He paused mid-motion, the lighter hovering between us. “Penelope is asthmatic,” he said, his voice turning deliberately casual, “and she hates the smell of me smoking, too.”
The words were meaningless on their own—yet the way he said them, knowing and faintly mysterious, sent my heart pounding anyway.
The truth stayed locked behind my teeth.
The similarities between Penelope and me were becoming impossible to ignore.
Was he already wondering if I could be her—and too afraid to confront the truth?
As if it were easier for him to keep me dead in his mind, because believing I was alive would shatter everything he’d already accepted.
For a heartbeat, he studied me. Then, without comment, he snapped the lighter shut.
Relief loosened my shoulders—until he stood.
Dmitri walked several paces away, stopping at the edge of the terrace where the wrought iron met the open night. With his back to me, he flicked the lighter again. The cigarette flared. He inhaled deeply, shoulders lifting, then sagging, as smoke spiraled into the dark.
Even from a distance, I could read him. The rigid set of his spine. The faint, humorless curve of his mouth. This wasn’t indulgence—it was punishment. A man feeding a vice because pain demanded an outlet. Because guilt needed somewhere to go.
For failing to protect the woman he loved.
For losing a son he didn’t know was still breathing.
The guilt hit me like a blade under the ribs. I turned away, fixing my gaze on the lake below—black glass stretched beneath the stars, endless and indifferent.
Footsteps cut through the quiet.
I turned just as Ricci Ferraro emerged from the shadows, his stride brisk, expression stripped of its earlier polish. Whatever smug detachment he’d worn inside the ballroom was gone now, replaced by something leaner.
Dmitri crushed the cigarette beneath his heel and returned without a word, pulling out a stool and nudging it toward the table. Ricci took it, movements stiff.
Dmitri reclaimed his seat beside me, close enough that his knee brushed mine—a silent assertion.
“So,” Ricci began, folding his hands together, voice tight with restraint. “The happy couple wants me to throw my family into a war you’re clearly eager to ignite.”
His gaze flicked between us, skeptical, almost contemptuous. “So this... all of it... is because you won’t have Seraphina as your wife? Because of love?” A humorless laugh escaped him. “And where does that leave me, hm? What exactly do I gain by spilling Ferraro blood for Volkov romance?”
Dmitri leaned forward, forearms braced on the marble table. His voice was calm. “Your wife was taken by Albanian traffickers on your wedding night,” he said evenly. “I can help you find her.”
The effect was instantaneous.
Ricci shot to his feet as if struck. The color drained from his face, replaced by a raw, feral fury that shattered his composure. “Don’t talk about her,” he snarled.
He grabbed his stool and hurled it across the terrace. The metal slammed into stone with a violent clang that echoed into the night.
Dmitri stood as well, unflinching. In two strides, he closed the distance and planted a firm hand on Ricci’s shoulder—not restraining, but grounding. Anchoring.
“Do you want to find her,” Dmitri said quietly, “or not?”
Ricci wrenched free, stumbling back a step, chest heaving.
His eyes were wild now, unguarded. “She’s everything to me,” he rasped. “I have men everywhere—inside Albanian ports, their clubs, their shipping lines. I pay in blood and money every day just to chase whispers. Of course I want to find her.” His voice cracked. “I would trade my life for hers without hesitation.”
“Then let Dmitri Volkov help you,” I said.
Both men turned to me.
My heart hammered, but I held Ricci’s gaze, steady and unflinching. “He doesn’t make promises lightly. And when he hunts, he doesn’t stop.”
