We boarded Ruslan’s private jet, the cabin a cocoon of polished leather and muted hums.
Vanya curled against me, his warmth a grounding force as the plane lifted off the tarmac, the Aegean fading beneath us like a memory I was leaving behind.
I pressed my hand to his small back, whispering into the quiet hum of the engines, “We’re going to find your father.”
The weight of five years pressed against me—Dmitri’s obsession, his suffering, his empire fraying in his absence, the love I couldn’t kill, and the boy beside me who had a right to know his father.
For Vanya.
For the love that refused to die.
For the man who had sworn “Eternally.”
I would face the darkness again.
I would reclaim what had been stolen.
Or burn it all to ash.
Chapter 2
PENELOPE
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.
