Doomed Vows

I overheard my father and uncles debating which of the four rival mafia heirs I'd be arranged to marry.

I didn't care—until he walked in.

Dmitri Volkov.

My greatest tormentor. The heir of our enemy. Now, the ruthless boss of the most feared Bratva in the city.

He didn't ask. He declared, "I'll marry her."

Naturally, I refused. I thought that was the end.

Until an invitation arrived. Dmitri's wedding. Finally, I thought, he was moving on.

I walked into the church smiling. I didn't realize I was walking straight into a trap. Straight into my own wedding.

At the altar, his lips curled into that cruel, mocking smirk: "Didn't you promise to marry me at twenty-five, sweetheart? Or did you think I'd let you forget?"

That night, he didn't even stay home. When he returned with hickeys and slid his ring back on, I asked who she was.

His answer cut me to pieces: "Seraphina—slim, graceful, desired… everything you'll never be."

And that was only the beginning of my hell. Because Dmitri's punishments were never random—they were an obsession. Every cruel word, every calculated humiliation was his twisted way of branding me as his.

When my asthma attack struck, he stood there watching, stealing my inhaler with a sneer: "Gasp for me, Penelope. Maybe death will finally make you mine the way I want. Maybe then you'll understand you don't get to leave me."

He spat that a "fat, useless wife" like me didn't deserve to carry his child. He wanted me broken. Dependent. His.

Until the day I fought back.

I slammed divorce papers onto his desk and walked out of his life—bleeding, shattered, but finally free.

Now?

The cold, unfeeling psychopath is tearing the world apart to find me. Begging. Groveling. Obsessed more than ever.

He's kissed my feet before a crowd, vowing: "Penelope, I was wrong. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

But I'm no longer the girl he broke. And forgiveness? He'll have to earn it the same way he made me suffer.

"Anything, sweetheart," he swore.

I smiled.

"Perfect. Because I want you to suffer the way I did—slowly, painfully. Forgiveness will come the day you take your last breath… with my heel on your throat."