The Don’s Favorite Lover Vanished

I had just zipped the last bag when the door to the safe house was kicked off its hinges.

Vincenzo stood in the doorway, his eyes bloodshot, blazing with rage.

“Found you,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous.

My hand went to my gun. His was faster. Of course, it was.

Three strides, and he had me. He slammed me against the wall, his hand an iron vise around my wrist.

“Where did you think you could run?” he snarled, his breath hot on my face, smelling of whiskey and fury.

I struggled, but he had me pinned.

Suddenly, the rage in his eyes flickered, replaced by something almost broken.

“I’ve been looking for you all night,” he said, his forehead resting against mine, his voice rough with exhaustion. “I thought something happened to you…”

A sharp pain went through my chest.

But my head knew better. This was just another trap.

“Let go of me, Vincenzo.”

“Not until you tell me what the hell you’re doing.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with me?” He let out a cold laugh, grabbing my chin. “You are mine, Chiara. Every inch of you has been branded Russo for ten years. You don’t get to decide when it has nothing to do with me.”

“Brands get old. They get replaced.” I looked him dead in the eye. “You and your family… you mean nothing to me anymore.”

The words were a poisoned knife, and they hit their mark.

CRACK.

His hand flew across my face. The force was so strong I tasted blood.

“Take it back,” he said, his voice like ice. “You’re not just insulting me. You’re insulting the Russo family.”

I wiped the blood from my lip with the back of my hand and smiled. A broken smile.

“You hit me for her. You hit me for the family. Vincenzo, what’s your line? Is there anything you won’t hit me for?”

“You don’t get to talk about lines!” He was furious. He reached into his suit and pulled out an old, heavy medallion carved with a two-headed serpent. He slammed it on the table.

The Rossi family blood oath seal.

“Your father swore a blood oath with the honor and blood of the Rossi family,” his voice was the Don’s now, every word a stone crushing my heart. “Your life, your loyalty, everything you are… from the day you were born, it belongs to the Russo family. It belongs to me!”

I stared at the seal. My blood ran cold. This was the chain I could never break.

“You’re going to use my father’s oath against me?”

“If it’s the only way to make you obey.” He picked up the seal, his eyes turning cold and hard again. “The night after tomorrow. The engagement party. You will be there.”

He paused, then delivered the final, cruel blow.

“And you will be the one to present Katerina with the Petrov ‘pact of peace’—the diamond dagger. You will kneel, and you will show every family in that room what Rossi loyalty looks like.”

I just looked at him. The man I would have died for.

Watching him chain me with my family’s honor, only to humiliate me with the sharpest blade.

“I understand,” I said, my voice empty.

“Good.” He turned to leave, satisfied. “Remember your place, Chiara. You are my property. Not my enemy.”

He and his men left.

I stood alone in the trashed apartment. The setting sun cast a long, lonely shadow on the floor.

A blood oath.

He was holding me to a blood oath.

I picked up the small blade I used for cutting canvases. I stared at its sharp edge.

“A blood debt,” I whispered, my voice as light as a feather.

“Must be paid in blood.”