Page 10 of Darkest Oblivion

“When I speak, you listen. When I command, you obey. Do you understand me?” His voice cracked like a whip, his hand flexing, veins ridging across knuckles capable of snapping necks.

I swallowed hard and nodded, the movement small, instinctive—like prey bowing to its predator.

He halted, eyes burning into mine. “Don’t overestimate your family’s power, Penelope. I could erase them all—your father, your mother, Rocco, Carlo. I could turn the Romano empire into smoke and bone, and it wouldn’t cost me a single sleepless night.”

I had clung to the memories of our childhood from the moment he appeared and shattered the wedding, foolishly hoping that somewhere beneath the monster, a fragment of that lost gentleness still remained.

But I was wrong. The tears stung, threatening to spill, but I forced them back.

“Why?” I whispered, my voice quivering. “What did I do to earn your hatred?”

He stepped closer, his presence suffocating, his scent—sandalwood cut with steel—crowding my senses.

“Why?” he hissed, his eyes blazing like ice set on fire. “You dare to ask why I hate you?”

I lifted a trembling hand toward his jaw, desperate to glimpse the boy who once made me feel seen.

But his hand shot out, iron-fast, seizing my wrist and wrenching it behind my back.

In one brutal motion, he slammed me against the canvas wall, the impact rattling my bones.

His palm closed around my throat, squeezing until the world narrowed to panic and pain.

My chest clenched violently, my asthma roaring to life.

The burn in my lungs was sharp.

My vision blurred as I gasped for air, fumbling with my free hand toward my pocket where the inhaler rested.

But his grip was merciless, pinning me, holding me on the edge of suffocation.

“Please...” I rasped, my voice broken, my strength waning.

He froze.

For the briefest moment, something flickered in his eyes, before he released me.

His fists clenched and unclenched as he turned away, shoulders rigid.

I collapsed to my knees, clawing at my pocket with trembling fingers until I found the inhaler. The hiss of the spray filled my lungs, blessed air flooding back into me.

I sucked it in greedily, vision sharpening, chest easing as the panic slowly ebbed.

Then his voice came—venom wrapped in ice. “I want to bury you seven feet under... right where I buried my mother. After I carved her heart out and burned it to dust.”

The words struck harder than his grip ever could. I flinched, my body recoiling, as if the syllables themselves were knives.

Every memory of the boy I’d once adored shattered into ash. Could that boy ever have been real? Or had he always been this monster, waiting to surface?

“Get up,” he ordered, the command merciless. “You’re coming with me to Italy.”

My hand tightened around the inhaler, the plastic biting into my palm. “No... no, please...” I whispered, my voice raw, shredded by fear.

Dmitri Volkov was a monster through and through, and going to Italy—his kingdom—would be my death.

A bullet here on the docks would be mercy compared to being chained as his property in a foreign land.

Terror surged, but so did instinct. Survival roared louder than fear. I moved before thought could stop me.