Page 11 of Arrow

But I was going to touch her. I was going to ruin that perfect composure, smudge that flawless lipstick, tangle that glossy hair. I’d make her mine in every way that mattered, until she forgot there was ever a time when she didn’t belong to me.

Yes, she was fire wrapped in ice, fury disguised as elegance, and she was the most dangerous thing I’d ever wanted.

And I always got what I wanted.

I ended the call and set my phone down on the glass table, looking out over the Manhattan skyline. Sunrise painted the buildings gold and crimson, like blood spreading through water. My father would appreciate the metaphor. He’d always had a flair for the dramatic. I poured myself a whiskey, neat, and swirled it, watching the amber liquid catch the light.

Tradition and old wounds dictated that I should hate Harlowe for her name alone. But hate required passion, and passion was a luxury I’d abandoned long ago.

What I felt for her was something else entirely.

Fascination. The way she defied me, fought against the inevitable . . . it was like watching a moth repeatedly throw itself against a light, beautiful in its futile determination.

The wedding was approaching, and Harlowe was making every moment a battle.

Good.

I preferred a challenge to submission.

Anyone could break something already broken, but to take something wild and bend it to your will, that required skill and patience.

The old guard thought marriage would solve everything, as if blood feuds could be washed away with wedding vows and champagne toasts. But the cold truth remained that if I didn’t marry Harlowe, my father had full intentions of killing her and what remained of the Virelli bloodline.

The Romanov and Virelli feud had been in effect since before I was born, spanning decades, and now it was left to me to make peace. I’d met Harlowe only briefly over the years, enough to recognize her beauty and the hatred that burned in her eyes whenever she looked at me. I thought back to her brother’s funeral years ago.

The Virelli family was dressed in black, and mourners gathered like crows around the mausoleum. I stood back, under an oak tree, my father’s heavy hand on my shoulder. Even then, I’d known better than to show anything but impassive respect. Grief was for the weak, and the Romanovs were not weak.

Harlowe had been sixteen, her face a pale oval framed by dark hair, eyes vacant as she stared at her brother’s casket. I’d watched her, curious about the girl whose life had just shattered. She didn’t cry—not where anyone could see. But when she thought no one was looking, I saw her fingers twitch at her sides, a silent scream contained in her knuckles.

My uncle, Dmitri, had orchestrated the hit on Luca. He’d always been the most volatile of the Romanovs, prone to violence when diplomacy would have sufficed. The barbed wire and crucifixion had been his signature—theatrical, excessive, with a message written in blood.

I hadn’t approved, even then. Not because I cared about Luca Virelli, but because it was sloppy and fucking unnecessary. A clean bullet would have accomplished the same goal without the spectacle. When I’d attended that funeral, I hadn’t known I’d one day own the girl with the vacant eyes. I’d simply watched her, noting the steel beneath her grief, wondering how long it would take before that steel bent or broke.

When the funeral was over, and everyone had left but her, she glanced up and caught me staring. In that moment, something passed between us. Recognition, perhaps. Not of each other, but of what we both were—children of violence, born into legacies neither of us chose.

I’d smiled then, not because I’d felt anything resembling joy, but because I wanted to see what she would do. The hatred that flashed across her face had been magnificent, pure and undiluted. She didn’t look away. She didn’t cower. She held my gaze with such raw contempt that I’d felt something shift inside me, a quiet click, like a lock tumbling open.

Now, years later, I was going to marry that hatred. I took another sip of whiskey.

Giovanni Virelli had agreed to my terms. Not that he had much choice. The Virellis were hemorrhaging money, territory, and respect. The old fucker knew he was living on borrowed time and protection. I had his daughter, so I had him.

Simple economics.

And Harlowe? She was collateral damage in a war she didn’t start, but one she would help me finish. This marriage was her father’s Hail Mary—a desperate attempt to salvage what remained of his empire.

The ceremony would be at St. Ignatius Cathedral, followed by a reception at Dante’s Hall. Traditional, ostentatious, a public display of our families’ “reconciliation.” Every crime family and corrupt politician in the tri-state area would attend, watching with predatory interest as the Romanovs and Virellis pretended to bury decades of bloodshed.

Harlowe would rather die than say her vows, and the thought amused me. She had no idea what was coming, no concept of the life I had planned for us. She imagined torture, perhaps, or a cold marriage bed. She expected cruelty because that’s what her name alone deserved. But what I had in mind was much more insidious. I would make her dependent, then loyal, then willing. Not through pain, but through understanding.

I pulled up the surveillance photos of Harlowe from the past week. The club. The drinking. The self-destruction. I’d had her followed since the engagement, not out of jealousy but practicality.

Know your enemy before they become your wife.

The photos showed her stumbling out of La Lune Noire at three in the morning, makeup smeared, blue eyes hollow. Another showed her with a tattooed Dom’s hands on her throat, her face a mask of ecstasy and pain. I zoomed in on that one, studying the way she yielded to pain but never truly submitted. Even in surrender, she was fighting.

I scrolled to another image—Harlowe sitting alone at a café, staring into nothing, finger tracing the rim of her coffee cup.

Something about that one caught my attention.