Then explain something to me,” he growled, voice vibrating the air itself.

“Explain why you sent your son to grab my hand at the altar in front of five hundred witnesses.”

Another step.

“Explain why you walk into my territory wearing Penelope’s face. The face I see every time I close my eyes.”

Another step.

“Explain,” he hissed, “why that boy has my eyes. My mouth. And why he’s holding my phone—the same phone he ‘accidentally’ picked up. He didn’t steal it, did he? You sent him.”

The final words were so quiet they were more of a promise than a threat.

“I will tear the truth out of you one way or another.”

My breath stuttered. But I forced myself to stand.

And when I stepped forward, he was the one who shifted back.

“I’m going home tomorrow,” I said. “Back to Greece. Back to my life. My son acted impulsively. End of story.”

The smile that slid across his mouth was slow… cold… and predatory enough to chill bone.

“You’re not leaving this territory, Pen.”

His voice lowered, turning into something ancient and merciless.

“Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until I say so.”

I turned from him, shoulders tight, throat closing.

I walked to the door because I had to — because standing still would have undone me.

“You want a disposable wife to save your empire?” I said over my shoulder. “Pick one of the hundreds of women who’d murder their own sisters for the privilege. Not me.”

My fingers curled around the doorknob, knuckles white. It rattled—betraying me, betraying the fear I refused to show him.

I forced myself to turn it, to step out, to keep my spine straight until the door clicked shut behind me.

The moment I crossed the threshold, my legs buckled.

I slumped against the hallway wall, one hand splayed over my pounding heart, the other gripping the cold plaster as if it could anchor me.

My lungs seized, tight and greedy for clean air.

The smoke he’d been exhaling—careless, relentless—still clung to me, burning my throat, brushing the edges of my asthma like a match flirting with gasoline.

But it wasn’t just the smoke.

It was him.

His voice, his nearness, the way he still filled a room and swallowed all the oxygen with him.

Five minutes with Dmitri Volkov, and my entire body was vibrating like it had touched a live wire.

Five years.

Five years, and still my pulse obeyed him like some trained, broken thing—snapping toward him the way a compass needle claws north, helpless and feral.

I despised it.

I despised him.

Most of all, I despised the shameful, pathetic part of me that had wanted to say yes. That had leaned toward him instead of away.

My breath hitched, and I spun on my heel, practically fleeing down the hall. Each hurried step echoed off the marble corridor, a frantic staccato betraying everything I was trying to hide. By the time I reached our room, my hands were trembling so badly I could barely get the door open.

When the door finally gave, swinging open under my shaking hand, my eyes landed on Vanya—exactly where I’d left him.

Sprawled face-down across the bed, kicking his legs in sharp, frustrated little jerks, fists clenching and unclenching against the sheets like he was trying to strangle the mattress.

The moment I stepped fully inside—two steps, no more—he snapped upright so violently the mattress jolted.

His eyes were wild, bright with fury and something that looked too much like fear.

“Did he bully you?” he demanded, the words cutting like a blade.

I couldn’t stop the soft smile from tugging at my lips, even as my heart splintered.

My fierce little protector. My boy.

“No, baby,” I said gently, crossing the room in quick strides.

I sat on the bed and pulled him into my lap, pressing my lips to his curls, inhaling the sweet tang of lavender shampoo and boyhood warmth. I rocked him slowly, letting the fragile sense of calm sink into both of us. “We just… talked. Like grown-ups.”

He twisted up to look at me, eyes wide and searching. “We’re leaving tomorrow, right?”

I nodded, forcing my voice steady. “Six a.m. sharp. The cab’s already booked.”

His face fell, shadowed with worry, confusion, and that heartbreaking little-boy longing. “Mom… what if I don’t want to go? Greece is… big houses and old people. Here feels… alive. And it’s where my dad is from.” He climbed onto his knees, hands gripping my shoulders like anchors, whispering like we were plotting a rebellion: “Please, Mom. I want to know him.”

Each word was a dagger twisting inside my chest.

I cupped his little face in my hands, thumbs brushing along the sharp Volkov cheekbones that I both adored and cursed. “We will come back one day,” I promised, voice soft, trembling, but resolute. “But right now… we have to go home. I have… reasons.”

He searched my face, scrutinizing every line, every hesitation, every unspoken truth, and finally nodded, trusting me with the blind, fierce faith only a child can give.

I pulled him into a tight, fierce hug, pressing my face into the back of his neck so he wouldn’t see the tears threatening to spill. “Everything will be fine,” I whispered, shoving all my courage, all my will, into the words. “I’ve got you. Always.”

He clung to me like I was gravity itself, holding on with every ounce of his small, determined body.

Neither of us slept that night.

The dawn came early, pale and brittle.

At exactly 5:47 a.m., we were dressed, bags packed and zipped tight, standing outside in the pre-dawn chill.

The world smelled of frost and stone and promise.

A chartered cab idled at the curb, exhaust curling upward like ghosts, ready to carry us back to a life that felt impossibly fragile.

Vanya shivered, arms wrapped around himself.

I slung my coat over his small shoulders, smoothed the hair from his forehead, and whispered, “Almost time, baby. Almost safe.”

For a heartbeat, he looked at me, eyes wide, vulnerable, and full of trust. I swallowed the lump in my throat, clenched my fists to keep them from trembling, and told myself: we were leaving Lake Como. We were leaving him — for now.

But the shadow of Volkov still lingered in every corner, every cobblestone street, every whisper of the wind. And I knew, deep down, leaving him behind — even for a night — would never really be possible.

I took Vanya’s small hand tight in mine as we stepped forward, muscles coiled, nerves screaming.

Every step felt like wading through molasses, my mind trapped in that smoky suite, replaying Dmitri’s impossible words on a merciless loop.

Marry me.

I made her faint.

I needed a wife.

You’re not leaving.

I shook my head, willing the memories to fade.

He hadn’t recognized me. Ruslan’s masterpiece of deception had held. One more hour, one more turn of the plane’s wheels, and we’d be gone, free, untouchable.

I opened the rear door of the cab, relief beginning to bloom in my chest as Vanya slipped in first. I followed him quickly, shutting the door behind us like I could shut out everything that had just happened.

The cab rolled away from the hotel like any normal morning ride, the city waking in lazy rhythm.

I sat rigid in the back seat, fingers curled around Vanya’s small hand, staring straight ahead while my mind ran in frantic circles.

Seraphina would wake in a few weeks, healthy, furious, and still the perfect alliance bride.

The Orlovs would demand the wedding go ahead the moment she could stand.

If anyone ever discovered Dmitri was the one who put Seraphina in that hospital bed, the entire coast would burn in revenge.

He risked everything—alliances, power, even his own life—because he could not stand the thought of marrying anyone else in his lifetime but me.

Such maddening devotion.

He loved me this much, yet during our marriage, he had shown nothing but hate. Obsessed, yes—but not in the way a normal couple loves.

His obsession was cruel, possessive, and sharpened by what he believed my family had done to his, a poison that twisted every act of his heart.

And yet… a traitorous, shameful part of me wondered:

If he loved me like this, how could he also despise her so completely?

How could a man destroy everything around him for me, and still leave me trembling with fear instead of warmth?

It was maddening. Infuriating. And terrifying.

Because the more I tried to separate devotion from cruelty, love from obsession, the more I realized I couldn’t.

And the part of me that feared for my life also feared what it would mean if he ever truly claimed me, body and soul, without restraint.

And what if I had said yes yesterday?

What if I had walked back into that lounge, dropped to my knees, and told him everything?

“I never died. Ruslan faked it all. This is your son. I still love you, even though I hate you.”

Would those storm-grey eyes have softened? Or would they have glinted with fury and disbelief, calling me a liar and having me shot for the insult?

The cab suddenly veered sharply left, leaving the main coastal road and plunging down a narrow, tree-lined private lane I didn’t recognize.

My blood froze.

“Hey!” I snapped, sitting bolt upright, panic rising in my throat. “This isn’t the way to the airport!”

The driver met my eyes in the rear-view mirror and smiled, slow, deliberate, and ugly in a way that made my stomach drop.

“No, miss Pen. This is the private road to Mr Volkov’s estate.”

Vanya’s hand jerked violently in mine, eyes wide.

I could feel his pulse racing, his tiny body tensing like a spring ready to snap.

I swallowed, forcing a calm I didn’t feel, and whispered to him, “Hold on, baby. Just… hold on.”

Then I turned my attention back to the driver, my pulse spiking with a cocktail of fear and fury. “This better be some joke… or a prank,” I snapped, my voice slicing through the pre-dawn silence like shattered glass.

“Turn around, Mr. Right. Now.” Every syllable was loaded, trembling with rage I couldn’t fully contain.

“Only following orders, ma’am.” The driver’s grin was terrifyingly calm, as he pressed harder on the accelerator. Gravel pinged against the chassis with every tire rotation. “You can write to your husband in Greece and tell him coming home anytime soon just became… complicated.”

My stomach dropped into my boots.

I lunged forward, fingers clawing for the steering wheel. “Stop the car! Right now!”

“Mom!” Vanya’s small voice screamed, yanking me back just as the car fishtailed violently.

The world tilted, trees and hedges streaking into green-and-brown smears. For a horrifying instant, I thought we would roll. My pulse spiked, every nerve ending on fire.

I released the wheel instantly, heart hammering in my throat.

Vanya trembled against me, eyes wide, lips pressed together in rigid fear. I pressed my forehead to the crown of his head, willing him to feel safe even as the world collapsed around us.

“Thank God you listened to your son,” the driver sneered, righting the car with disturbing ease. “Otherwise, we all die, eh?”

I wanted to rip that smirk off his face with my bare hands, and I mean rip. But instead, I sank back, lungs heaving, and held Vanya tighter.

He buried his face in my neck, shivering, small fists digging into my ribs as if to anchor himself to life itself.

“Mom,” he whispered, trembling, “he’s not going to hurt us… right?”

Before I could answer, the driver’s smooth, unsettling voice cut in:

“Mr Dmitri would never hurt a child. You’re very safe, little Vanya.”

The way he said my son’s name—like he’d known it for years—made my skin crawl.

Every instinct screamed run, every molecule of my being screaming that we were deep in a cage with predators.

I swallowed every curse, every scream, every desperate wish to vanish into the morning mist. Vanya had never seen me lose control. I would not let these animals be the first.

“Kidnapping a child and his mother,” I said, voice low and venomous, each word like a shard of ice, “real brave.”

“Just following orders,” he repeated, singsong, almost enjoying himself.

Vanya lifted his head, eyes wide, trembling but defiant. “You said he won’t hurt me because I’m a child. What about my mom?”

The driver’s gaze flicked to the mirror, sharp, assessing. “If your mom behaves,” he said lightly, “she’ll be fine. Tell her to play nice.”

I committed his smug face to memory—every smirk, every cruel line, every gleam of arrogance. One day, he would choke on that grin.

The car slowed as we approached a pair of towering wrought-iron gates, swinging open automatically with a hiss of hydraulics.

Beyond them rose a palace of glass, steel, and stone, perched on the cliff’s edge like a predator surveying the lake.

It was nothing like the old villa I had lived in during the years Dmitri and I were estranged.

That one had been dark wood, velvet, old-world grandeur, history seeping from every wall and floorboard.

This was colder, sharper, a fortress of black marble and smoked glass, brutalist lines cut into the mountain itself.

Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the dawn in molten gold, waterfalls of wisteria spilling over terraces that jutted impossibly over the void.

Infinity pools seemed to bleed into the horizon, where Lake Como glittered like shattered sapphires.

It was breathtaking. Heavenly. And utterly terrifying—a palace designed to remind you exactly who owned the sky.

The cab rolled to a stop on a courtyard of polished obsidian stone. The driver killed the engine, popped the trunk, and hauled our suitcases out like some rehearsed bellhop at a five-star resort, his movements precise and impersonal.

“Best of luck, miss Pen,” he said with a mocking bow, then slid back into the driver’s seat and sped away, leaving us stranded.

Vanya’s hand clutched mine so tightly I could feel the pulse in his wrist.

I swallowed, forcing calm I did not feel.

My pulse was still hammering, my nerves still screaming, but I forced my voice to a whisper.

“Stay close, baby. Don’t let go. Not for a second.”

In that instant, I realized: we were no longer just visitors in Dmitri Volkov’s world. We were his prisoners.

I stood frozen, staring up at the house that could either swallow us whole or crown us in luxury—palace or prison, I couldn’t tell which.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Vanya said fiercely, chin trembling.

My brave, impossible boy. My heart cracked in two at the sight of him. I ruffled his curls, forcing a smile that felt fragile, like glass balanced on a cliff.

“No one’s hurting anyone, baby,” I whispered.

Lie. Everything about this place screamed danger, from the black marble stairs that spiraled like a predator’s spine to the dark steel gates that had swallowed the morning light.

If Dmitri ever realized who we really were… if Vanya grew too attached… escaping again would be impossible.

Ruslan Baranov was a ghost even among ghosts. I didn’t have his number, and reaching him was impossible. There wasn’t a single ally left in this city—no one who could help. I was completely, utterly helpless.

I was trapped in Lake Como again.

But this time wasn’t the broken twenty-five-year-old who had begged for love. This time I was armed with teeth and claws, with every lesson survival had carved into me.

A shadow detached itself from the entrance.

Giovanni.

He moved like a black panther in a perfectly tailored suit that made his shoulders look impossibly wide.

The crooked smile—the one that had once brought me coffee when I was pregnant and miserable—curved just slightly, almost gentle, almost human.

“Welcome home, miss Pen,” he said, voice smooth as ice. Then he crouched to Vanya’s level. “We didn’t properly meet yesterday. I’m Giovanni.”

Vanya, never shy, stuck out his hand like a tiny diplomat. “Vanya.”

Giovanni shook it solemnly, then straightened, exhaling in a way that made the air feel thicker. “This way, please.”

I didn’t move.

Giovanni waited, patience running thin but masked under the perfect calm of a professional predator. When I still didn’t budge, he sighed, pulled out his phone, and spoke in rapid Italian. His words were sharp, precise, lethal.

“Boss… yes, they’re just standing here like statues… understood.”

He pocketed the phone and gave me a look almost… gentle.

“I’m the butler of this house,” he said, his voice calm, almost ceremonial. “When you finally realize you have no choice but to enter, please do so. No one will stop you—this is your new home. And should you need anything, pick up any house phone and dial 111. I will come running.”

With that, he turned, his movements precise, and vanished through the massive glass doors, leaving only the faint echo of his footsteps behind.

Vanya tugged my hand, impatient but still steady. “Mom, we can’t stay out here all day. My legs hurt.”

I bent and scooped him onto my hip, despite the way he was growing too fast for this.

He wrapped his arms around my neck, pressing his face against my shoulder.

“I know going in feels wrong,” I whispered against his curls. “It feels wrong to me too. But we’re together. That’s what matters.”

He nodded against my neck, small and trusting, and I drew in a shaky breath. One step forward. Then another.

The glass doors whispered open on their own, sliding wide like a predator’s maw revealing the treasure inside.

The air was cool, scented with cedar and something darker.

The foyer soared three stories high, light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows, a waterfall cascading down one wall into a koi pond that glowed electric blue.

And there, at the foot of the grand staircase, hands in the pockets of a charcoal suit, silver threading his temples, eyes burning holes straight through my soul, stood Dmitri Volkov.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He simply looked at Vanya in my arms, then at me. And the expression on his face… it was raw, dangerous, aching grief that could level cities.

“Welcome home, milaya,” he said softly.

The words carried the weight of a lifetime of love and loss, each syllable a razor.

The doors slid shut behind us with a final, merciless click, the sound echoing like a verdict.

Vanya’s grip on me tightened, tiny fingers digging into my shoulder.

I swallowed, heart hammering so fast I feared it might leap out of my chest.

I met Dmitri’s gaze, the storm in those eyes matching the storm I felt in my chest. For a moment, time froze.

The house wasn’t just a home. It was his kingdom, and we were now irrevocably inside.

And yet, despite everything, despite the fear, the adrenaline, the danger… I felt a flicker of something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in six years: that little traitorous part of me—the part that had once loved him, the part that had never truly left—was still alive.

Alive, and furious.

We finally found an empty room and stepped inside, Vanya clinging to me like a lifeline.

I reached to set him down, but his arms tightened around my neck, anchoring himself with desperate strength.

His tiny chest pressed to mine, and I felt his heartbeat thundering against my collarbone—a frantic, chaotic rhythm, like a hummingbird trapped in ice, wildly out of place in a room this cold and silent.

He hadn’t uttered a single word since the doors shut behind us, yet his silence was deafening—he screamed in ways no voice could convey, filling the room with a raw, fragile urgency that gnawed at me.

And I hated it.

Hated that my five-year-old was being dragged into a war that began before he ever inhaled his first breath.

Hated that I had brought him here—into the lion’s den, into the past I thought I had burned.

The morning sun climbed higher, gilding the courtyard through the glass walls, turning the black marble into molten gold and the infinity pools into sheets of liquid fire.

I still hadn’t moved.

My body felt pinned to the earth, rooted by dread and memory and the weight of the child in my arms.

“Miss Pen,” a voice murmured behind me—low, rough, and devastatingly familiar.

My spine locked.

I turned slowly, Vanya finally loosening his grip enough for me to set him down, a tiny shield of courage pressed against my chest.

Dmitri stood at the doorway, only a few feet away, every inch of him radiating control and danger.

The room we had just entered—the one that should have felt safe—suddenly shrank around us, the walls pressing in with the weight of his presence.

He wasn’t wearing a suit now, but a charcoal Henley that clung to shoulders I used to kiss in the dark when the world was soft and we weren’t enemies.

The rising sun caught the silver threaded through his hair, the brutal new lines carved along his mouth.

He looked like a man sculpted from grief and sharpened by violence—someone who had learned how to bleed without ever making a sound.

“How dare you,” I said. My voice wasn’t steady; it trembled with rage and fear.

“Do you think you’re a god? That you can kidnap a mother and child who came here as tourists and lock us in your palace like we’re trophies to admire? Like our lives mean nothing?!”

Dmitri’s gaze flicked to Vanya and something raw, aching, and unbearably human cracked across his face.

But then the mask slammed down, cold and unforgiving.

“I didn’t kidnap anyone,” he said quietly. “Your son climbed my altar of his own free will. I’m simply… keeping you both safe while we sort this out.”

“Safe?”

Vanya’s head snapped up like a whip.

He stepped forward—past me—until he stood planted in front of Dmitri Volkov like a miniature knight defending a queen.

Tiny.

Fierce.

Unmovable.

“Mom didn’t send me,” he declared, voice trembling with passion and fury. “I went because I wanted to. And you’re proud and heartless and cruel, Mr Dmitri!”

The words didn’t hit Dmitri like bullets.

They hit him like prophecy.

I saw his throat work once—hard.

Goosebumps rose along his forearms.

His fingers twitched like he wanted to reach out, then clamped into fists instead.

Because there, standing defiant and blazing with righteous anger, was a mirror—a storm-eyed, stubborn-jawed, impossible mirror.

Dmitri was staring at a smaller, purer version of himself.

And it shook him.

Visibly.

He swallowed, and the sound echoed in the cavernous foyer.

“I’ll be marrying your mother,” he said finally, voice roughened to sand and gravel. “And you’ll be my son. We can be a family. A real one.”

Vanya barked out a laugh—sharp, wounded, disbelieving.

A laugh a five-year-old should never know how to make.

A family?” he spat, each word dripping with contempt. “You kidnapped my mother and me… and you think we can become a real family?

The chandelier above us trembled in the slightest draft, and for a strange suspended second, the whole house seemed to inhale, waiting for Dmitri’s answer.

Dmitri’s hand twitched toward me, then he froze, his expression unreadable.

He crouched slightly—not enough to seem gentle, but enough to meet Vanya eye to eye, his voice a low, controlled rumble.

“Here’s the truth, Vanya,” he said. “You can’t protect her from me. You can try to stand in front of her… and I respect that. Truly.”

His gaze flicked to me, then back to the boy.

“But I am not here to bargain. I am here because you both belong with me. That is not up for debate.”

Vanya’s laugh was small but sharp, fearless in a way only a child’s could be.

“So you can keep us here by force… but you think you can make us like you by force too?” he shot back. “We won’t like you, Mr. Dmitri. Not when you’re being cruel.”

Dmitri stilled. For the briefest heartbeat, the room held its breath.

Then he smiled—slow, deliberate, dangerous. A Volkov smile.

“It isn’t cruelty,” he said softly. “It’s protection. It’s claiming what’s mine. You… and her.”

His eyes locked onto mine, icy and unshakeable.

“Whether you like me today or not, Vanya… this family will exist. And you will understand, one day, that I don’t abandon what’s mine.”

My blood turned to ice.

Vanya’s tiny fist curled so tight I could see the strain in his knuckles, his nails digging into his palms—not out of rage, but out of sheer, trembling fear. Far too much fear for a five-year-old.

He turned to me then, his voice barely a breath, meant only for my ears.

“Mom…” He swallowed, his eyes huge and shining. “He can’t just… make us his, right?”

I shook my head, throat tight, hating that my son was already recoiling from his own father on their second meeting.

Guilt gnawed at me, and I stepped forward before the conversation could ignite further tension, before Vanya’s fear and Dmitri’s intensity collided into something irreversible. This is my war, not his.

“Maybe leave us for now, Mr. Volkov,” I said, my voice flat, controlled—a calm so sharp it cut deeper than any shout. “Congratulations. You’ve successfully made my son dislike you. Well done.”

Dmitri’s eyes snapped to mine. For the briefest heartbeat, I thought I saw something flicker behind them—a trace of regret, as if he’d only now realized the consequences of his presence, the danger in his obsession.

“We need to talk, Miss Pen,” he said, his voice low, deliberate. “But I’ll leave you to… get used to the new house atmosphere.” With that, he finally turned and walked out, his departure as silent and controlled as his arrival.

“Mom…” Vanya’s whisper trembled, fragile and raw, voice cracking. “I… I don’t like him. How… how can he be my dad?”

“Vanya,” I hissed, barely a breath, my eyes darting to the door Dmitri had only just disappeared through. His presence still clung to the air like smoke. “You can’t say things like that. Not here. Not where he can hear.”

His brows pinched, confusion and fear squeezing together, but I pressed on, voice low and urgent.

“If he ever finds out you’re his biological son,” I whispered, “we won’t just be stuck here—we’ll never get out. He’ll keep you and send me away. Do you understand? He will separate us.”

Vanya’s little mouth snapped shut at once.

His chin lifted—small, defiant, unbroken—the kind of stubbornness that didn’t come from me or from Dmitri. Something entirely, fiercely his own.

He whispered back, barely audible, “Then I won’t ever let him find out.”

And God, that promise from a five-year-old cleaved my heart in two.

I hadn’t even drawn a full breath before a knock came—soft but insistent—followed by the door easing open as if it belonged to them, not me. Giovanni’s head appeared first.

Of course.

Of course they wouldn’t even let us breathe.

He stepped inside fully, hands folded neatly in front of him. “Vanya. Miss Pen. I officially welcome you to our abode,” he said with a crisp politeness that felt like a bowstring pulled tight. “But this is not the room Mr. Volkov assigned for you. Please follow me to your designated quarters. I apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll carry your luggage and do anything necessary to reduce your stress, as I understand it has been… a long day for you both.”

A laugh nearly tore out of me—bitter, hysterical—but all that came was a tired exhale.

I sank back into the chair, exhaustion crashing over me like a wave.

Coming to Lake Como.

Listening to Ruslan.

God, what was I thinking?

Giovanni lifted the suitcases effortlessly, then gestured for Vanya. “Let’s leave,” he said gently.

Vanya glanced up at me. The small, pitying look in his eyes—five-year-old pity—shamed me more deeply than Dmitri ever could.

So I forced myself up, muscles trembling, and took his hand without a word.

We followed Giovanni through endless hallways until he stopped before a pair of double doors—tall, midnight-dark, hewn from a wood so flawless it looked grown, not crafted.

Giovanni turned toward us. A silver key dangled from his fingers, delicate and unthreatening in a way this place absolutely was not.

“Two rooms,” he said quietly. “Connected by a curtain. One for you. One for the boy. As Mr. Volkov assigned.”

He extended the key with a reverence that made my skin crawl—like he wasn’t giving me access to a room, but to a gilded cage I wasn’t meant to escape.

I stepped inside and locked it behind us with hands that wouldn’t stop trembling.

The suite was… obscene.

Vanya’s half was a child’s fever dream.

A racing-car-shaped bed, glossy and bright.

Shelves overflowing with limited-edition toys, each one probably worth more than a month’s salary.

A glowing aquarium stretching across the wall, neon fish darting through electric-blue water.

On the desk sat a brand-new iPad and MacBook—sleek, untouched, waiting like offerings.

My side was a different world entirely.

Cool greys and soft whites.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Como, the water glittering like a sheet of hammered silver.

A bed so massive it felt like an island.

A heavy midnight-blue curtain hung between our spaces—thin enough to see the outline of light through it, thick enough to pretend at separation.

In Greece, Vanya had always slept pressed against me, one leg thrown over mine, his small foot wedged between my calves. He used to tuck his head beneath my chin and sigh in his sleep.

The idea of him sleeping alone—even with only a curtain between us—sent a dull ache through my chest.

But he was already gone.

He dropped my hand and ran toward the room, all wonder and light again.

“Mom!” he squealed, spinning in circles. “Look! A real Batmobile bed! And the fish! And—”

He skidded to a stop at the desk, staring in reverent disbelief.

“An iPad. And a MacBook.”

He turned to me, eyes huge. “Mom, please—please—don’t take them away this time, right?”

My heart squeezed.

I wanted to say no. Wanted to keep the world gentle and simple and safe for him a little longer.

But this wasn’t Greece. This was a gilded prison.

And joy, here, was a rare and necessary currency.

“Moderation,” I said softly, brushing his curls back. “Promise me.”

He nodded so hard his curls bounced, then threw himself into the chair and powered up the laptop with the confidence of a child born knowing how technology worked.

The toys he had shrieked over lay forgotten.

Circuits and code—those were his real playgrounds.

I watched him for a moment, a knot tightening behind my ribs.

And for the first time since stepping foot in this house, I allowed myself to breathe.

The silence here felt different. Heavy. Intentional. Like the walls were waiting for me to unravel.

After resting for a while, I pushed myself off the mattress and slipped into the bathroom.

It wasn’t a bathroom—it was a cathedral.

Black marble stretched floor to ceiling, veined like lightning trapped in stone. Brushed gold fixtures gleamed under warm sconces, each one casting a soft molten halo that made the room feel sacred, surreal, too beautiful for the prison it sat inside.

I locked the door.

The click echoed like a fragile promise of solitude.

Then I stripped—slow, mechanical, every movement heavy from the day—and stepped beneath the rainfall shower.

The first hit of hot water made my breath hitch.

Then the rest came like a landslide.

Heat poured over my shoulders, down my spine, across skin that felt too thin to contain everything pulsing beneath it. It washed away the grit of travel, the tension locked in my muscles, the ghost-memory of Dmitri’s fingers grazing mine—electricity and ruin in a single brush.

I braced my palms against the slick marble, head bowed.

The water thundered around me, drowning the tight, broken sounds I didn’t want to hear coming from my own throat.

Minutes passed. Or hours. I didn’t know. All I knew was the water was mercilessly hot, and the fog had swallowed the mirrors whole, and in the heavy mist I could almost pretend the tears streaking down my cheeks weren’t real.

That was a lie, of course.

But I was tired enough to take whatever lie let me breathe.

Eventually I shut the water off.

Wrapped myself in one of the impossibly soft robes. Pulled on grey lounge pants and an oversized shirt that smelled faintly of cedar.

Cedar and him.

Of course it did.

The room felt colder when I walked back into it.

My stomach growled, but the thought of calling 111 and asking Giovanni for food twisted something ugly inside me. I didn’t want to owe this house anything. I didn’t want to owe him anything.

I curled into the centre of the bed, drawing my knees tight to my chest. The mattress dipped slightly beneath my weight, almost too soft, too luxurious—another reminder I was living in a cage wrapped in silk.

Above me, the molding was pristine white, elegant… and absolutely hiding cameras.

Of course they were watching.

They always watched.

I stared at the ceiling and hated myself for the relief blooming unforgivably in my chest that Seraphina was in a coma.

That the wedding had collapsed.

That the universe—fate, cruelty, whatever—had shoved Dmitri back into my orbit.

I hated that it still mattered. That he still mattered.

What kind of fool dreams of being a man’s wife again after he’s spent years pretending she never existed?

What kind of woman imagines his ring back on her finger?

A weak one.

A stupid one.

A human one.

The house phone rang, slicing through the silence like a blade.

I let it ring once. Twice. Thrice. Four times.

Then grabbed it like I intended to crush it.

“Miss Pen,” Giovanni drawled, warm and amused, “you or the little warrior hungry yet? I make a carbonara so good you’ll forgive all my sins. Or pancakes stacked high with Nutella mountains. Vanya’s choice.”

I closed my eyes. My headache pulsed behind them.

“When we want food,” I said, voice flat, “we’ll call. Stop pretending you have a conscience, Giovanni. It doesn’t suit you.”

He laughed softly, something like affection—or pity—in the sound.

I hung up before he could push further.

Dropped the phone onto the nightstand like it burned.

Then I curled back into the bed, exhaustion dragging me down by the ankles.

Somewhere between waking and sleeping, Vanya’s voice drifted through the curtain. Small. Soft. Wonder-filled.

“Mom?”

I opened my eyes. “I’m here, baby.”

There was a rustle. The faint shuffle of feet.

“I think…” he said quietly, “I think the fish like me.”

Despite everything—despite the day, the chaos, the hurricane that was Dmitri—I smiled.

“Sleep, Vanya.”

The curtain whispered open. Marble clicked beneath his little feet. The mattress dipped under his weight as he climbed in beside me without a word.

He burrowed under the covers and pressed his cold feet between my calves, just like he’d done since he was two. His curls smelled like lake water and shampoo. His breath puffed warm against my chest.

I wrapped my arm around him, pulling him close, grounding myself in the one thing in this entire poisoned world that was wholly mine.