And Antonio froze.
The change was instant. Like a switch flipped.
The smugness drained from his face as his eyes slid past my shoulder.
I turned.
Dmitri was there.
He hadn’t announced himself. He hadn’t pushed or spoken. He simply arrived—silent, inevitable, lethal. The crowd parted around him without conscious thought, bodies shifting instinctively away from the violence written into his stride. His expression was carved from stone, his gaze locked on Antonio with the singular focus of a predator that had finally found its prey.
“Hey,” Antonio said, the word brittle, forced.
Dmitri didn’t acknowledge it.
He stopped inches from Antonio, towering over him, his presence blotting out the chandeliers, the music, the illusion of safety. His voice, when it came, was low enough that only we could hear it.
“Next time I see you near my wife,” Dmitri said, calm and absolute, “I will kill you. Slowly.”
The words were not a threat.
They were a promise.
Antonio lifted his chin, bravado rushed in to fill the sudden crack of fear in his eyes. “And start a war here?” he scoffed. “At the fiftieth gathering? I’m practically in the Orlov family now—or didn’t you hear? I’m marrying Elena. You touch me, you touch them.”
Dmitri’s fists clenched at his sides. Knuckles cracked—loud, unmistakable. Veins stood out along his forearms and neck, the barely leashed violence in him pressing against skin.
The air between them grew charged, electric, as if the room itself held its breath.
One move.
One word.
Blood would stain the marble. The fragile peace would shatter. And Lake Como would drown in war before dawn.
I didn’t think.
I moved.
I stepped between them and wrapped my fingers around Dmitri’s fist, forcing them open with gentle insistence rather than strength. I leaned into his side, resting my head lightly against his shoulder, my body a deliberate shield—public, intimate, unmistakable.
“Dmitri,” I said softly, urgently, my voice meant only for him. “Please. Let him go.”
His body was rigid beneath my touch, coiled like a drawn blade. I felt the storm raging in him—felt how badly he wanted to end this here and now.
I tightened my grip, anchoring him. Grounding him.
“This isn’t the place,” I whispered. “And he’s not worth it.”
For a long, terrifying heartbeat, I wasn’t sure he’d listen.
Then—slowly—his fist loosened beneath my fingers.
Antonio’s smirk returned, fleeting and infuriating, as if the entire confrontation had been a game he had won.
He slipped sideways through the narrow gap between guests and vanished into the crowd before Dmitri could react.
“I should have killed him years ago,” Dmitri growled, every word tight with barely contained fury. His jaw clenched, eyes dark, fixed on the retreating figure like he could will him back. His hand trembled ever so slightly at his side—an almost imperceptible ripple of menace.
