Page 8 of Sweet Obsession (Savage Vow #1)

“I hope it was worth it,” I said quietly. “Killing him. Stealing me.”

He turned his head slowly, his voice a low drag of velvet over steel.

“I don’t steal what’s already mine.”

Heat flared in my chest—and lower. God help me, part of me wanted to slap him. The other part wanted to feel that voice against my skin.

“I’ll never be yours,” I whispered.

He leaned closer, just enough for his breath to brush my temple. “We’ll see.”

I hated how my pulse jumped. How his nearness sparked something traitorous in my blood.

I walked inside before I could show it.

Hours passed. I sat across from him, knees brushing the edge of his.

The cabin hummed softly, but all I could hear was him, the sound of his slow breath, the creak of his leather gloves as he flexed his fingers.

He didn’t look at me, but I felt him. Every time I glanced up, I swore he had just looked away. Every breath. Every glance he stole when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Misha Petrov didn’t just occupy space. He owned it.

I hated that part of me noticed the way his thigh flexed when he shifted. The way his jaw clenched when I refused the food his steward offered.

I hated even more that it made me wonder—

What did he want?

Revenge? Power? Me?

Yakutsk, Russia.

Yakutsk, the coldest city in the world. The wind sliced straight through the coat they’d given me. Snow spiraled in sheets around us as we stepped off the jet.

Misha walked ahead, coat whipping behind him like a cape. A king surveying his kingdom.

I followed.

Black SUVs lined the tarmac. One opened silently.

I slid in beside him.

Our legs brushed. I shifted. He didn’t.

The car door closed with a final, heavy thunk. The silence wasn’t empty. It crackled—like static before a lightning strike.

It was charged. Heavy with things unsaid.

My eyes flicked to him. He looked out the window, jaw tight. And for a second—just a second, I saw it. Tension in his brow. Something bitter in the curve of his mouth.

Regret? No. Misha didn’t do regret.

But he wasn’t at peace either. Maybe killing Yuri wasn’t as clean as he pretended. Maybe I wasn’t the pawn he thought I’d be.

I turned away, swallowing the lump in my throat. I wouldn’t be another trophy.

His estate rose like a myth out of the snow. Stone and iron. Spiked gates and cold marble. It wasn’t a home. It was a fortress. Inside, the heat hit like a furnace. Guards waited. Staff bowed. Rooms passed in a blur.

Misha led the tour himself. Not because he had to. Not to show off. Not even to intimidate. He wanted me to feel the weight of what I’d stepped into. To know that this wasn’t some cage. It was a throne room. And he expected me to kneel.

Each corridor, each turn was like a maze meant to disorient and trap.

Then we were brought before three men.

“This is Oleg—my enforcer,” he said, nodding toward the scarred brute with arms like tree trunks and a stare that promised pain.

“Nikolai, second-in-command.” He looked young, but his eyes were sharp and lethal, his smirk laced with quiet menace.

“And Viktor—my consigliere.” The man didn’t speak, didn’t need to. His gaze was cold, calculating. Watching everything. Saying nothing.

They looked at me like I was something to dissect. Not touch. Not trust.

Misha didn’t correct them. But when he looked at me, something flickered in his eyes.

Possession. Hunger. A flicker of guilt?

I didn’t understand it. But I filed it away. I’d need it later.

He showed me the room I’d stay in.

North Wing. East-facing.

Sunlight cut across the stone walls, catching on the polished wood of the furniture. The bed was enormous. Covered in velvet. Too rich. Too suffocating.

“And you, what room are you staying in?” I asked, arms crossed.

“South Wing.” He didn’t elaborate. Of course not.

He’d brought me here, broken me open, and now he wanted distance? Coward.

I stepped closer, my voice lower. Meaner.

“Is this where you lock away all your little acquisitions? Or just the ones who still hate you?”

His gaze dropped, slow and heavy, to my mouth. He didn’t speak.

My pulse skittered.

He reached past me, fingers brushing mine as he opened the wardrobe.

“Your size,” he murmured. “I had them brought in.”

I swallowed. “You had my size?” I echoed, stunned.

He looked at me then, full and unflinching. “I’ve always known your size.”

His voice didn’t waver.

Not just because he’d watched me. Because he’d studied me. Prepared for this. Like he’d been waiting.

My breath caught, and not from fear. From the cold certainty that I hadn’t just been stolen. I’d been hunted.

Heat washed through me, shameful and uninvited.

His hand brushed mine again as he stepped back.

This time I didn’t move away. Neither did he.

We stood there, inches apart. Breath shallow. Hearts stubborn.

Misha leaned in slightly. “You’ll be safe,” he murmured. “As long as you don’t run.”

My spine stiffened, but I met his gaze without flinching.

“So,” I said, forcing a bitter smile, “we’re playing happy husband and wife in public, but strangers under the same roof?”

He looked at me, “Not strangers,” he said quietly. “Allies. Temporary allies.”

He led me to a smaller sitting room—though “small” was relative. It was still larger than my old bedroom back in Bogotá. He gestured for me to sit. I didn’t.

He didn’t press. Just reached into his coat and pulled out a slim leather folder, letting it fall onto the table between us with a quiet thud.

“Your terms,” he said.

My fingers were colder than they should’ve been when I opened it.

Twelve months. That was the first line. Twelve months of fake marriage. Twelve months of pretending to be in love, at every Bratva meeting, every public appearance, every staged moment necessary to solidify his power.

Twelve months of living in separate wings. No crossing paths unless absolutely necessary.

And then? Freedom.

But it wasn’t freedom. Not really. Not when the contract read like a prison sentence dressed in silk.

Rules. So many rules.

No public disagreements. Appearances of affection mandatory at designated events. No unauthorized visitors. No interference in Bratva affairs. Personal boundaries must be respected. No unsolicited emotional intimacy.

I blinked at that last line.

So he didn’t want me getting close. Not even by accident. God forbid I ever touched the ice under all that steel.

He didn’t just reject love. He forbade it. Did he think he was unlovable?

Or was he scared that if I ever did, he wouldn’t know what to do with it?

At the bottom of the contract, a final clause:

Failure to comply will result in nullification of protection. Immediate return to familial custody.

Translation: If I slipped up, he’d hand me back to the man who sold me like livestock.

I stared at the words, my hands beginning to tremble. “Why twelve months?”

He leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over his broad chest. His coat had fallen open, and for the first time I noticed the way his shirt clung to his frame, the muscle beneath coiled tight, like a man at war with his own skin.

“Because that’s how long it will take to complete the handover to the Mexican supplier. I will no longer need your father’s shipments.”

Mexico. Of course. Everything about me was temporary and tactical. He said it like it was business. Like it wasn’t my life he was drawing a red line through.

“And what happens then?” I whispered.

“You disappear,” he said. “Quietly. Cleanly. Your family retains their dignity. I retain my power.”

“And me?” I asked, voice like ice. “What do I retain?”

He hesitated. Just for a breath, but I saw it. Guilt.

“You get your life,” he said finally. “You get out.”

I laughed bitterly.

“My life?” I gestured vaguely around the room. “My life was building jewelry on my own terms, saving enough to start my own studio, maybe even showing at a gallery in Bogotá someday. My life was mine, until you put a collar on it.”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak.

I wanted to ask if he killed Yuri. I had my suspicions, almost certainty. But I needed to hear it. I needed the truth. Just not here. Not now. Not when the answer might make me feel something dangerously close to relief. I swallowed it.

“I’ll sign,” I said. “But I have one condition.”

He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing.

“Dinner,” I said. “Every night. No exceptions. No games. One hour. You and me.”

The room went still. Tighter. Like even the shadows were listening. I needed more than rules and silence if I was going to make it out of this whole. I needed leverage. I needed to see the cracks in the man who held my leash.

“Why?”

I stepped closer, not touching, not quite brave enough for that, but close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. “Because if I’m going to survive twelve months in your frozen kingdom,” I said, voice low and steady, “I need to know the devil who owns me.”

For a moment, I thought he might laugh. But instead, a slow smile spread across his lips. Not amused. Not soft. Something darker. Something... pleased.

Approval, maybe. Or something close to desire.

“Agreed,” he said, his voice like gravel and heat.

He pushed the folder toward me again. “Sign.”

I took the pen.

My hand hesitated for a heartbeat, then I signed, the tip dragging across the paper with a finality I felt in my bones.

The ink hadn’t even dried before Misha turned, his back already to me, moving as though I no longer mattered. He paused at the door, just for a heartbeat, then glanced back. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t stay. He left me.

Alone. Married. Owned.

The ticking of the gilded clock behind me was deafening, each second a reminder of everything I’d lost, the dream of my studio, my art, my freedom, all slipping through my fingers. Gone.

Because I wasn’t Luna the artist anymore.

I was Mrs. Luna Petrov.

And that title might cost me far more than just twelve months.