“Oh, I’ve had enough of this,” I snapped. “Is this really how you behave with your new wife? Accusing her of being a ghost? Your dead fiancée?” I laughed again, harder this time. “Do you do this often, Dmitri, or am I special?”
His eyes searched my face, ruthless and methodical, hunting for cracks.
“You know I can order a DNA test tomorrow,” he said calmly. Too calmly. “One swab. One lab. And I’ll know if that boy is mine.”
The world narrowed to a single point.
“If you’re lying,” he continued, “you’re destroying him. And yourself. So stop driving me insane and tell me the truth.” His voice dropped. “Tell me you’re alive. Tell me I’m not crazy.”
For just a second—just one—I saw the man beneath the monster. The man who had lost everything and was still bleeding from it.
If he tested Vanya, everything would collapse.
Ruslan’s deception.
My survival.
My son’s safety.
Escape would vanish.
I swallowed, forcing calm into my bones.
“I’m not her,” I said evenly. “I’m Pen. I’m Greek. I was stupid enough to come to Lake Como on vacation and unlucky enough to cross paths with you.” I met his gaze without flinching. “Run your test. You’ll see.”
He stared at me.
Seconds stretched.
Then he exhaled sharply and turned back to the road.
The engine surged to life. The Rolls-Royce pulled back onto the asphalt, accelerating hard enough to press me into the seat.
But the silence that followed was different.
He didn’t believe me.
And worse—
He wasn’t letting it go.
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that pressed, that waited, that listened.
My thoughts spun viciously in my skull—confess and detonate everything, or hold the lie and pray he never followed through on the test.
Three months.Ninety days. I repeated it like a spell, like a promise I could cling to.
Three months, and Vanya and I would be gone.
Out of Lake Como.
Out of Dmitri Volkov’s reach.
The gates appeared ahead—tall, seamless steel sliding open to reveal his new estate.
