Page 34 of Sweet Obsession (Savage Vow #1)

LUNA

A soft knock pulled me from half-sleep hours later.

I didn’t answer. But the door clicked open anyway.

Misha stepped in with quiet precision, the weight of his presence filling the room like an unspoken command.

He wasn’t in his usual suit now. Just black slacks and a white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, as if the power he carried didn’t need tailoring to fit.

His hair was damp from a shower, a faint hint of smoke and pine lingering around him like a shadow.

In his hands: tea.

I sat up slowly, a wave of cold dread and something more stirring in my chest. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes didn’t meet mine right away. Instead, they swept over me, lingering a moment too long, before he said, “You haven’t eaten. Or drunk anything. It’s been hours.”

“I wasn’t thirsty,” I muttered, not trusting my voice.

He didn’t seem convinced, his gaze sharp, yet tired, like he hadn’t slept either.

“Luna,” he whispered my name, and for a moment, there was no ice in it. Just something darker, something broken.

He stepped closer, offering the cup. I took it, wrapping my fingers around the porcelain to steady myself, to keep my hands from betraying how much I wanted to tremble. But when I looked at him, my gaze dropped to his knuckles.

Bruised. Split. Blood still dried beneath his nails.

He noticed and quickly hid them behind his back.

I felt the cold tension in the room thicken, seeping into my lungs, making it harder to breathe.

“Was it just Chernov?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper, afraid of the answer.

His jaw tightened, eyes darkening. “You don’t need to know the details.”

“Tell me anyway.”

He didn’t sit. He didn’t move.

“I only kill what threatens what’s mine,” he said, so quietly that the words seemed to hang between us like a promise and a curse.

What’s mine.

I squeezed the cup so tight my knuckles ached, the burn in my chest flaring again, part anger, part something I didn’t want to face.

“You can’t protect me by destroying everything that looks at me,” I said, my voice cracking as it broke against the weight of it all.

He took a step forward, his presence so heavy, so overwhelming. “No. But I can protect you by reminding them who I am.”

His words were low, but there was something in the way he said them that made me feel like he was not only claiming control of the room, but of me.

“Is that what you think I need?” I asked, my breath unsteady. “A protector who trades blood for peace?”

He didn’t answer immediately. His gaze fell to the floor, the lines of his face hardening with whatever thoughts were racing through his mind. But then, without looking at me, he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Still not touching me. Still not looking directly at me.

Just present. His presence was everything. Unmovable.

And I hated it.

But as I sat there, the words seemed to slip away, swallowed by something deeper. Something rawer. Something I couldn’t escape. I could feel the tension in the space between us, thick and heavy like smoke. It suffocated me and drew me in at the same time.

For a moment, I was tempted—, just a stupid second. where I thought about leaning into him. Letting him hold me in that way only he could. Letting him consume the broken pieces of me that I couldn’t keep together anymore. But then the walls slammed back up, cold and unyielding.

I couldn’t. Not with him. Not like this.

So instead, I drank the tea. The warmth of it burned against my throat. But it was nothing compared to the fire building between us.

I set the empty cup down with a soft clink, the sound piercing the silence like an echo.

Misha didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

He only stared at me, stared, with eyes that were both distant and closer than I could stand.

And then, without another word, he got up. He moved to the door, each step a beat I couldn’t ignore.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to call him back, to shatter the silence before it could swallow me whole. But I didn’t. I stayed still.

Misha stopped at the door and glanced back, his eyes hard like stone.

“I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said, as though it was a promise or a threat. I couldn’t tell which.

And then he left, the door clicking shut softly behind him, leaving me with nothing but the echo of his absence and the smell of pine that lingered in the room, like the ghost of something I couldn’t escape.

I cracked the window, just enough to catch the scene unfolding below.

My heart skipped a beat.

Five men. All familiar faces.

The men were already on their knees when Misha arrived.

I hadn’t seen it happen, but I had heard it. The hushed conversations through the vent in the bathroom, the sudden drop of music from the first floor, the ominous silence before the distant sound of boots pounding on the concrete courtyard outside.

One of them, Rurik, barely twenty-two, his eyes wide with terror as he shifted on his knees.

His mouth moved like he thought words could somehow save him, but they didn’t.

Not anymore. Viktor was among them, too, the same man who had once carefully helped me down icy steps, who had been trusted by Misha. A loyal one. Or so I had thought.

Yet here they were. Lined up in the snow, wrists bound, guns aimed at the backs of their heads by Misha’s men. They were kneeling, their heads lowered, their fates sealed. And Misha? He didn’t speak at first. He just paced, his steps measured, cold, lethal.

His silence was like the calm before the storm, terrifying in its stillness.

And then, finally, his voice cut through the air.

“You thought I wouldn’t find out.”

Viktor, the one who had trusted me once, spoke first. “Please, Misha. We didn’t mean for it to...”

“Don’t lie to me.” Misha’s words were a whip crack. “You betrayed me. You let them in. The Vargas Cartel. You gave them information about my storage facility. About Gabriela.”

Viktor’s voice trembled. “Only because...”

“Only because you thought I wouldn’t notice. You thought you could play both sides. You thought the rules didn’t apply to you.”

Misha stopped pacing, his gaze sharp as a blade.

“You attempt to hurt what’s mine,” he said, his tone low but biting, more cutting than the barrel of a gun pressed to Viktor’s skull.

The others stayed silent. They knew what was coming. They didn’t beg. They didn’t even move. But Ruric? He was shaking like a leaf, fear gripping him like a vice, but he didn’t cry.

Misha turned his eyes to him.

“You have a sister, don’t you?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft.

Ruric blinked, confusion flashing in his eyes. “What?”

Misha leaned down, crouching until they were nearly nose to nose. “You love her, don’t you?”

Ruric nodded quickly. “Yes. More than anything.”

Misha’s face didn’t change. But I felt the shift. The tension in the air, the stillness before the blood began to spill.

“That’s how I feel about her.” Misha’s words sliced through the cold night like a sharpened knife. “She’s not just mine because of a marriage contract, or Bratva deals, or vows. She’s mine because I would burn the world to keep her safe.”

I froze.

The air around me grew thick. I could hear nothing but the thudding of my own heartbeat in my ears. Misha... the man I had come to fear, to want, was becoming something I could barely recognize.

He straightened up, giving a small nod to his men. The command was simple.

Five shots rang out in the stillness.

The men didn’t scream. They didn’t flinch. Their blood sprayed into the snow, staining the white ground a deep, dark red. The sound of it, the wet thud of bodies falling to the cold earth, echoed in my mind.

I couldn’t breathe.

I wanted to scream, to run, to do something. But my body wouldn’t obey. My mind was too full of the image of Ruric’s terrified face. The way Misha had looked at him, like he was a piece of furniture, something to be discarded.

This wasn’t just a statement. It was a warning. To everyone. To me. To Chernov. To anyone who might dare to stand against Misha.

When the shots had faded into the silence of the courtyard, Misha didn’t flinch. He didn’t pause. He didn’t even look back. He turned on his heel, his coat billowing out behind him as he walked away, his footsteps echoing in the snow.

But the dread that hung in the air wouldn’t let go. It gnawed at my chest.

And then I realized something.

For the first time since the banquet, I saw Misha for what he was becoming.

This man, this terrifying man who had claimed me, was no longer the one keeping me safe. He was destroying everything, everyone, around me. His rage wasn’t just a force of nature. It was a danger.

And I was the one in its path.

I stayed by the window, watching as the blood soaked into the snow, turning the white landscape a sickening shade of crimson. The wind picked up, biting at my skin, but it felt like nothing compared to the icy chill that gripped my heart.

It wasn’t just the Vargas Cartel or Chernov’s spies he was punishing. It was anyone who crossed him. It was me.

And with every step Misha took, every life he destroyed, he was pushing me further away.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just one more casualty in the war he was waging.

I wasn’t sure if I could live with that.

Sleep never came to me that night.

I lay awake with the image of those five bodies haunting my mind. The way Misha’s voice had gone soft when he spoke of protecting me, like death was nothing more than an extension of love.

I didn’t know which part scared me more, The men who betrayed him. Or the one who never would.

When sleep finally claimed me, it came like a thief, silent, sudden, brutal.

And so did the nightmare.

It always starts the same.